Scary jobs

I can't believe I forgot to add a link on the blog to my latest fabulous pdf collection of poems Poems to Quote to your Lover (before and after you fuck) - now corrected, if you look over to the right.

Anyways, on with this post. I haven't written any new poems or short stories; I haven't produced any more oilified photos of my baby kittens; and I haven't had any mad ideas lately. So I suppose I'll have to make up one of those blog game thingies.

Here's the question: Tell us all about three jobs you ran away from.

And to start the ball rolling, here's my answers:

1. I was in the army for 7 weeks. I actually enjoyed being in the army, but unfortunately my repressed sexuality couldn't cope with the all-male environment. If only I'd learned to relax more ...

2. How many people in England remember John Major's Cones Hotline? For those not lucky enough to remember our former Prime Minister's second greatest idea (the greatest idea being the Citizen's Charter, of course), the Cones Hotline was a telephone number which angry drivers could phone up to report gangs of rogue traffic cones roaming across our great nation's motorways (I kid you not!) The job of setting up the Cones Hotline fell to the Highways Agency, or more specifically my line management at the Highways Agency. When I heard of this brave new initiative I knew immediately on whose desk the hotline phone was going to fall. Dear reader, I ran away from the Highways Agency as quick as my stubby legs could carry me!

3. I actually ran to the Department of the Environment (as it was known at the time), landing comfortably in the Waste Directorate, where I was employed in the team responsible for producing the Waste Strategy for England (eventually published in 2000). That job was fun, but all things come to an end. As the date for publishing the strategy grew close, decisions were taken in the Directorate about what we'd be doing after publication. I drew the charred straw, and for three whole, glorious weeks I was the lead policy advisor on waste incinerators and incineration policy. The doors of that building flapped so hard at my departure that they came off their hinges!

So there you go: three jobs I ran away from. Now I want to hear from Scavella, Rob and Julie - tell everyone which jobs you ran away from. Your prize for revealing all on your blogs will be to nominate three other lucky people to play this fun game.