I don’t like work.  It’s not that I don’t like my job, which is actually ok, if a little dull at times.  I resent the concept of work, of doing any activity that takes me away from my home or place of comfort for too long.  The whole thing about work is just dreadful: being forced to wake up when your body isn’t ready; rushing around for forty minutes or so while you get ready; fighting whatever hideous travel atrocities you have to face; to spend eight hours with people who are OK, but you probably wouldn’t socialise with them (I don’t socialise with anybody), sitting at a desk, answering e-mails and making spreadsheets just waiting until it’s time when you can go home again.  Ninety percent of the things I do at my desk at work can be done at my desk at home.   If I got myself a new printer cartridge, it’d be 98%.

This situation is nothing new.  I have felt this way since I was a youngster.  I loved my lessons when I was at school and sixth form, even liked the environment, but couldn’t wait to get home – loved it when we got an hour off because of the teachers’ walk outs in 1985.  The same was true at university, and when I came to do my PhD, it was such a huge shock to me because I actually had to basically do a proper job for six days a week, for often more than twelve hours a day.  Well, occasionally, when I’d fucked something up and had to do it again, and again.  Because I was shit at it.

I think the only time when I actually really enjoyed working, really enjoyed it, was when I was doing my first couple of post doctoral associates positions about twenty years ago.  Even then though, I still couldn’t wait until home time.

The day is, at best, one big sigh – a big, massive pfffft.  I find myself restless and bored, unable to concentrate.  I become disruptive and petulant, like a stroppy teenager who needs a good kick up the arse.

There are two parts to this problem.  Firstly, I need something to do that will earn me money, that will challenge me, that I will enjoy doing and that will keep me out of trouble.  Secondly, I need to not leave my house to do this.  I could do fantasy dress-up sex for middle-aged men; that’d CERTAINLY challenge me, well, them: “Yes, you are definitely going to have sex, but it’s all going to be in your head and no, you’re not coming anywhere near me with that thing.  Which would you prefer, dominatrix librarian or the school dinner lady with two huge ladles?”

Trolololol

Maybe I could offer other services from the comfort of my own office.  I could take people’s Buzzfeed quizzes for them and let them know how sexy/clever/popular they would be if they were me.  Or maybe a useful service would be to scour people’s social media presences and give them advice on the things they might want to think about avoiding posting, over and over again.  We’re all guilty of this to a certain degree, but it just takes a true friend, out of real concern, and friendship, not annoyance or irritation or anything, to tell somebody to stop posting the same fucking status update over and over again: Oh look, another cream tea and champagne from you; Another moan about being stuck in work from you; You do realise that’s the twentieth photo of your child in the same pose in the last half hour.  To stop living your bloody life through what Timehop tells you what you did one year, two years, four years ago.  STOP STALKING THAT PERSON ON TWITTER!!! Just look at your bloody tweets!  Every single one is a direct response to the same celebrity, who by now has realised that you’re clearly insane that ignoring you or blocking you would destabilise you completely… just like all the other episodes.

When does offering people “friendly guidance” on social media become trolling?  I would make quite a good internet troll: I have the feet and hair for it.