diary of a desperate jobseeker

After crawling along the M42 a couple of times, I realise that driving for a living is not an option I could contemplate

After transporting myself across to the other side of the country, I am confronted, not surprisingly, by a new set of problems. Chief among these is that although the company is of plc status, it will not employ its workers for more than 19 hours a week, so that it avoids national insurance contributions, sick pay and holidays. Consequently, I need huge numbers of people who turn up for three or four hours at the most and then vanish. Not the ideal way to achieve the required productivity.

By coincidence I'm rereading Charles Dickens's Hard Times at the moment. Obviously, the situation for workers has improved markedly since then but the spirit of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown is still alive and well in parts of British industry. Still, I've only two more weeks here and then it becomes someone else's problem.

Watched my daughter row at a local regatta at the weekend. The public address system announced that someone had handed in a pair of "Rayburn" sunglasses - this is a country area - much to the amusement of the spectators.

I hadn't been to the regatta for five or six years, so naturally I ran into lots of old friends. Hardly any of them were doing the same jobs as when last we met. The ones who had worked for large organisations had either become disillusioned or axed. Either way, they were now on their own, having sold their large houses, cleared their debts and opted for a saner, if less profitable, life. This might not be an option if you live in negative equity land. The rest were mainly farmers and they keep farming come what may.

Having been used to cycling to my previous factory, I now have to tackle a five-hour drive on a Monday morning. After crawling along the M42 a couple of times, I realise that driving for a living is not an option I could contemplate. Still, with nothing permanent on the horizon, it looks like a change of direction beckons. I'm getting lots of encouragement to work on the writing but is there really a living there? I stand in awe of people like Miles Kington who write something amusing every day.

Finally, as this is my last diary, I would like to thank all the people who have taken the trouble to write to me. I promise I will write to those who haven't had a reply.

This is the last of David Kinsey's diaries. The author is now taking a creative writing course through the Open University.