I arrived at work this morning, and did something I shouldn’t but I always do: I checked my personal email.

Sitting in my mailbox was an email with the subject, ‘Results of your interview for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship‘. Very calmly, I clicked it and started reading.

On behalf of the Trustees of the Gates Cambridge Trust, Dr Gordon Johnson and I would like to thank you very much for being available for interview for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.

A whole sentence and I still hadn’t gotten to the part that mattered. Then:

The Trust is delighted to offer you a Gates Cambridge Scholarship from October 2006, subject to the normal condition of your being offered admission to Cambridge. Please accept our warmest congratulations.

I considered it and tried a small smile. This was good news. Great news, right? Yes, of course. Great news.

A little box popped in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. “It’s Joan! Hi Joan!” So Vera became the first to know.

After signing off my illegal chat, I began an email to my lecturers and work mentor to tell them my results and thank them for the references they wrote for me. Jamie came in as I was about to send it.

“Hi Joan,” he greeted me.

“Hi Jamie. I just won the Gates scholarship. I’m going to Cambridge.”

He stopped, then broke into a huge smile. “That’s great! Wow. Congratulations. Wow. God, Joan. That’s so great! You must be excited.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, a little concerned by my equanimity.

“Have you called your parents? Have you called Damo?”

“Oh no. I’ll talk to them later. I’ll just send them an email.”

“I think you should call them! Wow. That’s so great. But damn, we’re going to miss you.”

I was more pleased by this comment than anything so far.

“It’s still ages away, Jamie,” I said. “The course starts in October. There’s still four months, a third of a year.”

“Now I’ve forgotten why I’ve come in,” Jamie said ruefully. We soon figured it out and began talking work.

After he left, I hit ‘send’ on my email to my referees. I thought about what Jamie had said. I picked up the phone to call dad.

“Hi dad,” I said when he picked up. “I won the scholarship.”

“Oh! That’s good.” I could hear the sudden smile in his voice more than in his words. “So you’re leaving us.”

“In October,” I said. “So you and mum can start planning your trip.” Mum and dad will incorporate London into a round-the-world trip next year.

I called mum next.

“Hi mum.”

“Hi Joan. What’s wrong?” I don’t often call mum at work.

“Nothing. I just wanted to tell you I got the scholarship.”

“Scholarship! That’s good. Ooh. You’re leaving! Well. I guess it can’t be helped.” I hear the mixture of pride and sadness.

“Only for a year,” I assured her. “You’ll have to think of all the computer questions you want to ask me before October.” I am mum’s IT support.

She brightened. “I can start buying you winter clothes!”

I finally got back to work. It was surprisingly easy to concentrate. I had already decided not to tell my managers at work yet, not until I had time to absorb the news, overcome that high that was surely coming, and work out the best way to let them know that I was depriving them of their carefully trained engineer for one year. I had been anxious that work would resent me taking off just as I was becoming a useful, autonomous professional. Somehow, I had to convey the gratefulness I felt for all the training and support they had given me, that they hadn’t wasted their time because I would be coming back.

My email inbox refreshed itself and suddenly there was a flood of emails. What was this? The email subjects were lined with ‘Re: [Fwd] RE: Fwd:’ There were emails from my lecturers throughout my degree, the engineering marketing people, and the Dean of Engineering. The news had spread like wildfire. The Dean had even copied in the Chairman of my company. They knew each other?

Cherida, head of engineering marketing, wrote, “We are all so pleased for you – the office is buzzing and your ears should be burning (all nice things)!”

That was so lovely. When I was studying, I made the effort to get to know the admin and marketing staff. It was a pleasure to be remembered.

Hours later in the mid-afternoon, the phone rang.

“Hi Joan, it’s Cara here, along with Paul and David.” Cara was head of recruitment at my company. “I know you’re in Shepparton and couldn’t it make it to this meeting but we thought we’d call you up so we can discuss the final selection of graduates to join the Environmental Management group.”

As you might remember, I helped interview the graduates two weeks ago.

We had four candidates and three positions to fill. One position had already been allocated to one of our vacation students. The position in the Air group we soon filled with a female candidate. So there was one position left and three to applicants to choose from.

It really came down to a choice between two boys, including my favoured candidate, John. They had both scored very highly in all the tests: the interviews, team exercise, personality assessment… It was a dead heat.

Fifteen minutes of discussion, and still, we hadn’t decided. Such a shame, I thought, to let either of these boys go. Can’t we have them both?

Then I realised I could break deadlock.

“I have something I want to say.” The talking ceased. “I didn’t want to tell you like this so it’s going to be a bit awkward.” I suppose they were wondering what I was going to say. “I was offered a scholarship to Cambridge this morning so I’ll be leaving the company for a year.”

There was a pause. “Congratulations, Joan!” exclaimed Cara. A flurry of congratulations followed.

“I was offered a place in the Masters of Engineering for Sustainable Development a month or so ago but I didn’t mention it earlier because I was still applying for a scholarship. I had the scholarship interview two weeks ago,” I explained. “I wouldn’t have gone without a scholarship.”

“No, that’s great!” Paul said. “I was going to ask if there was any way I could stop you from going!” He was joking, of course.

“Okay, so now you can hire both the graduates.” This was what I was trying to get to. If I wasn’t there next year, they would need someone to fill my place.

“That’s right!” said David. “Well, that solves everything. Good on you, Joan.”

This gave me an even greater buzz than the big email this morning. What great timing! I’ve made a difference in someone’s life and except for fifty minutes durins an interview, I barely know him.

“So we’re hiring an extra graduate,” Paul said.

I spotted his difficulty immediately. “I’ll send you all an official email to let you know about the scholarship. Then you can tell others.”

“Yes, we’ll have to explain to Tasos why we’ve getting four grads instead of three.” Tasos is the manager of the entire Environment Group.

So I sent the email, which in the end, was easy to write. The positive reaction from all my workmates so far made me think that there wouldn’t be the resentfulness I had worried about in the past months when I had thought about my application.

Tasos replied. “This sounds like a fantastic opportunity, Joan. We will welcome you back with open arms at the tail end of 2007.”

I got an email from Tia, a friend from work, “WAY TO GO, JOAN!”

“How did you hear the news?” I asked, puzzled. I hadn’t emailed anyone but my immediate managers.

“Paul has been talking about it. He’s very, very proud of you.”

It feels wonderful, to work for people who are very proud of you.