I’ve had reactions possibly boarding on the surprising to the news that I might be getting a permanent job, or at any rate have taken the step of applying for one, thus going against the rules of my employment-related life for the last three years. Whilst I don’t want to talk about the job for the same reasons most people don’t blog about jobs they actually want to keep, I suppose I can say it’s a caretaker position doing odd jobs around the place, so it’s no different to a lot of the work I’ve been doing through the agency, and re-emphasise that it’s only four hours a day (though with the higher perm payrate it’ll be the equivalent of six through the agency) so it’s not like I’m giving up one whatever it is I’ve been doing and selling my soul to The Man. In fact I see this as helping me to do all that stuff. By getting up at the same time every day I’ll have more of a structure of my life (I’ve already surprised a couple of people by being asleep before midnight) and still have 2pm onwards for my many projects. And it has those cushty benefits like holiday pay and the like which are such a novelty to me these days.

I’ve been doing the job since last Monday (if I get it permanently that’ll start in May sometime) and it has involved a bit of an adjustment. Essentially I now have a very large “evening” and I may have overestimated the potential that affords me. While I am only working four hours it’s a fairly intensive four hours coupled with a significant bike ride involving hills (6 miles round trip) and yet in my mind I have this massive expanse of time in which I must get things done resulting in me doing essentially 12 hour days and being surprised that I’m knackered at the end of them. A balance will be found and I think it’ll be a good one. Already my weekends are for doing things rather than recovering since the recovery happens on Friday.

One idea that might have to be reconsidered is doing other cash-in-hand (yes, I do declare them) jobs during the week. I popped over to Jez and Nat’s new house yesterday to help them shift an inordinate number of bricks which the movers had refused to touch and while it was an okay job on it’s own, coming after my normal morning (not to mention cycling from Northfield to Moseley) I was fucking knackered afterwards. That leaflet delivery job I did last year (posts here, here, here and here) is coming up again and I’m having to seriously think about whether or not I can do it. Even spread over two weeks it’ll still involve 4+ hours of walking a day and that sort of walking has a tendency to hurt (remember a good walking speed is 4mph). I could bring someone else in on the job but they won’t be allowed to fuck up of Nat will never speak to me again. We’ll see.

Actually, it was interesting seeing Nat’s reaction to the news of my potential job. Everyone else has been fairly positive about it but the look on her face was one of sheer horror. Their new house is lovely (and very, very large) but needs a fair amount of work, a significant proportion of which had been earmarked as “Pete can do that.” Suddenly I’m slightly less able to, and that’s not a good thing. One forgets the intrinsic value of being someone who is invariably available for odd jobs.