The Four Letter Word

Speaking of work - as I was yesterday in between trying to moderate some of the more puerile comments to hhn - I've been thinking about that whole liking or hating your job thing.

Madame B obviously hates her job because she spends quite a lot of office hours sending vulgar comments to hhn. mrs hhn (I think) fundamentally must like her job because she doesn't even bother reading my blog any more. (Maybe she is just busy, or she thinks the blog sucks.) Blokewho and Styx? Hmmm. There's a whole other couple of stories in relation to jobs and work. Waunch aka The Santana Fan? He told me yesterday how much he dislikes his job, and it shows in his apparent need to defend Santana in such vigorous terms. (Why else would anyone care?) Me? Despite appearances I do have a vague protestant work ethic which I only really understand when I am working and doing a good job, which can translate into paralysis as well as ethic. My mate ***? He has a natural affinity with numbers. (He can do weird stuff like tell you how many letters were in the sentence you have just said.) So he does accounts for people. And it takes him approx a third of the time that it takes ordinary non Number Freak people. But the fact that he understands numbers does not mean that he likes them. He would much rather be collecting Brian Eno artifacts, or getting someone to actually commit to producing a very very funny sitcom that he wrote last year. Bad? He has four kids, so he has to work approx 39 hours a day, 371 days a year. (And he parties as hard as he works too.) Blokewhohaslotsofjobs? Well, take a look at his name. So all a bit of a mixed bag really for the hhn regulars.

I was talking to mrs hhn about a bloke who dropped round yesterday offering a free consultation from firemen about fire safety in your house. (Basically, a fireman turns up, fucks your wife...sorry, looks around your flat and assesses any possible fire risks. Odd, but entirely logical.) This guy seemed so happy and content in his work. He was selling - or offering rather - a free cool service. And it showed in everything about him. The way he stood. The way he talked. The way he explained the process etc. And it got me thinking about anyone else I actually know or have met recently who actually seems to be enjoying their work. There is a great Irish waiter at a local restaurant. He just makes your evening in the restaurant so enjoyable. (He is also fundamentally a really good guy. I saw him running to give a woman her purse that she had dropped in the supermarket the other day. In South London that really is something.) And there was a bloke who worked in the Ozwald Boateng franchise in Selfridges who was so nice and honest and warm that he managed to convince me to drop £*,**** on a suit for my wedding. So of all the people I have seen or spoken to over the last year, that makes three who actually seem to like their jobs. (The two guys who work in our local off licence also seem to be enjoying themselves. But I think they are a little high on their own supply.)

I have friends who do cool things like make films and write books and sell art and save the world and are graphic designers etc. But only three guys out of all of us who seem fundamentally happy in what they are doing? I may be entirely wrong. The Boateng guy could hate his job. That waiter may have run away from Ireland because he killed a man and is hiding his crime under that charm. The bloke offering the fire safety thing may be nursing a heroin addiction. But they are the only three people I have seen lately who seemed satisfied with their work lot.

Where am I going with this one? Nowhere really. It was just something that got me thinking about what we do and are not doing every day.