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.

It’s funny, I stay up through the night more often than anyone I know but I very rarely get night shift jobs. I had one last night for the first time in ages, back at the courier depot unloading the incoming parcels so they can be delivered all over Brum, and after nine hours of lugging I’m somewhat pooped.

What was really weird was how different the morning felt. When I’ve pulled an all-nighter at home it’s all perfectly normal, but walking through an industrial estate at dawn (and it was a lovely dawn today – shame I don’t feel comfortable taking my camera to work…) and getting the number 11 bus just as the commuters and school kids were kicking in was very odd (and really annoying what with the absurd amount of traffic on the Birmingham side streets. I’m so glad I don’t have a “normal” job). I guess when I set my own schedule I’m quite segregated from society but in this case the juxtaposition is quite stark. Not in a bad way – I do like night shifts. They seem to go by much faster than day shifts for some reason.

And so I’m off to bed. Enjoy the day.

In an effort to swing back into what is commonly known as a “normal” sleeping pattern I stayed up all night last night, settling down with the huge pile of 2000ADs at around 8am to await a call from the Agency. And Lo! One came through at about nine-ish. An intriguing job working in a cemetery doing little picking some gardening, clearing the dead flowers away and maybe some gravedigging. Gravedigging? Now that’s something I haven’t done before! Only it’s in Sutton and not exactly in central Sutton so we’re looking at a really long commute, so I turned it down.

An hour later the lovely Ms K phones again with another job. This one’s based in the centre of town picking litter and pushing a barrow about the place for the council. Bingo! I love that sort of work! It’s a Tuesday – Saturday job. Ah, I’ve got to go down to Winchester on Saturday to clean my mum’s house after the building work. Is that a problem? Not sure. 20 minutes later, yes, it’s a problem. Balls.

Around noon and another job, this one at Five Ways at a bank… Oh, I’ve done that one before. Have you? Yup. 8am start, right?

At least it’s work, but damn! I could have been digging graves!

Third week at the courier depot completed. Physical state: tired, not wrecked like last time but certainly not godlike. Slight twinge in my back but nothing serious (touch wood). Cycled two days out of five this week, partly to avoid exhaustion and partly because it’s really quite bloody cold out there and while I’m not a fair weather cyclist by any stretch it’s just not healthy getting sweaty for an hour in freezing conditions. Further to that I’ve had the snots all week, which has been pleasant. But enough of my relative well being, fascinating as it must be.

Today all the temps got a phone call. You know that scenario where migrant workers in the southern United States are digging a ditch by a freeway and the charge-hand drives up in his pickup with a list of names of who will be coming back the next day? It’s a bit like that only it’s all done with mobile phones. Polish Rob was the first to get the call before he’d even arrived saying he wouldn’t be needed next week. Soon after I got the call saying I would. Which was nice, if a little fucking awkward. Rob was a gentleman about it despite the fact that he’d been there three weeks longer than me and is by far a better box lugger than I. He called me “old man” the other day when my cold was affecting my 3D Tetris skills which was weird and possibly marks some kind of milestone in my life, but I digress.

Rob’s a funny one. Like I said, he’s one of the many (millions of, apparently) Polish migrant workers in the country at the moment thanks to the country’s recent joining of the EU. I remember back when I lived in east London (circa 2002) getting a night bus home and being surrounded by Slavic voices and since the East End has always been the first port of call for immigrant communities it’s not too surprising that pretty much every industrial job I’ve done over the last 6 months has had a Polish guy or two working there.

On the whole I’ve gotten on with them. Like many immigrants (and I’m aware I’m generalising horribly here but please bear with me – it’s either this or I qualify every statement extensively, or just write nothing at all) they’re hard working, friendly and shockingly over qualified, which probably explains why I get on with most of them. For example, one guy I was working with at an office supplies dispatch warehouse was wearing a Linux t-shirt so we got talking about open source and computers and stuff which inevitably turned to me asking why he doesn’t get some computer related work, with him inevitably replying that his English wasn’t good enough for the entry level jobs but that he was trying (and working on his English).

Rob didn’t seem to have any particular skills but he had a plan. He was taking English lessons during the day (which continued during our conversations with those awkward questions about how the language works to which native English speakers just shrug because they don’t know – it just does, somehow) and working at night, trying to save up enough to get a driving license so he could get a better job so he and his girlfriend could settle down and raise a family. Only he wasn’t getting enough steady work to pay for the driving lessons and his relationship with his girlfriend was pretty rocky. And he was tired all the time.

And now he’s been told by the gaffers at the depot that, given the choice of four temps from the agency they’d rather not have him. Which, amongst other things, meant the parcels were not gently stacked in the truck this evening.

What’s interesting, if that’s the right word, is the choice of temps consisted of a white English guy (myself) a black guy, an Asian guy and a Polish guy. I’m as native as it gets in this mongrel nation. The black and Asian guys are probably 3rd generation. Rob’s been here for a year at most. Can you see what I’m getting at?

I can only speak from observation and I wouldn’t give much weight to my opinions but it seems to me that in the years since I first did the industrial temping game in my early 20s the black and Asian workforce has become a lot more integrated, a least at the manual labour level. In 1994 or so I worked at a factory where the factory floor was entirely staffed by Asians in red hats supervised entirely by whites in white hats while the dispatch area was white only. There was no movement between departments and the whole place stank of some kind of institutionalised apartheid. Conversely in most of the places I work now you’ll find a full spectrum of Asian, African, Caribbean and white workers mixing at all levels from shop floor drudgery to lower management (upper management is still the preserve of the overweight middle-aged white man but that’s a whole ‘nother issue). While I’m not denying the frequent racism that does exist in this country this does strike me as a glimmer of hope for the future.

Except, of course, for the Poles. They’re at the bottom.