Chris's job log: 10
Chris Illingworth
- February 2010.
The story so far… Chris graduated in 2009 with a degree in archaeology from Leicester University. He has huge debts, a little freelance writing work and no clear idea about his future. Ordinary life Friday. January. 10pm. I’m sitting by the window in a fast food restaurant, watching my reflection stuff it’s face with a salad of additives and placebos, gherkins and slimy red sauce. The building is almost empty, but a few wastrels are still milling about the rubber stools, or barking orders at the adolescent behind the counter. Kids bounce off the carefully manicured walls, whilst the mother sobs into her Unhappy Meal. I want to go home. The neon lights are being switched off in turn, blinking out and disappearing, as if they had never been there at all. I choke down the rest of my cheeseburger, and limp out into the night. It had been a long day. The past Bircotes, Nottinghamshire. 7pm. I’m on my hands and knees, wondering why I ever agreed to play five-a-side football against the Youth of Tomorrow, looking like strangely-shaped rejects from the Mr. Men universe. Our opponents are recent graduates – unemployed for the most part, but cheerful and noisy. It would occur to me later that they are a lot younger than I am, but, for the time being, I’m in awe of their smiley faces and the fact that they can run for a full minute without suffering an embolism. I have no idea what they want to do with their degree or their lives in general, but if I’ve learnt anything since I left university, it’s that people measure success in different ways. My friend wants a stable home; my ex-girlfriend won’t be satisfied until she’s erased me from time altogether, and my mother wants a vacuum cleaner that doesn’t sound like a Chinook helicopter. Success is enigmatic – the gold coin under the money spider. It’s yours if you have the clangers (or the cash) to go and get it. The present The last neon light is extinguished, and the burger joint stands naked between two faceless buildings - also dark. I can still hear the woman crying as she walks away from me; still hear the squawk of her kids. She wishes they were somebody else’s – anybody’s but hers. Then she is gone, around the corner and into the black Doncaster night. I meet a friend in the centre of town – our striker. Here, the streets are full of late night revellers, and ladies wearing too-short skirts that don’t quite cover the sequins on their underpants. We find a sofa at the back of a pub. He asks me if I have a proper job yet. The term is starting to haunt me – ‘proper job.’ Grownups don’t write. Grownups mine coal with their bare hands, and temper steel with their own spit. I shake my head. No, I don’t – just the Mickey Mouse gig, paying peanuts for gold, but I’m looking for something else. Really, I am. He doesn’t believe me. I have enough trouble convincing myself. The future I’m supposed to be playing squash on Wednesday with a bloke named Martin. I don’t think I’m old enough to play squash. I’m not a businessman. I don’t drink scotch from a tumbler. I don’t even know what 8% APR means. I drink own-brand red wine from a mug with a polar bear on the side, and spend my days writing about airports and aeroplanes. I’ve been in the same job for seventeen months now, since August 2008. I can say with some degree of certainty that Successville is on a different road altogether, somewhere near the Big Rock Candy Mountain, and a long way from this suburb in Doncaster. A friend encouraged me to prospect the local newspapers for an internship or a few column inches near the lonely hearts (‘GSOH, no fatties’), so that’s what I’m going to do over the next few weeks. It might not pay, but my CV hasn’t been fed for a while, and it’s starting to look a little shabby. Read my previous blogs
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