Meet Jo: the welcoming face of My Sisters’ House
Meet Jo
Jo is another member of staff who joined us during lockdown (and the third Jo on our team.)
Jo is our receptionist, and has proven to be an expert at multi-tasking – answering phones, emails, and online messages, greeting people at the door, sending and receiving parcels, processing foodbank vouchers, giving out bags of toiletries, and generally handling anything we can throw at her. I can’t be 100% sure, because of course at the moment she’s usually wearing a face mask, but I’m prepared to bet that she is even doing it all with a smile.
Which is, it has to be said, one of the main essentials of her job – to be the welcoming face of My Sisters’ House for those women who have plucked up the courage to knock on our door. She remembers from coming for her job interview just how nerve-wracking that can be. “I’ve given presentations to hundreds of people in the past, but I was still very nervous coming into the Centre on that day.”
But then, there was a lot at stake. “I’ve wanted to work here for as long as I’ve known about what My Sisters’ House does, but I didn’t know how I was going to make that happen. So when the receptionist job came up, I felt like it was the universe giving me what I had wished for.”
It’s a bit different from where she started out – growing up on a farm before heading off to university to study economic and social history, working in IT for a decade, then returning to the village where she grew up after being made redundant in the 2008 recession. For a while she managed the outdoor activity centre which was running alongside the farm, enjoying working with groups of young people coming to do mountain boarding. She also got involved in educational visits to the farm itself, and took on the accounting and other paperwork.
“In my twenties I tended to say ‘yes’ to lots of things. For instance, I was part of a DEFRA working group for the future of farming, which got me involved in a lot of meetings with government ministers etc.” Jo was also involved in writing a blog for the Tesco website – and for a while her photo was even on the side of the milk cartons. (She can still be spotted in full “farmer’s daughter” mode – complete with wellies and cows – above the milk fridges in some branches!)
“I don’t look the same any more,” Jo tells me mournfully. Although that should hardly be surprising; since then, she has renovated a house, had two children, and juggled the job of being a mum with a variety of freelance and temporary roles. “I am lucky to have a big family network around me,” she says [Jo is the oldest of six children.] “They are very supportive and help out with childcare when my husband is away working.” Although she confesses, “it’s amazing now but it was a struggle growing up; I don’t think I was a very good ‘big sister’ as I just found them all a bit annoying!”
I ask Jo if working at My Sisters’ House has lived up to her expectations, and she says it is “everything I hoped it would be and more. It can be hard, as things are so fluid, especially at the moment, and I have to interpret that change quickly and communicate it to clients. But even the tricky bits are amazing. And everyone is so supportive. It’s lovely to work with a team of women, after so long in the masculine environments of IT and farming.”
Although as Jo talks about life in her family’s farmhouse, it’s obvious how some of the skills she learned in those environments translate to her current role. “The house was always full. Even now (although not so much in the past year because of Covid) you don’t need to leave my mum’s kitchen table and you will have seen the world – everyone will come in and have a cup of tea.” Jo acknowledges the similarities: “It’s a bit like working here – you never know who is going to walk through the door and what they will need.”
So it’s not surprising that for Jo, who says “I love helping people, even if it’s just opening the door and smiling and making them feel a bit more human,” working at My Sisters’ House “feels like I’ve come home.”