Inpursuitof

Like a worringly-dwindling number of people, I have a job. Like an exponentially-rising number of people, it’s probably not what I want to be doing in fifteen years. It’s a good job, a solid job, it pays (some of) the bills and the people are funny.

Sometimes though, just sometimes, I think that what I do, what a lot of us do, is ridiculous. After 3 hours in a meeting with exactly 2.76% relevance to me, I found myself cutting tiny rectangles out of a sheet full of labels to make them the right size for a set of file dividers for a bid. Except I didn’t know if they were the right size, I was guessing at the right size from a hope of what would be in Rymans when I tuck-and-rolled in on my way through. Dealdline looming, fifteen minutes later I was on the corner of Tottenham Court Road with my inadequate stickers, two ringbinders and an envelope, transferring sheets of paper on a stone bench in an attempt to make something presentable without getting four-month-old gum on anything. Insert sprint to Trafalgar Square, rinse and repeat.

Jobs are, often, silly. Especially if you work in the organising sector. Spend two hours arranging an hour long meeting, another hour typing up the minutes and a couple more arranging a follow-up. One job I had, I spent an afternoon jumping in a Biffa bin full of recycling. The same job, I spent three days making hawaiian leis that lasted all of ten minutes at a party. I’ve exercised my rudimentary French translating a technical document on the installation of cable TV in the Alps. They don’t teach you ‘trench’ and ‘junctionbox’ in Year 9 modern languages. They should, you’re obviously going to need it as a receptionist.

I’m quite sure there is a clause in the contract of my life, subtly indicated to potential employers via RFID chip in interviews, that says ‘will do stupid things for salary’. But hell, I’m not complaining, I’ll take an afternoon hanging out of a window to clear the gutters before the office floods over typing any day.

1) take a wild guess.

2) my seat on the tube.

3) the girl whose bag I helped pull out of ‘mind the closing doors, please, mind the closing doors’.