The Path of Least Resistance

In the song I Love A Man In Uniform The Gang of Four sang: ‘To have ambitions was my ambition’, but for the most part I've lacked even that.

For me it was always, ‘The path of least resistance.’  as sung by The Human League on their song of the same name.

When I went to be interviewed for a job at the tax office in Southend, the candidate before me came out and disclosed that the job wasn’t suitable for him as he needed hours that fitted around his college course. He then proceeded to share all the questions he’d been asked, enabling me to go into the interview fully prepared.

The job was part time (two weeks on/ two weeks off – hence the wrong type of part time for the college guy) and at the lowest paygrade. I was more than qualified academically for a higher position but I didn’t want the extra responsibilities. (I think they even asked if I’d applied for the wrong position when they saw my educational record).

I moved to Bristol because my sister lived there, so I had a base to start out from and a readymade cohort of friends courtesy of the Bristol SF group and the Bristol writers group. My fundraising job was part time (evenings and weekends) and only became full time when the business expanded. My friend Mike was responsible for me progressing to a higher paid position – I had to go through an interview process, but short of not turning up or swearing at the HR manager, the job was already mine.

Something similar happened in Penzance when I got a full time (well four days a week, let’s not over exert ourselves now!) contract with the local council after many years where I’d worked for them on and off (more on than off) via a temping agency.

There’s never been a plan to anything I’ve done. No career path. No sense of progression. Postal worker. Customs and Excise. Charity fundraising. Local planning. They’re just random jobs. If my CV were a work of art, it would be a Jackson Pollock – paint thrown randomly on a blank white canvas.

Each job tends to last for a fixed period. After four of five years I move to the next one, not by choice so much as by necessity, usually after redundancy, either voluntary or enforced.

I’ve had dozens of other jobs over the years. Market research (that lasted about a week). Arranging appointments for a mortgage broker (ditto). Customer support for a retail company (several months of training on an archaic computer system, but only a few weeks of work before the stress of it all caused me to quit). A Christmas stint at the Truro sorting office (a brief and less memorable return to the Royal Mail). Content manager for a kitchen design company (ad hoc periods across a three or four year time span). Podcast editor (two years as editor of a weekly podcast aimed at writers of fantasy fiction).

In more recent times I’ve freelanced for a range of big tec companies doing work that I can’t really disclose in any detail having signed various NDAs – all of which are unglamorous, poorly paid and will doubtless one day be seen as being responsible for enabling the robots to take over from humanity.

But by then, I’ll be long gone. Probably. And if I’m not, it was nothing to do with me, guvnor, honest. I was just trying to put food on the table for myself and those fourteen children I never had.

Music and writing aren’t careers. I never made a living from either. To an outsider they’d be seen as hobbies (fair) or obsessions (also fair). To me they’re just a part of my life, like breathing or sleeping or putting the bins out on a Monday morning.

Death will of course be the final redundancy (enforced, not voluntary) and under the soil will become my final destination.

The path of least resistance.

It seems the only way.