Soup of the Day

The Third Way

Part one : The road to the North

With the nights drawing in a lot sooner and the seasons changing from summer to winter, completely skipping autumn this year, the simple fact that 2006 has almost run its course is getting hard to avoid. A week ago the sun set at 18:00, now it is 17:00. One week ago the temperature at night was a nice twelve degrees C, now it is minus two. I haven’t noticed such a sudden change of seasons for a long time and it makes me feel rather uncomfortable. But I do not want to continually moan about the weather as it is something the British do far to often. Instead I want to talk about following your heart and listening to your stomach.

In November 2005, the weather was similar with the first spots of snow falling over the Pennine peaks. At the time I was working for a visualisation company in Sheffield, whose name I shall not mention for fear of giving them unearned notoriety. I had been employed in their service for eleven months prior to this cold November, and a long eleven months they were. During the beginning of the summer I had moved to Manchester with my girlfriend. This was a bold statement of distaste with Sheffield and also subliminally a small step away from the company I found myself employed with.

I am never quite sure why and how I ended up working for the visualisation company, but I am sure that money had something to do with it. All the warning signs where there from the beginning, but at the time of the interview I was still in a strange trance lingering from months of not working and the grief for my late father. It was another year earlier in November 2004 that I had travelled the 200 miles from Colchester to Sheffield for the interview. Dazzled with the rhetoric from the managing director and the notion of being able to work on a television show, I failed to notice the constant empty promises and slimy attitude clearly on display. Returning to Colchester I was pretty nonchalant about the proceedings and much more interested in getting home. Moving to the north was an attractive idea, I had worked and lived in London and it wasn’t easy. But Sheffield was not what I had in mind, Manchester maybe, but not Sheffield.

Two hours after walking through the door I was offered the job. I decided to defer for 24-hours so I could think about this and put it in perspective. The 24 hours quickly passed and the ultimatum was upon me once more. Needless to say I took the job. Once again I state that I am not sure why I took the job, but it probably had something to do with the following.
In November 2004 my bank account was almost empty, whereas three months earlier it was healthy at over ten-thousand pounds. This large sum of money I had inherited from my Grandfather two years earlier and had intended to travel the world with, but when my father died in May 2004 and I thought it would be more appropriate to spend it all and live without working. It was fun while it lasted but the end was clearly in sight by November.

To blame or attribute another person to ones own personal life defining decisions is dangerous, if not a little irresponsible. Bear this in mind when I say that besides the financial incentives, there was also a girl involved in my decision making as there invariably is in a young man’s life. Having got to know Siân over the past three months properly whilst living as a vagabond in Colchester, I had grown to like her more than casual friends should. In the weeks leading up to November I used to go out to the bar she worked in to buy a drink, then sit at the bar and chat with Siân for hours. It started out as innocent socialising on a quiet Tuesday night but quickly grew to a weekly event that I would not miss for rain or snow. It became obvious to me that there was more than just good company keeping me coming back. So by accepting a job far away in Sheffield I could make a move on Siân and if it all went terribly wrong as it usually did with me, then I could run away and save myself from the shame in Colchester. It didn’t go wrong as I had foreseen, but the atmosphere was right for a move.

I moved to Sheffield, started working in January 2005 and then was thrown out in December 2005. ‘Hang on a minute?’, I hear you cry. ‘What about the eleven months in-between?’
Unfortunately those eleven months were rather dull, a few key events stuck out but I was generally unhappy with my job and was looking for a way out after four months of being there.

The idea of handing in my notice with no job to go to scared me, but looking back now it is exactly what I should have done. I was (and still am) young and would quickly find a new job if it was required. I had no commitments and could have survived a few months with no money. So to throw caution to the wind and resign was technically a real possibility. But I couldn’t see that. In November 2005 Siân and I did the unthinkable and put an offer on a flat in Manchester, which effectively sealed me into my employer until the deal went through.

In an amazing case of tragic irony in ancient Greek proportions, a few days after paying the deposit for our new flat I was forced to resign. I did so without hesitation. Strange it may seem, but it was better to be gone from the company that depressed me greatly than to grovel for a job I hated anyway. It was a rude awakening to life, but a much needed one. Everything was suddenly up in the air, the new flat was in danger of falling through and living in Manchester was probably not going to be a reality any more. There were three weeks until Christmas, eight-hundred pounds left in the bank and no sign of any more in the near future. After much thought, I decided to wait until the new year before I started looking for work.

— End of part one —

You can read part two next Wednesday 8th November.