My name is Joe and I’m an alcoholic

Well actually no, I’m not. But starting next Monday, I’ll be attending the AA regularly. Every day in fact. Because I got a new job!!! Yes, after almost three years as a phone monkey I’m moving to the Automobile Association to become a…customer service administrator. Stop grinning; I’m perfectly aware it’s the same job as before. But this job has less calls, more varied work (as in no more sitting there like a gom taking 600 phone calls a day from Brits), more money, more regular hours (in fact, just regular hours; a new thing for me) and…. and dammit I get to wear a shirt and tie and feel like I actually have an occupation. I know I’m nearly 22 and I should be glad I’m not wearing a blouse and trout around my neck every day, but I’m different. I like wearing shirts and ties, much like a girl might like to feel more feminine in a dress. Admittedly, it’s not for everyone (in fact most people these days seem to prefer to look less girlish or boyish) but it is for me. I have a shirt, a tie and suitable shoes. Well, suitable-looking. They’re pretty much new (bought for €30 in Tyler’s last August) and look the business but the cuts on my feet are testament to the fact that they were never really broken in [insert Charlotte Church joke] yet and still tear my girly feet to pieces. Nevertheless, they shall be broken in for I have a pair of brown shoes that tore my feet up something rotten last March and now they’re the comfiest shoes I’ve ever had. So it’ll be worth it.

Too much focus on the shoes. Right, so basically I had to leave Jumped-Up IT Company. My reasons are:

· lack of diversity in the work

· no wage increase in the past two years

· no union allowed to set up to fight for this

· at least twenty changes in work practices in the past year, nothing given in return.

· No feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day

· No regular set hours

· Hours being cut back lately due to drop in call volumes

· “redundancies are in the air…..” – but don’t let the Neuer Markt in Frankfurt know.

· motivation simply never ever existed

· highly-paid company executives with lunch-hours and cars work in a building with a full canteen offering hot meals, light snacks and lots of tables to sit at in a bright and airy atmosphere. Non-motorised, low-paid gimps like me with 30 minutes of a lunch break get a dodgy kitchen, vending machines of junk food, three Coke machines and a revolving machine of crap. Sorry, that really pisses me off.

· You are not your job (I just really wanted to say that).

So I saw an ad on the internet for vacancies in the AA and it turns out I’m exactly what they’re looking for – disgruntled call-centre fodder who want a real job. And seen as my Dad, once he heard I was being sent home on unpaid leave due to lack of work, told me to get a “proper job” I thought this would be ideal. I took last Wednesday off, threw on my suit and wowed the personnel manager. So much that I had a Vanilla Sky moment on Friday morning. Vanilla Sky being that film where a bloke’s life hits rock bottom before taking turn after turn for the better. My life feels like that; ever since this thing happened with Catherine everything’s gone very very well.

I’m lying in bed with my girlfriend on the morning of Valentine’s Day. She’s warm and we’re talking and kissing and the morning is so bright and sunny and it’s streaming in the window of the top-floor room (penthouse would be pushing it) of her house and every now and then I think to myself “how amazing is all this?” I turn away from her and sleep and turn back to her and it’s like it’s forever. And just then, my phone rings and it’s the personnel manager calling me back and she wishes me good luck and I answer the phone and he says I got the job. And I get off the phone and she kisses me and I can’t believe my luck. Everything’s going so well for me after so much grey. So in case this diary ever got (or even gets) too dark and depressing, there’s days like that.

j