Whine II

Great. Another day of scraping chewing-gum, picking up rubbish, and humping buckets of dirty water up and down stairs. It's not so terrible, of course-- at least I've got a job-- but I find myself thinking, Is this it? Is this all there's ever going to be?

See, what my current situation brings to mind is this. As a kid I worked my backside off to get my BTec, and then I came out in the middle of a recession and found there was hardly any work for anyone, let alone a 17-year-old with a qualification that nobody's heard of. I spent about three and a half years on the dole, being turned down by fast-food joints. I wrote and wrote in those days, some of it better than others, and all I got was a pile of rejection letters.

And now here I am ten or eleven years on, in virtually the same position. Okay, I'm not on the jam roll anymore but Jesus, I've been at Uni for four years (what with doing a foundation course and all), I'm £20,000 in debt, I don't even have my degree yet, and it looks like I won't be signing up for that OU course anytime soon. And the punchline? The best job I've been able to find is caretaking on a housing estate, which leaves me aching all over by the end of the day and nearly too tired to think, let alone write. In another couple of weeks I won't even have that.

Is this it?