In front of you….jobs. Flirting with their attractive paychecks, flaunting suggestively a big 20 days of holiday, ‘yeah I know I look good’- full pension and medical up in here. So you pick one. Now its all over. You’re committed. In a working relationship. The glory days are over. At the start it will be all nice during the honeymoon period. You’ll arrive on time. You’ll wear matching socks. You’ll eat with your mouth closed. But then they’ll start notice things about you. Firstly that you’re a moron. Secondly that your CV had lies of biblical proportions:

‘Good Team Player’ = Outsourcing and delegating is still valid team work right?

‘Highly Ambitious’ = Aims to come in 5 days a week.

‘Results Orientated’ = Takes only the tasks mundane enough to not warrant being fired when inevitably fucked up.

They’ll see you at your worst, hungover on a Monday. Asleep in meetings. Only able to type using one finger, your thumb.  Incapable of even using Powerpoint. That despite being an ‘advanced internet user’ you still look up the HTML code for a link.

So what can you do? Well not much. Keep your head down, your breath minted and pray that no-one notices that you have no idea what you’re doing. They probably won’t, luckily. As they’re doing the same thing as you.

We should just stop this whole charade. Lets just stop it now. Lets celebrate mediocrity! We can’t all be trailblazers, out to reinvent the wheelbarrow. If we were, the fast lane would be forever clogged and congested with high flyer’s. Lets celebrate life’s great underachievers, its car park attendants, its festering middle managers, pulling kindly into society’s slow lane. If we did then we could write truthful CVs and covering letters like this:

Adam Fletcher
General Sales/Marketing Bullshit
Global Evil Big Corp Tech

19th May 2008

Dear Boss to be,

Hi! My name is Adam Fletcher. I was just on my way back from trading my last cow for magic beans, when I saw your positions vacant advertisement for the job of ‘General Sales/Marketing Bullshit’. Even though that sounds like the worst job since fluffing, my rent is due soon and I do require food for the cat. I was hoping you might hire me and allow me to sit around the office, calling some people occasionally and trying to sell whatever crap it is that you make. I’m not a world beater or anything but I’m definitely okay at stuff. I’ll try and be on time and stay awake in meetings. If you like i’ll let you take credit for all my good ideas, should I have any. I’m also willing to tell you that even your shittest, most hair brained ideas are wonderful, if you like. So if you didn’t already employ some other blind lemming, and I’m not the worst applicant to apply, then how about we give it a go?

Thanks for you time and I hope to hear from you soon, so we can discuss this opportunity further. Please take the time to reject me personally. Rejection offends. Ignoration scars.

But that would be too easy wouldn’t it?

The last few weeks have been a whirl of interviews as I’ve been knee deep into my job hunt. You either love interviews, or hate them. I’m an emphatic ‘love them’. Why? Well, in normal social interactions you have to take part in - polite conversation. Thats means that you are forced to show an interest in the person you’ve forced to stop and listen to you, talking about yourself to. So when they say ‘how was your day’, you’ll answer and then they’ll leave an unnerving pause. In this pause you’re supposed to say ’so anyway how was your day?’, they’ll tell you some crap your not interested in about how they don’t like Wednesdays, or bosses who don’t understand how great they are, bills they need to pay blah blah blah - this is polite conversation. In interviews I don’t have to ask any questions back, the spotlights are shined purely at me. I get to just talk about myself for an hour or so, its kinda like therapy only if things go well they start paying you and not the other way round. It’s an excuse to talk solidly about myself without pesky interrupts, from others wanting to tell me about themselves. What easier subject can there be than talking about yourself? If I go on Mastermind thats the exact specialist topic I would request - ‘The thoughts and feelings of Adam Fletcher’. Yet they let you have this one in the test of whether or not you can have a job and earn money. Makes no sense to me.

There was a feature on the news today about CVs and job hunting. They had done a study and found that 70% of people lied on their CVs! This taught me two things:

1. TV teaches you nothing you don’t already know.

2. When confronted, 30% of people are unwilling to admit lying on their CV.

The other great things about interviews is you not only get to talk about yourself for hours on end without people walking away, or saying nasty things about you behind your back (egomaniac, asshole, fuck me what a bore etc etc), but you get to make stuff up. You can invent a whole new, better you. Its like a mini-vacation from your own rubbish self, while you get to test out what life would be like if you weren’t a hopeless bum. During an interview I’m an enthusiastic, motivated, intelligent, commited team player. Outside I’m an unemployed, balding, bum. Intellectually stimulated by wheel of fortune and shiny things.

My interview to job offer ratio has always been pretty high, which means I’m particularly skilled at creating better sounding versions of myself in interviews. I put this down to the realization at an early age that I wasn’t as good at wrestling, team sports, or buildings things like other men. In order not to be thrown on the dateless darwinian scrap-heap, I had to evolve new skills. I picked words. Now I think I’m okay at wielding them to get people to like me, at least in small doses. You just say smart things that someone else already said that you’ve memorized. Or you can say cute things that make people laugh such as ‘cheese is terrific’ or complimentary untruths such as ‘no, you definitely don’t look fat in that’.

But then it all falls apart. You have to actually pick a job. After the thrill of the employment chase the courtship ritual has come to an end. No more free therapy, or new improved you’s. You’re whoring yourself out there to anyone who’ll listen to you days are over. The next step is mans great nemesis - commitment.

‘Interviews Pt. 2 - commitment’ coming tomorrow (for real this time unlike all the other orphaned pt.1s on here, I’ve already written it and everything)

Displayed in photographic form in the above image is my father (lets call him, Peter, after all thats his name), brother (Kevin) and sister (Gemma) as glee faced youngsters. A happy bunch huh? I’m sure you’ll agree that something looks out of place, something looks like it doesn’t belong in this happy family unit……………………….oh yeah, ME!!!

Hidden amongst the blonde and ginger hair, freckles and human features, theres a little chimp boy human hybrid. They seem to have tried to devert attention from the authorities by dressing me in some king of yellow cloth, nestled in between my “brother” and “sister”. I look like a chimp, raised in a family of albino’s, like some kind of messed up inverted Jungle Book. Some people need medical science to prove their heritage, I, armed with just “vision” have proved it beyond reasonable doubt I think.

Anyway, with a family like mine I’ll happily continue living the lie. Just so you all know, that I know, and we’re all playing dumb together

When I was born I looked like a chimp. I’m not ashamed of it, i was a sort of primative curiosity I imagine, half human, half primate, actually scrap that, two thirds primate, one third human. I imagine it must have been difficult to name a two third primate, one third human hybrid. Obvious names such as “baloo” “chimp boy” “monkey baby” “missing link” “simon” must have seemed a bit vulgar. So my parents settled obviously, on Adam, looking back the parodox of calling a monkey baby the name most representative of man is pretty comical.

Where am I going with this? You can find out in the full post

choice is a burden,

choice is a gift,

that is our choice.

I’ve been thinking about my future career today. Basically although I think they’re blurring, there are two different types of work:

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I fell of my bike again last weekend, in what can only be described as the worlds lamest biking accident. The bruise to my ego was worse than the physical damage, resulting from the fact that it was 2am in front of about 50 people outside a club. I hadnt even started cycling yet, i fell at the proverbial first hurdle, the mounting of the bike. I was a little suprised by my reaction…

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I’ve just finished watching the apprentice. The concept of the show is simple, theres a job, 16 numpties, and a weekly, totally fixed contest to see who can stab each other numpty in the face and be crowned king of the numpties. I’m sure the job isnt real and the whole thing is edited in a way to make the entire cast look totally incompetant, after watching it you wouldnt hire any of them to wipe your behind.

This has got me thinking about what it takes to be a winner….

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Rules of the universe:

Cash Law - All songs sound better sung by Johnny Cash. The definitive version of Happy Birthday is Johnny Cash’s version. Even the slightest mumble from Johnny Cash is enough to make angels fornicate, en mass. I imagine its so good that you would instantly age an entire year, just so he would have an excuse to sing it you again, I expect that most people get into this cycle until they die, a fast sweet musically blissful death, this part of the law is called “cashtch 22″.

Dullness/Sleep law - There’s a direct link between the length that people sleep and there level of dullness. Think about all the dull people you’ve ever met and I bet they are up at the crack of dawn every day, tidying, alphabetising, re-arranging or just wandering about trying to find things to fill up their day. Dull people don’t need as much sleep as everyone else, they have less to ponder, it takes less to fuel their brains but the essential area of “imagination” is less developed, and demanding. I like to think that they are woken up early by their dreams, which consist of reading the newspaper, cleaning, planning and organising, these dreams are so dull for the sub-concious that it forces them into conciousness to escape the tedium.

Anyone have some more rules of the universe to offer up?

I’m a big fan of the 80/20 rule (also known as Pareto’s principle). I imagine for the creator it went a little bit like this:

Pareto: “I’ve had this really great idea”

Pareto’s friend: “Oh yeah right, like the last great idea of yours that nearly gave me scurvy”

Pareto: “The theory was sound, but anyway this one is a winner….

I call it the 80/20 rule. Basically you can achieve 80% of what your doing, with only 20% effort. The other 20% will take 80% of your time.”

Pareto’s friend: “Sounds logical. I like it. Shall we go play highwaymen?”

Pareto: “But hang on there’s more to it than that.”

Pareto’s friend: “Nah its cool, i got it.”

I imagine it a little like this for all great ideas, they’re so great you instantly can’t remember not knowing them. They give you that warm snuggly safe feeling you get when you just know something and that’s one less thing you have to waste valuable mental cycle’s pondering. Anyway I like to ponder so I’ve been applying 80/20 to everyday life.

I’m certain that we all have a base level of happiness. It can be shaken by a major event, in the same way a house can be destroyed by a hurricane, but the rest of the time its fairly static give or take some dry rot. That baselevel happiness I think represents….wait for it….80% of our possible happiness, and is achieved by approx 20% of effort, shock, shock horror. What does that 20% effort/80% happiness consist of?

- getting to sleep in something resembling a bed

- enough money for some grub and a cheeky

- free will, or at least the illusion of free will/freedom

- family, something resembling friends (and no, myspace doesnt count)

Obviously hitting this fairly low benchmark will require more effort in certain places than in others, depending on the cost of living. Cardboard boxes in the park command 250gbp a month in London, so you have to work harder to hit that benchmark even when you factor in increased wages.

So in theory we should all have 80% effort to devote to increasing that happiness. The problem is that we have a little thing called employment. Employment takes the liberty of 80% of our time, delivering anywhere from 0.01-20% of our happiness. In my mind it can’t deliver more, because there is no more spare happiness available above that benchmark.

Thats ridiculous, I love my job, I love it everyday and I dont just want to survive, I want a real bed not something resembling one.

Ah, this I think is the illusion of not knowing. Because its been so long since we just dropped to that benchmark level we have no real idea how much extra happiness we get for the extra time we lose doing all those things we dont want, to earn money we probably dont need, in order to do/buy/have things that contribute to that 20%. Its human nature to prefer to drop from a 6 to a 5 than a 10 to a 7 even if the latter leaves you higher. Its easier to pass on something you’ve never had, than give up something once you’ve had it.

Pt.2 of this one coming sometime in the future, maybe…