What a new face did for me

You would think that the legal profession was beyond discrimination or are they just ignorant of what is happening.

When I finished my education, I went straight to work for a local firm of solicitors.   I got the job became I looked very pretty and had a lot of common sense and self motivation.  I trained as a Managing Clerk and later became a Legal Executive and went through all the different branches of the law.  At first, I was always in the front office greeting clients as they arrived.  As I became more qualified, I had my own office with a secretary and saw clients regularly.  Then I had my son and for some strange reason, it was assumed that in order to have a baby, I must have left my brain in the hospital, but in 1977.chauvinism was still rife.

I struggled to regain the social standing I had pre children and became a respected member of the team again. As I aged I was pushed further to the rear of the building and up the stairs.  My contact with clients diminished to a trickle of the old established clients who had grown up with me and who made a point of wanting to be sociable.  The recession came and went and I had been made redundant at the age of 38  Not old you would think, but having gone to interview after interview and been turned down for someone younger and prettier and not even better qualified, it makes you take a long hard look at the options.

I was self-employed for six years and worked in every dingy back room known to man, doing the same work that I had been doing for years  Then a stroke of luck, I was offered a post teaching adults with learning difficulties to become self advocates.  I was on top of the world, until the first day I started work.  The first disabled person I met, told me quite happily that the first person that was offered the job had turned It down.  So I was now reduced to being only second best at the age of 44.  Do I top myself now and put everyone out of their misery, or do I just become a drudge and a grandmother and the nice old lady next door and so on?

None of those options were appealing I had not made my mark in this life yet.  I had not even had the 10 minutes of fame that I was entitled to.  I started marketing myself and appeared in various professional magazines but the photographs said it all I looked old and there was no getting away from it.  Who wants to look at someone old and wrinkled when I they op en a magazine'  I had lo find a new strategy.   I tried the new hair do, the new clothes and I was still not satisfied  This now called for drastic measures and I decided to have a face- lift.  I  overcame the expected objections from my husband, but I had made the decision and booked myself into the ........................for a lower facelift and an upper and lower eyelid reduction.  Then I wrote my story for The Women's Journal and it was picked up by the Dairy Mail.   Two large pages with photographs.  Now I have more job offers than I care to mention and more arriving by the day.

I work for a legal agency as a locum and now get all the best jobs, see hundreds of clients and no one is ashamed of me any more.  It seems that I am now seen as being more intelligent, my opinions count, everyone wants to employ me and men chat me up again.  

Everything is so wonderful with hindsight  If I had my life again, I would start having facelifts at 35 and stop the ageing process before it takes hold.  I now have so many people who want to know me that my social calendar is full to overflowing all thanks to one man and his knife and his incredible skill as a cosmetic surgeon; don't fall off that pedestal. I will need you again as sure as eggs are eggs.