I am a woman who leads and I am also on a rota

A good deal of what gets written about women who lead assumes a woman with an entirely free evening and a house nobody else uses. I am on a three week rolling rota in a hospital, I have a flat with a wall shared with a family, and I do this anyway, around all of it.

Thirty eight, the east, nine years leading. My rota comes out three weeks ahead and it is the fixed thing in my life. Everything else, including this, arranges itself behind it. Somebody joining me has to be able to look at a rota and plan, and not be wounded when the good week turns out to be a run of nights.

What I want is service that helps rather than service that performs. Shopping done before I get home. A flat that has been dealt with. A man who knows the rota as well as I do and who does not need to be told twice which weeks are impossible. That is the whole of it, and I am aware it sounds domestic rather than dramatic. It is domestic. That is what nine years of this has actually looked like.

I do not do anything loud, because of the wall. I do not do anything at short notice, because of the rota. And I have no interest whatsoever in an arrangement where somebody's attention has to be paid for or earned with anything other than usefulness, which is a thing I have been asked about twice this year and would like to stop being asked.