Last night I let a loony into Casa Spinneyhead.  She sat on the sofa, took out her big Book and proceeded to tell me, four times faster than anyone should be able to speak, that she knew exactly what I wanted and needed and how I could be Saved.

There was a lot of small, close set type in The Book, punctuated by meaningless diagrams.  The loony would point at these diagrams, moving her hand around whilst ranting about something that had no bearing whatsoever on the bar graph or flowchart she indicated.  She believed so much in what she was evangelising that it was scary.  I managed to get rid of her in the end by taking her card and promising that I would consider her Words and be in touch.

Then I locked the door and sat very quietly in the living room, shell-shocked.

This woman wasn’t touting enlightenment through religion, though I imagine the experience would be similar.  She was trying to indoctrinate me into the world of MCSE and/or WIP.  I’d made enquiries about training to see what I’d learn and work out whether I wanted to study for them.  Neither of my questions were answered and I’ve been scared off asking again.

(Just as an aside, I know some of you will be able to tell me, what would be a reasonable price for MCSE/WIP training?  They do throw a copy of Dreamweaver 8 and some version of Flash into the package.)

I don’t need to make the £40k a year I was "guaranteed" in the loony’s pitch.  It would be nice, I admit, but you don’t sell things to me any more by quoting big numbers.  I don’t need that much money.  I don’t run a car and I’m 90% certain I’m never buying a house in this country (even if I could afford it).  Most of all, I don’t need the stress that comes with that sort of job.  (I don’t need the stress that comes with my current job either, mind, and it’s earning a lot less.)

What I’m looking for is that elusive thing- job satisfaction.  I could live on what I’m earning now, just, if I could finish the day feeling like I’d achieved something.  I could probably work for less if it was for myself.  More realistically, I should look for something less frustrating that pays more.

This contract should run out in May, which means it’ll probably go on until August.  I’m looking for other work all the time and hopefully I’ll find something before this job runs out.

Then maybe I’ll start thinking about MCSE training.