Every job I've ever lost

Dear littérateurs, welcome to the first volume of my new regular newsletter, featuring extracts from my upcoming autobiography, Shocked and Appalled: Memoirs of a Serious Literary Author, due for publication in 2099.

While I find writing to be a deeply nourishing act, sadly I also need to eat. Therefore, this newsletter will live behind the paywall, exclusively for paying littérateurs. Thank you for your Serious Literary Understanding (SLU).

As a Serious Literary Author, all I wish to do is write. However, in order to pay the bills, I have at several points throughout my life been forced to seek Non-Literary Employment, or, as it is more colloquially known, a ‘job’. This is, of course, a deeply unwelcome state of affairs for an SLA. Time spent working is time not spent writing, which is physically painful for me. Ultimately, intellectually and spiritually, I like to think I am above having a job, and that this explains why I have been fired from every job I have ever had.

I procured my first job at the age of fourteen. This was on the advice of my parents, and against my better judgement (my judgement remains better than theirs in all regards). On enquiring about open positions at the shop in my home village of Cherry Burton, I was offered the position of Paper Boy, a distribution role involving newspapers and a bicycle.

I immediately started negotiating the terms of employment, demanding that the rate be increased from £10 per week to an annual salary of £40,000, and the job title be changed to Paper Man. Unfortunately I faced pushback on both counts.