I was quite happy working for the insurance company - it was safe. More importantly we had a mutually beneficial arrangement: they paid me a regular wage and I turned up for work...or at least turned up.
Alright, it wasn't exciting, glamorous, challenging or rewarding but it did enable me to:
a) Pay the mortgage (thus keeping Mrs. Cardinal and the smaller Cardinals in the manner to which they are accustomed)
b) Buy books (or rather add to my ever increasing list of books I have bought and not yet gotten round to reading)
c) Smoke
and in return they always knew that in the event of a problem with the coffee machine I would shoulder the heavy burden of calling Facilities. An equitable arrangement, I always thought.
Then after 20 years, and in the middle of apparently the biggest economic depression since the 1930's (I hadn't noticed due to being absorbed in a root and branch analysis of the migratory habits of the common-or -garden homing slug), my employers say "Oh, by the way, we're having a reorganisation.. Nothing to worry about... Getting rid of the dead wood and clearing the decks, so to speak.... Incidentally, what is it exactly that you do around here again..?"
I remember flapping my arm vaguely in the direction of the smoking area outside and frantically trying to think of something 'corporate' to say. After an expectant pause I manage "Me...type... Me type...good" before demonstrating this singular skill by hesitantly pressing the Enter button and thus deleting all our customer records for 2002.
And so I am beginning my new career as a Freelance Writer. To date my successes include:
- Watching all three 'On the Buses' films whilst lounging on the sofa consuming a packet of Jaffa Cakes
- Looking up the definition of as many rude words as I can think of on Wikipedia
- Surfing the internet for 'Breast Augmentation' adverts (Research for an article I'm thinking of writing provisionally entitled "Look at the tumblers on THAT !!!")
- Buying a new panama hat (in order to look suitably artistic and ethereal)
By the way - as I understand it as an aspiring writer I am required to be off my tits on a cocktail of Absinthe and Laudinum 23 hours a day... But is it totally necessary to be riddled with syphilis too ? Oh well, when in Rome...
