MONDAY: I’ve got a new job, so this is the last time I’ll be doing the diary. If my line manager found out, it’d be instant dismissal. The private sector’s tougher on stuff like that. Shareholders, it seems to me, are just very horrible versions of taxpayers. So. Things have taken a slightly ironic turn. One door closed when the Department for Education downscaled its strategic thinking capability, and sacked me up the arse. Another door opened, however, when the Department for Education immediately upscaled its PFI blue sky leaseback operation. I was offered a short-term contract post by PRAXIS VISION LOGISTICS. I’m working in an appropriated room just down the corridor from where I filled my binbag a few days ago.
TUESDAY: Ha, ha, brilliant. Our “going forward thinking unit” has to make a presentation to Scary Paula - my fearsome, loathsome former boss. But she has no real power over me any more; I’m out of her chain of command. In the private sector, baby. God, the YEARS of verbal, occasionally physical, abuse. Yeah, I’m looking forward to “presenting her with some ideas”, and to telling her in frank terms exactly what I think of her. Our brief for the presentation, by the way, is simple: bring the Big Society and educational reform together in one dazzling populist concept.
WEDNESDAY: We freestyle some memes. Educational Society ... Big Reform. Gah, rubbish. Then it occurs to me that maybe the high street is a useful template. Lots of shops boarded up - the Broken Britain inherited by this Government? Now plucky small businesses, some of them perhaps run by Apprentice-style entrepreneurs in haircuts, are fighting back, inspired by political leadership ... What about, I suggest, a Broken Britain Closing Down Sale? Then initiatives could be garish posters in the window: “Our Biggest Society Ever! Everything Must Go!” We could have pictures of The Gove as an insurance salesman, promising: “A Free School With Every Policy Bought!” Scary Paula leaves early, missing my sarcasm.
THURSDAY: Aha. There she is, clattering down the hall like the Angel of Death, terminating a phone call in no uncertain terms. I need a word with you, I say. Good work yesterday, she says. It’s about time you knew exactly what I think of you, I say. You’d better be careful, she says. I love you, I say. I’ve always loved you.
FRIDAY: Moving into uncharted territory. I have a feeling that things just might actually be OK in the end. Nothing lasts forever, not even a coalition Government, so who knows about me and Paula? It’s all a bit scary. I’m trying not to think too cleverly or strategically about anything at the moment. Bye!
This final instalment of Inchworm was intercepted by Ian Martin.
