The rest of the team are away for the day getting marriage counselling (or, at least, the business equivalent from someone who also specialises in marital strife) leaving me all alone in an open plan sea of empty desks. Maybe i should have gone along. I thought i was going to be busy today but it looks like i misread the timetable for this week’s job and i’ve actually got nothing to do.

I could probably do with some career counselling given that i’ve reached the age of thirty five and never had a real job. All the headlines about looming pension crises have me worrying about the uncertain future.

I’m quite good at something that pays well but only offers career advancement into management, which i’d hate and be bad at. Sadly i’m not specialised enough. I’d love to spend my time data wrangling, spotting trends and producing pretty geo-demographic maps, but noone’s going to ask me to. Plus there’s the whole thing with me not being built for office life, which makes even a good day more stressful than necessary.

The spinneyhead weblog empire is an attempt to escape the office, but it’s not yet generating enough income to be called anything other than a self financing hobby. I keep a graph of the rolling thirty day average income for the last year. The trend line is currently climbing quite spectacularly, and looks great until you check the peak values. On the one hand two dollars a day buys me the americano i wired myself with this morning. On the other, if the trendline continues on its current trajectory i’ll be into double figures by the end of january and able to call myself a pro blogger by march. I can dream.

Today is going to drag horribly. I think i’ll try to leave early.