Relief

It's good to be back. The dust has settled and I feel a bit calmer. I'm not sure why the past few days seemed so stressful but that's how I felt. My last day at work at the Mail was a nightmare (see below) and that coupled with the uncertainty of not knowing if I would get any more work there contributed to my feeling a bit down. As I outlined yesterday, my interview went pretty well. I hadn't mentioned it before mainly because I hadn't given it so much thought. I was so clued up about my business that I applied on the spur of the moment and forgot about it. Once I was in there though and the boss was outlining his plans and hopes for the future of the company I felt quite involved. I guess he is where I want to be five or ten years down the track. He has would-be investors beating a path to his door but he is staying independent, trying to build the company up the way he sees fit. I know that if I am offered a position there I will take it. The money is so-so, about £25k, but with a bonus scheme on top of that. While that may mean scaling back on my own enterprise I think I have to do it. They work almost exclusively in business communications and I think there is a lot I can learn about marketing etc. He was certainly a pretty passionate bloke and very interested to learn about me, my experiences, my approach to writing. When he asked what constituted good writing for me, I said 'being able to communicate ideas or messages clearly and simply but without sacrificing the shades of grey'. Or something along those lines. We talked about how tabloid journalism differs from quality and I explained that it takes more skill to work for The Sun than it does for The Guardian which he found interesting.
I was very honest from the outset and said I was actually hoping to start a company myself doing something quite similar. I told him how I'd approached some organisations already and gotten some feedback. It was difficult to guage his reaction to that but hopefully he will see it as a sign of initiative on my part. It turns out that we'd both approached Tivoli Gardens with a pitch for work. Surely that must put me in credit?! Maybe he's thinking to himself: 'We'd better get this guy on board? He's a maverick, he'll be taking our business before you can say Jack Robinson!' A more likely scenario though is he saw me out the door and thought: 'Crikey, what a brown-nose. Andrew Fucking Mehrtens.'
Incidentally, I do have more work at the Mail. Getting there was a bit of a palaver though. I rang up and spoke to the chief sub and briefly explained my position, i.e, living in Denmark etc. (Because he was off sick for so long he had no idea.) Anyway, he was extremely surprised that I'd been commuting and asked what my long-term plans were. I lied and said they I had none and I was happy to keep coming back as and when they needed me but as long as I was getting six shifts a time. He said that was good as it meant I wasn't forcing his hand. So we agreed I'd come back next week and do Weds, Thurs, Fri and then Sun, Mon, Tues. Then Anne came back and reminded me we had tickets for a concert on Friday. So I had to ring back and make up some bullshit about going to my mother-in-laws for the weekend. We both started getting increasingly flustered. Dates were getting bandied around. I said I'd come back next Saturday and start work on Sunday and I could do the whole week if they needed. He said 'OK darling.' I did not quite know what to say to that and I wasn't convinced he knew what Sunday I meant but hey ho. At any rate, I've booked my flight and I'll be turing up for work at 3pm next Sunday. Whether or not they're expecting me is a different kettle of fish.