Friday 28 January 2011

My Back Pages










I
read a story the other day about three American airmen who crash-landed in the Pacific during World War II. They were hundreds of miles from the nearest base, and way off anyone’s flight path, except for stray Japanese fighter, who strafed them repeatedly with machine gun fire.

They also had to contend with sharks, starvation and thirst. But their worst enemy was one of their number. Two were veterans of many missions; one was a rookie and a stranger to their companions.

Adrift in an open rubber life raft, their faces burned and cracked in the unforgiving sun. Their rations of water and food were mostly lost in the crash, so they had to be creative with the remaining food. One of the experienced men took charge; he divided a bar of chocolate into squares – one for each day. Water again was rationed to a sip a day.

But the shock of being shot down and their awful predicament was too much for the rookie. He ranted and raved, until he became sick. He consumed the energy of his stronger companions. And because they were selfless men, they cared for him. They forgave him when he stole and ate their last squares of chocolate. Forced to watch him quaff their last drop of water; they resisted the urge to cast this liability adrift. They cared for him until he died.

Rescue did come in the end, but the psychological cost must have been terrible.

My Back Pages is a Bob Dylan song from 1964, it’s commonly thought as a rejection of his protest singer guise. Where he sets adrift his young self with the line "Ah, but I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now"

And within that line there is a solution to my predicament. I’ve been unemployed for two years now. Managed to do one days real paid work in all that time, and lost a whole weeks worth of benefits in the process. I’ve had interviews with people who claim to have a business, but meet me secret-agent style in a hotel lobby. Travelled a hundred miles for a week, only to find there was no job and no pay at the end of it. The DWP refused to reimburse my £200 travelling expenses. So much for “getting on your bike” Mr Duncan-Smith.

I have applied for so many jobs, that the whole process has become a bodily function. I shave, I piss, I eat my breakfast, I apply for jobs. And no matter how shit the job is, I get a big fat zero in return. The truth is, every year another hundred thousand or so IT people join the workforce, and what was once a specialist skill, has become commonplace. There’s a glut of unemployed IT people, so employers can name their price and be extremely picky. They are choosing young and cheap, which rules people like me out.

It’s time to cast my old self adrift. I can’t be as selfless as those World War II airmen, and I can’t watch my old self wither and die. I’m going to cast him adrift, like Bob Dylan did back in ’64.

Goodbye IT, it was nice knowing you, but I have to move on.