2003-02-27 10:16 pm

Timechange

Today they offered me a job as a postman.

I took it.

"I sent you a letter," said the woman from resources. "Did you get it?"

"No."

"You didn't get it?"

I thought I had been fairly unequivocal. To persuade her I decided to sound less sure of myself.

"No, I mean it didn't come this morning so..."

That worked.

"I sent it special delivery," she said.

"I'll phone you if it doesn't arrive tomorrow."

"Do that. You want the job, though?"

"Yes."

It means a soul shrivelling five am start, six days a week. The sort of thing that Calvin's dad would say "builds character".

I tried it once, just as an experiment. It sets you apart from everyone else. You move to a different beat, stuck in a different timetable. I walked about town, feeling as if I was only a visitor in a strange world of people who had not been awake for seven hours like I had.

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