A Nine Day Wonder?

The sprint finish

Yes, nine working days to go until I retire, or change careers as I am trying to convince myself. Will writing on Medium count as a career I wonder, or be more of a hobby, perhaps akin to a gambling habit? Time will tell.

Earnings on Medium seem erratic, to put it mildly, with an algorithm more fickle than a swing voter in a marginal constituency. One moment you are having your time in the sun, the next it is like you have fallen through a trap door into the depths of a Medium dungeon. I have considered a sacrifice to appease the Medium gods, but apparently ponies don’t count.

After over 40 years in a 9–5, I am due to jump ship on 20th March to join the ranks of the self-employed or possibly unemployed, depending on how you see it. Soon I will have the joys of a tax return and sorting out my own IT issues that I have been warned about, along with the temptations of Netflix and procrastination, my main leisure interests, apart from playing the accordion to annoy Mrs. Pearce.

I met my replacement last week, who was keen and enthusiastic, as new people are until their probationary period expires. So it is good to know that the residents I have been looking after in my current day job will be in safe hands. However it is several months before he can start, so my colleagues will have to cover my job in the interim. Not ideal, but also not my problem. Those covering will get an idea how much (or more worryingly how little) I do.

Funnily enough, it turns out my replacement also used to work for Bristol City Council, in the same building (I did a year’s temporary contract there) and knew some of the same people, so it was fun to compare notes.

Part of the induction week at that council used to include taking people onto the roof of one of the tower blocks to give you a view of the city, which was not ideal for someone scared of heights. I think the idea was to impress new recruits with the extent of the council’s empire, though given how close some of the blocks are to falling down, it may have been hubris on their part (residents of one block were recently evacuated for several months due to structural defects).

My other memory of Bristol was nearly being savaged by a pair of Staffies off the lead in one of the parks. Happy days. My job there was in the “Performance Management Team”, which is slightly ironic given my attitude to work, and also something of an oxymoron when local government in the UK is involved. The colleagues were lovely though. All my carefully-honed skills of looking busy by carrying a file at all times, and having complex-looking spreadsheets open were put to the test, though I did produce some very impressive-looking graphs.

So on to the new venture. The old skills of how to look busy will be redundant here. It is (non) payment by results, a brand to build, a niche to exploit, earnings to weep over. On the good days, Medium raises the spirits and opens possibilities, on the others I have rarely been so glad of a local government pension, the compensation for all those years of commuting and daily grind.

I sometimes see younger writers considering making the jump to full-time writing on Medium, and advise them. to keep writing as a “side-hustle” as I think it is termed by Gen Z. Scribbling for a living seems too precarious, particularly in these days of AI-generated content swamping the platform.

Who needs writers when you can press a button and generate a chapter in seconds? I saw earlier this week that Amazon has limited people to publishing a maximum of three books a day. Work that one out! (It is just possible the books are not entirely written by humans).

Thank you to everyone who has supported my work on Medium so far. The community on Medium has been an unexpected bonus. Writing can be a solitary pursuit, so finding other addicts has been very rewarding, in terms of mutual support, if not financially.

As always, thank you for reading.

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