Just back from the doctor’s, where I am given a second gentle grilling by the ADHD specialist in the presence of my GP. He’s delighted that I’ve managed to get down to a new work discipline with the diary, with the help of the sponsorship scheme. It proves I can focus on one thing and get it done, and on a daily basis. Which rather negates any ADHD de facto. That’s one thing cleared up.

I also don’t appear to be quite as depressed any more. They both remark on a real outward change since they last saw me. Well, what can I say? It’s the Diary Angels sponsorship: not charity or benefits but investment in work I can do, work which only I can do, work which I take pride in, and work which I work AT. We’re back to the stadium full of U2 fans who are there out of pity or sarcasm. Less an idea for a comedy sketch, more a philosophical model about the reasons why people part with a little of their money and time for some things, while other things are free.

Some people make sense of their life through anti-depressive drugs, some do so through routine, some with religion and some with the love of a significant other. I’ve tried the first one (and preferred not to), feel the second one isn’t enough, haven’t found a calling for the third, and haven’t had much luck with the fourth. Yet. One thing at a time. But the Diary Angels works for me. It just took me ten years to find out.

Money should never just be meagre compensation for time wasted doing something you hate, which is the way I viewed it while doing all those minimum wage jobs in the past. It should be a due reward for worthwhile work done well.

I’m reminded of a terse conversation with my boss at the Bristol accountancy firm I once worked at. He passed by my desk, dumped a huge amount of documents on it and told me to process them by lunchtime.

I must have pulled an expression of sheer unhappiness.

Boss: What’s the matter?

And then I made a mistake. I gave him an honest answer. Which was the wrong answer.

Me: Um, I’d really rather not do this.

This is an example of my occasional bouts of disastrous honesty. You can either interpret them as a yen for the philosophical, or a touch of Asperger’s, or both. These days, I’m a lot better at this particularly adult game. Every day, I find a new way of politely saying ‘no’ to something without actually saying ‘no’. They should really put it on the school curriculum. But I digress.

Me: Um, I’d really rather not do this.
Boss: (suddenly angry) WELL THAT’S JUST WHY YOU’RE BEING PAID AND NOT DOING IT FOR FREE, THEN, ISN’T IT!

He stormed off, and I was sacked the following week. Which I can understand. The pile of documents didn’t need me and me only to do them. There was no way I could have processed them in a particularly Dickon Edwards style. In fact, I tended to make more mistakes than the average typist, which on statements of figures is particularly crucial. I was bad at my job, and had no desire to become better. I admire all those who can hold down jobs they’d rather not do, but persevere purely for the money. I’m just not one of them.

At our first meeting, the ADHD specialist had suggested that I consider becoming a mature student and get myself an English degree. This would give me a sense of improvement and purpose, bring ‘closure’ to my dropping-out at 17 when I was trying for Oxford or Cambridge, and I could then, he said, work towards becoming a teacher. To be fair this was only on his first impression of me. I have the air of someone who knows about things; hence teaching.

But from my time in the evening class last year, I know I’m just no good in a class environment, whether as student or teacher. I’ve written before about my inclination to befriend the teacher against my fellow students – and how the universe responded at the evening class by sending a teacher who happened to already BE a friend.

As for me teaching, well that WOULD be a comedy sketch. Every third utteration of mine would be something searingly inappropriate or irrelevant. Interesting, certainly. But I would be sacked. Actually, that’s more or less what Richard Griffiths’s character is like in The History Boys. The students have an inspirational figure, but at what cost to him?

Today, I realise there are types of work I CAN do, which people want me to do, and which I want to do. Not typing up accounts for huge companies, badly. Not teaching, badly.

Something like this.

Well.