Written in response to Chris Smyth’s front-page story ‘Wanted: weirdos to shake up Whitehall’, as featured in ‘The Times’, Friday January 3 2020.

 

Dear Dom,

Weirdos wanted.

At last, a job description that calls to me. At last, I am needed. At last, my time – the time of the Silly-Savvy Salopian has come.

So patiently have I waited.

And now?

Now, Dom, you have sent out my calling. My father was called up by God to be a, paid-a-pittance, man-of-the-cloth. And, I? I, Jay Cool, free-range blogger extraordinaire, have been called up by none other than yourself to be a, paid-a-fortune, something that I already am – a weirdo!

Well, here I am! Weird or what (rhetorical question – no public response required)?

Pray, do tell me, Dom, Am I weird enough for Whitehall?

Not convinced? Be good enough to read on, as I address some of the points, or should I say requirements, of the positions you advertise on your blog. You must then repeat back to me, in flattering terms, post by post, point by point, and praise by praise, and piece by piece, my assertions about why I am the perfect candidate and appoint me forthwith.

I begin by addressing your criteria for a perfectly weirder-than-weird Junior Researcher.

You ‘don’t want confident public school bluffers’ who might take objection to the concept of being ‘immediately binned’ (1). This is fab, because I went to a Northern Comprehensive School in a deprived area (does that qualify me or what?) and, in the absence of other means (this is not yet America, after all), I learnt to defend my integrity with a litter grabber.

It did the job.

I survived secondary school; graduated from University with two higher degrees (both, incidentally, funded by European Union grants for debatably ‘bright’ individuals from deprived areas of the UK), and one even being in some weird subject or other related to your own little hobby of Artificial Intelligence; and, against all the odds,…

I’m still here.

Still weird.

And, with the added bonus of a litter-grabber from Poundland, I, Jay Cool, weirdest of the weird, am available for hire!

Just consider my usefulness.

For example, if you just happen to stumble backwards into your own bin of disposable employees (1), I will be there, at your side, ready to pluck you back out.  It’ll be so much fun to watch you dangle from the clutches of my grabber; much like playing a revamped version of my favourite childhood game (remember the Magnetic Fishing Rod Game?). With your financial backing, Dom, we could box my new game up with the name Plucky Office Politics and go all commercial – it’ll be a real money spinner! And the funds will certainly come in handy, when all those wrongful-dismissal claims start clogging up your inbox!

Okay, so I match up to most of the criteria for a Junior Researcher, but I accept that there is a small issue here with regards to age:

It hardly needs pointing out to me that I am not twenty-one (when I don’t look a day over seventeen). But, besides pointing out to you that you really ought to familiarise yourself with age-discrimination legislation (I can help you out there), then I can go years better than that. Not only am I not twenty-one, I am not even double twenty-one; I am twenty-one doubled, plus a big bit. Take me on and you will get two and a bit candidates for the price of one, albeit a very-well paid one (I don’t come cheap).

As for the no-time-for-a-boy-or-girlfriend issue (2), then I rather suspect that after seventeen years of marriage, my Hubby might consider the loss of my constant companionship (and my off-key singing) a blessed relief – that is, until he finds himself required to get hold of a bog brush and start upon the joyful job of cleaning our loos! But, as long as you ban me from receiving text messages from home, then I’m sure that everything will work out just fine!

Just a couple of pointy bits to clarify, however:

• Firstly, are you providing full board and a free education at Eton (no less!) for my teenage sprogs; either that or free 24/7 child-safe internet access for their entertainment in my absence?
• And secondly, have you been fully apprised with regards to sex-discrimination laws, and how they go hand in hand with the usual permitted-working-hours directives?

Putting the above indentations aside (you can do that, as Dominic Cummings, can’t you?), I must move onto my ‘capacity for hard work’ in an ‘extreme environment’. I have worked for twenty-three-undervalued years in the most extreme environment in the most dangerous and underfunded of professions. At one point, in my long and eventful career as an Educator, traumatised by a pension robbery, I even died, revived, found I’d lost a shed-load of years (about twenty-oneish) and made a come-back!

You want Junior? I can give Junior to Senior, and half-way back again!

So take that!

You called?

I, Jay Cool, have answered!

Dom, I’m here.

Looking forward to your hasty response.

Best not to ‘ignore’ me – I am very, very persistent!

Yours (i.e. mine) with the ultimate of weirdness and sincerity,

Jay Cool

 

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, 4th January, 2020

Artwork & Photograph by Jay Cool, 4th January, 2020

 

 

(1) ‘If you play office politics, you will be discovered and immediately binned.’

(2) ‘You will not have weekday date nights, you will sacrifice many weekends – frankly, it will be hard having a boy/girlfriend at all.’

P.S. My applications for all other categories of Slavedom are pending delivery.