Starting a New Job

Starting a New Job ©

By Michael Casey

My daughter started a new job today, or rather she started as a volunteer at a local Charity shop, so she’ll be working but not getting any pay. Its ood experience of the real world for her. I told her I used to clean toilets and then talk to millionaires, in whatever order. I was everything at the CPNEC Birmingham, I’m very flexible, though not so much now thanks to my arthritis. That’s the thing with a job, be flexible, don’t say it’s not on your job description, though the ardent union people reading this will be angry by my attitude. While people argue the toss mess festers and worse, so I say just be flexible.

Can you remember your 1^st ever job? Mine was walking the streets, yes I was a prostitute, are you shocked or worse? You cannot imagine women wining and dining me etc. Well you are wrong and I’m pulling your leg, but at least I know the measure of my audience my readers. What kind of boy do you think I am? Say Sorry or I’ll stop writing and I’ll never talk to you all again.  Six hours later and you only now say sorry. What were you all doing, you went out to dinner with your girlfriend and then watched the MU match on tv. Then you etc and etc. Ok no need to carry on, well just stop carrying on, this is not a Carry On film. Google Carry On films if you have never heard of them. Carry OnUp the Kyber might be a good start.

Ok so where was I, I was walking the streets, it was first ever job. No I wasn’t a prostitute, I was a MARCH Assessor.  Which means Men Are Right Clumsy Hooligans, ok I’m joking again, it meant Maintenance and Repair and Costing for Highways. Which meant I walked the streets all day. Thankfully I did not walk the streets at night. Though I do have great legs and look good in drag. 

OK, enough of this maybe a bit of that or even the other later, which means something else if English is not your 1^st language, maybe Korean or Polish is your 1^st language. At least learning English with me is much more entertaining than what you learn at school with Miss Smith from Leamington your exchange English teacher. My accent is much nicer, you can tell just by the words on the page. And if you understand that then you are far too good to be reading this you should be a writer.

So there I was with a clipboard in my hand walking all over the Black Country  streets looking at the roads for Wheel Track Deterioration. This is like the marks on the road surface caused by the traffic, eventuation you will get rutting and holes. So by sending an idiot out with a clipboard you can see how worn down the roads are and decide if you need to resurface them. Yes I was that idiot, and it happened to be the hottest summer in decades. One day I walked 26 miles, as much as a Marathon, in 90degrees  plus of heat. My face  changed from white to brown, I have a photo somewhere of me with my new suntan. 

Yes I was young and fit then, years later in Ireland I walked a marathon in a day too, from Killarney to Cromane Lower. Now I’m still fit  but only with  encouragement. As I talk to you I again realise I am Ronnie Corbett and Joyce Grenfell’s lovechild, but maybe you have to be a Radio 4 producer to recognise that. But I’ll work  for Capital Radio too, if they are inspired enough to use my 1200 or so short pieces.

Walking the streets meant I learnt the value of good shoes and decent socks, and of washing my feet as soon as I got home. Just as my dad did, though he came home from Hell every day, a 400degree+ steel works, the District Iron and Steel in Brasshouse Lane Smethwick. This was another thing that bonded me and my dad, we did physical work.

You get strong legs if you walk all day, ask any policeman or prostitute you may know, both would be arresting experiences, but I jest. Little did I know that I’d spend a lot of my life on my feet running around. In computer rooms and print rooms, or all around the hotel CPNEC Birmingham. Though all this standing DID save my life because when I needed veins I had them in my strong legs ready to be transferred to my heart for my unplanned quadruple heart bypass. So was God saving my life by having me walk and stand all my life? And as a writer I have to be quick on my feet to get the words on the page all lined up like soldiers to march across the page and into your hearts and minds. Then again I could just be talking a load of silk stockings, like I wear for 50 Shades of Michael.

All this started with me talking  about  my first job, now our worker has just returned home and I’ll ask her how her day went. I might help her celebrate by buying Dr.Pepper, she will be Dr.Casey in future after all.