BLOG 14 Good Job...BAD job....

Good Job... BAD job...

Welcome to my office.

It's a Texolene garden table contemporary in style and is part of a set for 6 complete with wooden parasol. Positioned elegantly on the west side of my substantial patio it overlooks the lawn right down to the apple tree at the base of the garden which currently is heavy with white blossom.

My colleagues at the moment are two rather noisy Magpies, a couple of wood pigeons and a variety of small garden birds who chirp louder than one would imagine their size would permit.

The office ceiling today is a glorious blue sky and is lit by a very bright and warm yellow sun.

Yup... I'm a freelance writer, sitting at my laptop in my suburban garden at 10.37 wondering exactly how it is that my life got so good.

It wasn't always like this.

Approximately 2 months ago thing were very different indeed.

Two months ago I was sitting in an office in central London feeling pretty paranoid.

Three years previously I had been given the rather thankless task of using my verbal and written skills to convince a wider range of punters that they should be committing their tourist dollars to discovering the real Wild West. And NO... before you even think it we are not talking the West Country here... no cream teas and wild and windy moors...we are talking YeeeeeHa Cowboy! Told you it was a thankless task... just how many English people do you know who want to go play rhinestone cowboy?

When I arrived at the firm I was a real cheerleader for the cause. I thought the product was fresh, I thought the product was timely. I brought to it my notable contacts and many years of experience in raising the profile of the funky and obscure. I threw myself in the deep end and took on EVERYTHING. The company assured me it was behind me and safe in this knowledge I forged ahead. And yes, I ha a lot of success. -except for one thing... no one at the company seemed to care.

I had no boss other than a near invisible blonde bombshell who would saunter into the office once a quarter in a variety of too tight red suits and chat up the men. On her way out she'd nod at me or say she'd read my last report and get back to me... but she never did. Occasionally to cover her tracks of neglect she'd set up a high powered meeting in which we would discuss future plans... that never came to fruition. I spent a lot of time doing reports and analysing figures, making relationships with suppliers and tourist boards, exhibiting at shows... all with no idea of what the long term prognosis of the product was. I felt cut adrift from the real business of the company - I watched my colleagues launch products and be bathed in glory for weeks...but when I did product launch...not one member of senior management turned up. I watched my budgets slashed and my targets increase... and it dawned on me I had been set up to fail.

My confidence dropped below sea level and I couldn't trust my own judgement anymore. I spent a great deal of time in as highly productive state of paralysis staring at the treetops out of the window. I began to develop nausea as soon as I arrived at my desk every morning.

I hated the sound of the ringing phone...sometimes pretending I could not recognise my phones distinct staccato bleep and letting it ring out to the office at large. I'd put mu phone on busy as soon as the incoming call had safely been picked up by someone else, then stare at the message sent to me by e-mail as I tried to find ways to avoid returning the call - hoping the caller had left an e-mail address so I could drop them a non committal mailer back rather than talk to them. I became convinced everyone was listening to my telephone calls and commenting on my lack of ability. I became lost in the silent world of the keyboard. : The only sound I was awaiting was the sound of the other shoe dropping.

You see, a horrendous job is like a chronic illness - it affects everything in your life. If work is a pool then the rest of your life is a sponge. If all is going well then the sponge is nourished by the pool, if work stops then the sponge dries up a little. But if it bad the pool is toxic and your world soaks in the poison from the pool. You can't go out with your friends, you can't hang with your family, you can't even go on holiday without a constant low-grade sense of dread: WORK. It taints everything. Before long you have become that person... "The person who is always bitching about their job"... and no one wants to be around you. Worst still you can't just leave because the paranoia that everyone thinks you are lousy at your job makes you cling to the rock face...convinced you can't move.

And then one snowy morning in February out of the blue... it ended.

Totally unaware of the purpose of the meeting I had been called to (I thought I was to get a bollicking for taking a snow-day when London ground to a halt)... they told me it was no longer economically viable for me to continue and they were giving me severance pay..blah blah.
They even said the magic words... "It's not you...it's us"

And so two months later here I am. The sun is shining. Bees buzz around in the bluebells I had never noticed grow in the borders of my pretty garden. I can hear nothing but bird conversing in the trees and a few wood pigeons are using my wall as a dating agency.

Full time paid work looks some time away, being that we are in the grips of a global recession - but I don't mind. After I had my novel published some 5 years ago I always promised to write more - but work got in the way... there was never enough time! I know that there are those who view freelance writing as a grovelling netherworld which earns one only slightly more respect than an escort constantly soliciting to be paid for what should be free! I know that people regard writing as a skill that is simply an extension of talking - that it is something ANY idiot can do given enough paper... I know that there are those who think I have lost professional credibility by not commuting to an office and having an employer per say. But I don't care.

I am no longer an employee. But I don't have a sadistic or persecuting manager either. I don’t have colleagues sharpening knives ready to plunge into my back. I don't drone on and on about office politics, or a good idea underfunded, poorly executed or totally ignored. I don't come over queasy with the anticipation of the horrors to come when I reach for my first morning coffee. I don't walk ten minutes to the lunch spot, spend ten minutes queuing, ten minutes tetchily awaiting its preparation and presentation only to have to bolt it in ten minutes so that I can get back in ten minutes. I don't live only from 5.30pm on a Friday night to 12 midnight Sunday morning either.

I have a skill that allows me to keep busy from home, doing something I love in the place I chose to live in... a place I have come to appreciate more and more having spent more time actually in it and around it.

So... welcome to my office. It's mid-morning and I am relaxed and happy. And once I've finished today’s pieces... I'm meeting my sister at the V&A to take in the exhibition of hats... and have a long and leisurely lunch.... my new boss said it was OK.