04 Mar 2014
Words Tim Admin

Hack for hire: Have Laptop will travel

It’s almost a year to the day that I walked out of a newsroom for the last time. Forty-three years earlier, I’d walked into one for the first time and I’d still be there now if they hadn’t wheeled barrow loads of redundancy money up and down the corridors shouting ``Anyone want some?’’ So I left the media life and the lifestyle I’d known, in its many forms, for most of my life and went home to the house I share with my partner and her two children. This, obviously, was going to require some readjustment on my part and fortunately my journalistic friends and colleagues were at hand to assist. Most of this assistance came in the form of stories involving people who had died within weeks of ending full time employment. ``Poor Harry,’’ said one. ``Apparently it was depression. He just faded away.’’ ``Poor Bill,’’ mused another. ``His mind turned to jelly within a month. They say he was just a dribbling, mumbling mess when he died.’’ These, apparently, were supposed to cheer me up. Another challenge lay in attempting to convince people that I had not been sacked. ``I took voluntary redundancy,’’ I would say. ``That must be nice for you”, they would reply with a ``he would say that’’ look of knowing disbelief. I could imagine what they were whispering. ``Apparently they caught him stealing the toilet paper from the office washrooms’’ or ``I heard it was because of some dreadful indiscretion involving a dwarf, a donkey and a small furry animal.’’ ``I’m freelancing now,’’ I’d explain. This was interpreted as meaning that I was broke and really had been sacked or that I couldn’t find anyone who would give me a proper job. My partner was still working full time from her home office which meant that occasionally she would wander into that part of the house where I have my desk and ask: ``What are you doing?’’ ``Writing’’ I’d say and she would raise an eyebrow and depart, unconvinced. Then I began to feel guilty that I was not contributing enough to the household. ``I’m thinking of getting a job driving a council bus,’’ I announced one morning. ``Is that wise?’’ she asked. ``You know how you hate most people. You’d just drive straight past them or else only stop for long enough to abuse them.‘’ She was right, of course. More than four decades spent as a journalist had left me extremely selective of the company I chose to keep. ``If I was you,’’ she said, ``I’d stick to the writing.’’ Then there was the financial planner charged with charting my fiscal future who said that if I spent X dollars a year, the money would last until I was 80. ``But what if I live to be 90?’’ I asked. ``Then you can only spend Y,’’ he said. ``And if I die tomorrow?’’ I asked. ``You lose and your beneficiaries win,’’ he said smiling. I then spent a sleepless night trying to work out when I was most likely to die. ``What’s the matter?’’ asked my partner, awoken by my constant tossing and turning. ``I can’t sleep,’’ I said turning on the bedside light. ``I’m trying to work out when I’m going to die so I’ll know how much money to spend. Business class or economy class, French champagne or domestic, the ’78 Grange or the 2013 Jacobs Creek?’’ ``If you don’t turn off the light I can tell you when you are going to die. It will be within the next five minutes,’’ she yelled. ``I wasn’t planning on going quite that soon,’’ I replied, turning off the light. I’ve cruised through the last year writing freelance columns for magazines like this, knowing I’m fortunate that I can keep working. I’ve also wondered how people like my late father coped with their retirement. He worked from the age of 15 and when he turned 65, stopped and did nothing until he died 24 years later. That, I think, must have been more difficult for him than the family ever imagined ``Next year,’’ I announced to my partner, ``I’m open for business’’. ``I’ll alert the media. That news should make headlines around the world,’’ she said. ``I can see them now – MAN DECIDES TO WORK!’’ ``I mean I’m going to pursue work,’’ I said, ``rather than wait it to come to me.’’ ``And just what is it that you are going to do?’’ she asked. ``That’s the tricky part,’’ I said. ``It occurs to me that journalists are uniquely qualified to do very little else other than write but I find myself filled with a sense of optimism for the year ahead.’’ ``Wonderful news,’’ she said. ``And now could you take out the wheelie bins.’’