I can more or less come and go as I please

Temporary work - just a few hours a day at a local company. Not the sort of company that could afford a full time marketing person (the Managing Director told me this at our very informal interview), so I know there is no future to it. I don’t really need the money, but it’s interesting to see how marketing can be developed at this company, and I can more or less come and go as I please.

Most of the morning I worked on accounts, totalling the marketing expenditure and processing all the paperwork before the end of the financial year (which runs July to June). The Accountant, Tony Plumber (late twenties, Birmingham accent, very full of himself) was stung by a note I sent to the MD (on a yellow post-it sticker stuck to my interim report) suggesting some of the marketing budget had been siphoned off for other uses. He came to my alcove swearing and trying to get me to retract my figures, but I was very cool and held my ground (later he came back and apologised saying: “I was right out of order”).

Lunchtime I went to the bank. The weather cooler, with some sunshine. Everywhere seemed soaked after yesterday’s torrential rain.

In the afternoon there didn’t seem much to do so I considered going home (I can set my own hours, filling in a timesheet day by day). Peter Hignet, the yard supervisor (hair so short it is basically just bristles), came up to introduce himself, asking if I was going to do the publicity for all of the company (there’s several different, disparate, units). Later his brother Paul (who works as a sales estimator) came up and we devised a rough draft of copy for a company brochure. We worked very well together, and I soon grasped the essential selling points of the service and put them into order. After about an hour working on the brochure he started telling me about his plans to buy a derelict Methodist chapel and convert it into a home (he is married with two small children, one being disabled). He had put in an offer and was waiting to hear if it had been accepted. He seemed very excited about the project and couldn’t stop talking about it.

Eventually I left at three, later than I intended. Probably I’ll try to limit my temp work to just two or three mornings a week, otherwise it will interfere with everything else I’m trying to do at the moment. On the drive home I listened to the news about the latest arrests in London.