Daily archives: April 5, 2007


I'm never going to get a gold watch

Another job ends today. I’ve been looking, but not hard enough, for jobs for the last month and a bit but I haven’t found anything to go straight to. So I’ll have at least a week in which to catch up with Spinneyhead projects, which is nice.

I’ve never had a proper job- one with a direct, ongoing contract with the people I work for rather than some third party. This is simultaneously worrying and exciting. It’s not exactly how I would have things, but I’m okay with it. The longest I’ve managed with a single company was four years at The Gas. Even this was about a year longer than was good for my health or my bank balance. (I remember the day, if not the date, I should have quit. I was in Southampton, working on a problem in Manchester and being threatened with the sack because of someone else’s mistakes.) I bumped into the head of my department last year and he told me all about the people who were still there, four years on. All I could think was “How sad.” I may not, yet, have achieved all the things I hoped to when I left, but at least I tried.

Ah well. It’s spring, I’ll have another job in a few weeks, I ought to do a few of those long bike rides I keep planning, finish my film, start my novel and generally make the most of my free time.