the times | Saturday October 17 2020 1GM 11
News
Boss handed
testing deal
A business created by the former
boss of a troubled outsourcing
company was handed a £280,
government contract for
coronavirus testing without facing
any competition.
Debbie White, who received
£1.3 million a year in her previous
job as head of Interserve, was said
in March to have taken an unpaid
role setting up testing centres.
However, papers show that
Elorehai, a company she had just
started with her husband, was
given a deal worth £2,000 a day to
provide “leadership support” for
the testing programme. The
backdated arrangement lasted
from March 22 to September 30.
Jolyon Maugham, QC, founder
of the Good Law Project campaign
group, condemned “another
example of brazen contempt for
the law — the law around
transparency, around proper
procurement, around bias —
shown by a government whose
conduct reveals it to believe itself
above the law.”Travel ban exemptions
Workers and those travelling for
education and medical care or
attending weddings and funerals
will still be allowed to enter Wales
from other areas of the UK with
high levels of coronavirus under
legislation published by the Cardiff
government that lists 18
exemptions to a travel ban. Mark
Drakeford, the first minister, said
that he was satisfied police could
enforce the ban despite rising
crime keeping them busy.20,000 campus cases
The number of coronavirus cases
on campuses has passed 20,000,
with more than 1,000 each at
several universities. Lecturers in
the University and College Union
said all learning should go online.
It started a Covid dashboard last
week, when institutions were
reporting 10,000 cases, and is
petitioning ministers to implement
advice from the Scientific
Advisory Group for Emergencies
to stop face-to-face teaching.Fall in home working
About two thirds of working
adults are travelling to their
workplace — the highest
proportion since the lockdown
measures started. Between
October 7 and 11, some 65 per cent
of employees said they travelled to
work, up from 62 per cent the
previous week, the Office for
National Statistics said. This is
despite the government urging
people on September 22 to work
from home if possible.Drone delivery service
A medical drone delivery service
which can carry Covid-19 samples,
tests and PPE between hospitals
has been backed by the UK Space
Agency. Apian, founded by NHS
staff, will initially fly electric
drones between Broomfield
Hospital in Chelmsford, where the
project is based, Basildon Hospital
and the Pathology First lab in
Basildon. The drones, which can
carry up to 2kg and fly about 60
miles, will fly 90m above ground.coronavirus in brief
Stine Dulong, top, a lawyer, quit to be a potter while Nena Foster went from
health consultant to chef. Simon Everitt swapped picture editing for forestry
News
reasons are except you.” He has
found a new audience. “I love
walking into a classroom and
closing the door behind me,” he
said. “That moment when it’s just
you and your class is special. After
making the switch I wondered why
on earth I hadn’t done it sooner
until I realised that I wouldn’t be as
useful in school without all the
experience I got in the industry.”
From a crisis, comes opportunity.
Research by Allbright, the women-
only networking club, found that the
pandemic has prompted one in four
members to start new ventures; two
thirds are planning a “career pivot”.
Rachel Fowler was a children’s
intensive care nurse for 15 years. “It
was a brilliant job, but I asked
myself, ‘Do I want to do this for the
rest of my life?’ The lockdown has
given people time to step back and
explore other options. Sometimes
you’ve just got to get out there and
grab life by the horns.” So she
started an interior design business.
“If you’ve got a pulse and you’re
breathing, what are you moaning
about? People don’t realise how
precious life is. Everything else is a
luxury. I’m 47. You’re never too old
to do something new.”
Stine Dulong walked away from a
successful career as a business
crime lawyer, working on big fraudand insider trading cases, at 33.
“Outwardly I was having the most
successful life, with a good salary.
Yet I felt dead inside. There was this
gaping hole,” she said.
With no clear idea of what to do
next, she tried a few evening classes.
The moment she walked into her
first pottery class, she knew. “I sat
down and stuck a finger into the
lump of clay in front of me. Then I
stuck five in, then all my fingers, and
suddenly I was sold. There was a
strange feeling of belonging, a sense
of arriving home.”
Seven years on, she employs 20
tutors and teaches 270 pottery
students at two Skandihus studios in
London. Her ceramics feature in
Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks and
programmes. However, Ms Dulong
said that “it’s very easy to say to
people, ‘Just go for it’. This idea that
there’s only one thing out there and
you just have to be courageous and
go for it, is not helpful. It sets people
up for failure.”
The secret was redefining what
success looks like and realising it
looks different to others, she said.
“It was about listening to my inner
voice that was telling me what was
right for me, instead of listening to
the voice of others, and following
their idea of what a successful
career path should be.”
Sarah Dennis, 42, had dutifully
followed that path, and had done
very well working in risk control for
the Swiss investment bank UBS.
Then her father died of pancreatic
cancer. “That had a massive impact,”
she said. “It made me realise the old
sayings are true. Life is too short.”
An adviser at Careershifters,
which helps people to retrain, asked
her to describe her dream job. “I
thought about it for a week and
went back and basically described
the same job I was doing — but
in an office with bean bags. That’s
when I realised I had become
institutionalised.”
So she started working on a till at
Waterstones, to the bemusement of
some banking colleagues, before
buying a bookshop: Mostly Books,
in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. “I love
it,” she said. “Best job in the world.”
Nena Foster found fulfilment
starting again from scratch at 37.
She had a PhD in the prevention of
HIV but ended up miserable in her
job as a public health consultant.
“I went from project to project.
Rinse and repeat. It was dragging
me down. I was grumpy at home. I
was a mess,” she said. To change
direction at that stage “felt like it
was admitting defeat. But you have
to learn to reject those ideas.” After
having her second child, she
retrained as a chef, starting at the
bottom.
“Sometimes I was just washing
dishes. But I was happy because I
was there to learn. It was a relief to
be in an environment where I wasn’t
in meetings all day. There was much
less pressure. It was refreshing.”
She offers online cookery courses
specialising in nutrition and
fermentation, supplementing her
income as a food stylist and recipe
developer. “I earn less but I’m far,
far happier. And much more
fulfilled every day,” she said. “I
didn’t want to wake up one day,
having wished away 20 years of my
life in a job I didn’t love.”
Everybody will have to get better
at adapting, Richard Alderson,
founder of Careershifters, said.
“Industries are dying and being
born at a faster rate than at any
time. Each one of us is going to have
to adapt, many times in our lives.”
There are reasons to be cheerful,
he said, even if — like Fatima — we
might not know it yet. “Yes, it’s a
tough job market but some sectors
of the economy are thriving.
“It’s not all doom and gloom.”career as an actor, appearing in
Dr Who and Downton Abbey as well
as touring with Shakespeare’s
Globe, before deciding to become
a drama teacher. “It is terrifying,
but changing career is not like
undergoing a lobotomy or an
amputation. You are not losing a
part of yourself. It’s an opportunity
to liberate yourself from what isn’t
working for you for whatever reason
and nobody really cares what thoseHEATHER SHUKER; ANDREW HASSON FOR THE TIMES; MARIELL AMELIE