Health Warning

And here’s another thing I am coming to realise: that there is a reason why liberal-minded public sector professionals tend to hole themselves up in twee, middle-class enclaves where the most stress-inducing event conceivable is the newsagent neglecting to insert the free Ingrid Bergman DVD into each copy of the Saturday Independent.

Back in the flange days the worst possible outcome of a cock-up on my part would be a line stoppage a a false hip factory in County Kildare; presumably a stressful experience for the poor bastards on the shopfloor, but  not an event likely to trouble the editors of the Guardian Society pages. I found myself able to maintain a hands-off relationship with my nine-to-five existence, and would return home to my M19 abode energised to take part in neigbourly activities, such as putting together lovingly crafted street newsletters and  breaking off from alleyway barbecues in order to engage in perilous stand-up rows with burly flytippers. 

Now that  my nine to five existence is taken up in the pursuit of worthy, if frustratingly intangible objectives I find it is all I can do of an evening to help to get Frankie to bed, crack open a bottle of Peroni, and collapse on the sofa after twenty minutes of Newsnight.  Answering the phone is out of the question, and if any well-meaning neighbours were to call round, I can’t say for certain whether I’d be more likely to run upstairs and hide in a cupboard or storm the door dressed only in a Les Ferdinand-era Newcastle United shirt and chase them off down the road brandishing a half-eaten baguette and a rolled-up copy of the Times Educational Supplement.

In short, then: the dream jobs advertised in the Society section of the Guardian should come with a Health Warning, in that they are liable to make you less sociable.  In extreme cases, you may even begin to detest your neighbours with their unseemly inner-city ways and harbour notions of upping sticks and moving to Lymm, or some other semi-rural, brain-dead idylly where there is still a functioning branch of Woolworths and it is perennially 1976 (only with not quite so many ladybirds).  So- and this is especially for any flange-monkeys who happen to be reading with particular vigilance nowadays- be careful what you wish for, that’s all.

Comments

[Tim]

So it's all working out really well then?

[EE!OurJohn]

Its still early doors, Crinklybee. You need to invent a new workplace game in the vein of the legendary, Ball in the Tape. This will not only relieve the stress but make you hugely popular with your new work buddies who will repay you with copious amounts of good advice and offers of work related help.