Earlier this year, I was thinking about finding a proper 'grown-up' job. I just wanted to get some money & move out of my parents' place, and go travelling again. Frustration ensued. It's not that I don't like my job - I really enjoy working at Real Ale (visit us at www.realale.com !), but I thought maybe it was time to get a horrible job in an office. Anyway, here's an email which I wrote in late May:

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"Well my family won't be getting any of my millions (except for my millions of debts).
I shall fake my own death, and dissappear...

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But I'll be there for the wake, it'll be fantastic. I'm not sure if I've told you my plans for my funeral, but it will be the party of a lifetime. I'll put the "fun" into "funeral", and the "laughter" into "slaughter".

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(That is, if anyone else turns up.)

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I've been looking up jobs today on Reed.co.uk . How depressing. It seems that they all want all sorts of weird qualifications which I've never heard of, and the only ones that I think I can do are call centres or shoeshops (ugh! take your feet away from me, you unwashed hordes!), or they pay actually WORSE than the job I've got. I saw one job going at a radio station. "Great!" I thunk to myselfwards. But it turns out that I'd have to be able to speak Panjabi, and like Panjabi music, so that was straight out the window. Doesn't the world know about my dreams? Why aren't I being showered with wonderful job opportunities and glittering prospects? Yes, I know I'm nothing special, and don't deserve them as much as some other people might, but I want 'em anyway. I really don't want to be doing a dull job. I like the fact that when I meet an old friend who I havent seen for a while, and they say "I'm an accountant/trainee lawyer/office manager/PR person/marketing bod/recruitment consultant/etc, what do you do", and I mention the little matter of beer, and their little eyes light up, and conversation ensues. I like that. Rather than replying, "Yes? Me too" and conversation stagnates, just like our office-job lives.

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That's a bit of a bleak outlook, n'est pas? I think I should get resigned to living in the real world, getting a suit and a 9-5:30, going bald, hating my boss, sneering at the other idiots that I work with, complaining grumbling and griping at each 'bad day at the office', slowly sinking into bottle after bottle of wine after work, praying for bank-holiday weekends, taking clients to strip-clubs which I can't afford, but just have to go along with them because we need to open new accounts, going bald, skin turning greyer, hands dyed an off-black from photocopier ink, eyes strained and tightened because of 8 hours per-day infront of a computer screen, the death of whatever social life I may have, no prospects of travel except to see the Swindon branch, and maybe get promoted so I can move to Woking, fighting over who'll get the corner-office seeing as Jenkins died (suicide, poor fellow. Killed himself with a letter opener. In the corner office), An awful weeded wife shrieking at me each time I get back from work, because I haven't managed to pluck up the balls to ask the boss for a pay-rise, Little Timmy's teeth are coming through, and he won't stop screaming so wife-dearest bought him another cat, I hate cats, why couldn't he have been called Quixote, and had a puppy, and spent endless summers in the garden instead of driving me mad! Why did I marry HER? Why did I ever take this job? I'm going to go and steal a car, tie one end of a rope around my neck, the other around a tree, and floor the accellerator. That'll show 'em. Yes, that'll show 'em. Then who'll be laughing?

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Or I could stay at Real Ale for a while, and see where the beer lead me...

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Anyway,

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As always yours, blinkety blinkety etc, but forever myself,

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CT.

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(A painter has just arrived at my window, peering peeking in, whilst he paints my window frames. So I'm going to escape into the garden once more. I'm very bored of Reed.co.uk . I may go for a stroll to the newsagents and get myself a packet of Refreshers and maybe some Apple Jacks.)"