Thomas and I are in our 50s. We travel around Australia with our English staffy, Beni. We stop and work, save some money, travel, repeat. We have been living on the road in our caravan for over three years, and are loving the lifestyle.

I see that both MI5 (Domestic Terrorism) and MI6 (Overseas Operations) are openly advertising for new recruits via the internet and broadsheet newspapers, in a break from the tradition of selecting their new intake from public schools and top universities. I guess that it had to happen; if you keep plumbing the depths of only certain institutions, you eventually get to the dregs, and who really wants our security safeguarded by second-raters?

I have a new job writing about conspiracy theories… Or, do I? Maybe it’s actually that I have been selected to do it by The Illuminati, that well-known international group of world domineers, who want to get me off the scene in case I ask too many awkward questions. Perhaps the job was put up only on my version of the freelance website that I use—it must be pretty easy to do, with known IP addresses—so that I pick it up and not look too closely at the fact that the world is owned by The Illuminati! Perhaps I’m just paranoid.

**I wrote the following over a span of hours between 10:00 PM on 9/5/2019 and 2:30 PM 9/6/2019, with nap breaks and snacks between.

I have upset my house painter. I have. I didn’t mean to, I just needed to have something done very fast, because I only have a 26-hour turn around. Did I insist that he did it? No. That’s not me. Even if I pay you, I often feel very bad asking you to do what I pay you to, because, polite. Yes, this makes no sense. Most of the time people want to do what they’re hired to do. I have been in a couple of careers where I’ve done a lot of things for free, because I was so desperate to do it one day for money. No, I was not a prostitute. Have I been treated like an unpaid prostitute at work? Sure. But that’s a very different story. I worked in my career choices for free sometimes, because I wanted to be in a friend’s project, I wanted them to be in mine, or it was just plain fun.

With my awkward social skills, it’s no surprise to most people that I work in retail. When you go shopping, you can almost always bet that you’ll run into an incompetent sales person when you need help. Or, frankly, you don’t want anyone to talk to you. This I can understand as a shopper, because I don’t need your help finding a piece of clothing that’s going to look good on my awkwardly-shaped body. That’s basically a fruitless effort. The answer is nothing, so don’t lead me to the trendy oversized tee shirts, or the ripped mom jeans that don’t hug in any of my good places. My sales persona is a completely different beast. I’m going to bug you about all of your deepest desires and passions, all while wearing a beautiful smile on my face that is only genuine about 50 percent of the time. Good days usually afford me a confrontation or two. I’m going to start telling you about them. While I do my best to not say no to my customers, there are sometimes where you’ll catch me doing the job I am more than happy to be doing.

It's Monday. I've gone for a walk, had a smoothie for breakfast, and I settle into my home office to make my list for my work day. Sounds good and balanced, looks productive, but one simple task tumbles into another, and one on top of that, and then circled back, oh and remembering to not forget—and I seem to 'and' my day away.

Eight months ago I was made redundant—it was day 18,919 of my life and I was now redundant. Well, I didn't become redundant, but my job did. During this time, it's been a struggle to find work and I’ve only worked a total of about 13 weeks before recently landing a short-term contract.

Who out there is a terrible procrastinator when they have free time on the weekends? We’ve got work to do, freelance projects, self-imposed deadlines, and plenty of other obligations.

The shrill ring of the office telephones echo through the dusty cubicle space. The employees, bundled at their desks drinking already cold coffee, curse the maintenance man who still hasn't fixed the air conditioning unit. The pens with the click-y tops... they've been depleted. "Wh-W-Where... are... they?"

Looking for a new job is like dating. For some people, dating and searching for jobs is an exciting enterprise. For me, both are tedious and soul-crushing. Whichever kind of person you are, it’s easy to see the parallels between searching for a new job or a new partner.

This is my first post on here, so I'll introduce myself. I'm Sam and I sell on eBay. I always write things down, but no one ever sees it. So, I've come on here. People may never see it still but I feel like it's got a bigger audience opportunity than my bedside table drawer!