cabinets of work-in-progress.

"Oh yeah, it's going to be a bit of a learning curve,'' admits Karen Marshall, the Island's newly-appointed Community Affairs Officer.

Two days into her post at the Ministry of Community Affairs, 37-year-old Ms Marshall has already been busy fielding calls from disgruntled catalogue shoppers or consumers weighed under with the post-holiday bargain blues.

Counsel and common sense however come easily after 13 years of service at The Centre, Angle Street's main youth hang-out.

Bermuda-born and a resident of Pembroke, Ms Marshall boasts a Bachelor of (Community) Education degree from Colorado Christian University and years of experience gained while working for the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

And the cross-over, she says, to the post of consumer advocate should come easily: "I've had a lot of interaction with people in conflict with the system. At The Centre I did a lot of programming and basic counselling of people on money management, legal problems, and community information.

"I don't think the job will be that different. I'm still dealing with helping people through red tape, people who are unaware of how the system can help them.'' A chance to work with her predecessor, Sue Davis, piqued interest in the newly vacated post. When Ms Davis retired to Scotland, Ms Marshall saw an opportunity to switch career paths, and in the process open the door for others at the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

"Moving on from (The Centre) meant that others could move up there; it was a whole new area for me as well.'' Landlord/tenant and contractual disputes are expected to dominate her workday -- "they're the number-one gripe,'' she says -- but the prospect of enhanced consumer-protection legislation also looms large on her agenda.

Ms Marshall expects to sit in with the Plowman task force which is presently studying ways to modernise Bermuda's consumer laws. Their recommendations are slated to go before Cabinet sometime in the late spring.

The task force, she says, has been studying alternate legislation in the US, Canada, the UK, and some Caribbean nations looking for ways to give consumers more bite in their conflicts with the marketplace. Public response however has not been great, she says.

Which only goes to underline her aspirations for life as a consumer advocate; public education and increasing awareness of consumer rights are high on her list of priorities: "I started working on a community directory with Sue Davis, that's something I'd like to follow on. I'd also like to make our work more visible. There are a lot of people around who are just not aware of everything that's going on on the Island,'' she says.

Two days into her new job Ms Marshall can only smile at the mountain of work that awaits her; there is no training, just piles of material and legislation to absorb.

"It's really sink or swim,'' she adds.