Warwick Services

Karen Fagan - 7 Jul 17

Warwick Services hold a place in my heart, that’s right the service station. Actually its not even the service station its the car park, the back row where all the oversized vans park.

After returning to work full time- after having 2 babies within 54 weeks, I found myself thrown back into work full time. I found myself sitting on the back row of Warwick Services contemplating how the hell this was all going to work. How the hell was I going to pull this off? Over the space of 2 years my life had changed. The extremely corporate Karen had been replaced with being a mum; nappies , batch cooking and Minions. Now I have to dig deep and find my mind again. The automotive industry had developed to the point that petrol heads have started an unusual love affair with electric engines and ‘Range Anxiety’ was now an official urban idiom. My job was always full on and I loved it, the people and the passion for achieving results. I enjoyed the fast pace and being part of a growing organisation. Yet I found myself sitting on the back row of Warwick Services close to tears, sweating and mildly hyperventilating, thinking “Shit, I’ve got 40 mins to pull myself together before I meet my supplier, sort your shit out!”.

That was 6 months ago. Between now and then I started to take comfort in my time in the back row, every trip I took there I started to factor in my 15 min stop, just to transform myself back to the Corporate Karen. Somehow, over that 15 mins the internal chat with myself started to impact. I know longer felt the guilt of leaving my babies, and felt positive that I could achieve again.

My babies were safe, loved and a system had formed at home with the other half which I had learnt to respect, and more importantly was to not upset his system whilst I was away working. It was a team effort letting go of all the things that I had which made me a full-time mum, and just give in a little. I have learnt to apologise when I’m wrong or just grumpy, understand when a team effort has to be applied and just relax with my babies and take our very precious time as fun, and only fun.

Warwick services had become a place to have that internal chat with myself, tell myself its ok, leave mummy at home and check my emails. I even started to take a change of clothes with me to face my corporate day, removing the layers of Weetabix and banana and feeling like I could transform. About 2 months in, I even started to apply a little makeup. All of this done in the back row, giving the oversized van drivers a real treat.

Warwick Services had become a sanctuary.

I started once again to enjoy working. Quickly and with out hesitation, I was able to form amazing ideas, my mind was operational again, being able to look objectively at problems and work through solutions. I threw myself back in to my amazing job and meet people again. These were normal people, amazing people, people that in 6 months started to restructure my thoughts and feelings. They -more then ever- give me confidence to carry on.

On my last trip home, I stopped at Warwick Services, stripped off my work t-shirt as the tears started to swallow my eyes. I did it! I was back. More than anything I was going to miss this parking space. I had learnt so much, and more importantly had learnt that I could do it with out my mandatory stop. I learnt to have faith in myself that I was ok. Starting a family didn’t changed what made me tick.

This weekend I’m passing Warwick Services. I wont be stopping, but thinking about how I’ve learnt to change and more importantly how being a mum has impacted my professional relationships, losing the inner bitch a finding a blended solution.

Karen Fagan

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