>Chapter 1: I tried to work in a normal job, I really did. Ten years in a bank.
Hi. My name is Sean and I work for myself. It wasn’t always that way, of course. Before that I worked for a bank. I must have been mad.
I left Hull University in 1981. I was 21 years old with a B.Sc. honours degree in Economics, and more usefully, a clean driving license. I don’t think I ever met anybody from University who then actually went into the same subject as a career move. Take Joe for instance. Joe took a degree in American Studies and was always rather vague if you asked him what it was about. As far as I know he has never been to America and possibly never actually spoken to an American. There was Rob; maybe you could count him. He left with a degree in law, but after working as a junior clerk in a law firm for six months, announced that he would rather have third degree burns than do this for the rest of his life. Last I heard he was a civil servant with the Department of Employment. When you have a degree in economics I suppose you gravitate toward employment in the financial sector, which is what I did. I got a job as a graduate trainee with a bank. Most days for the next ten years I went to work feeling like a condemned man. God alone knows why I stuck it so long. In common with my fellow flatmates I had applied for a job with every single brewery in Britain. None of us got as far as the interview stage, but we did get enough rejection letters between us to proudly wallpaper two walls of our common room. A rejection letter from Tetley’s was particularly prized, it being our favourite beer at the time.
When I actually got the job with the bank all my student friends thought it was hilarious. I hadn’t exactly been in financial control when at University. On receipt of my first grant cheque I had opened a bank account with the same local branch that my parents used.
At one point my parents telephoned me to say that the manager had asked them to get me to return my chequebook and cheque guarantee card until I got my spending under control. He said they had written to me on a number of occasions without a response. Well you know what the post can be like sometimes…
I discussed the situation with my good friend and fellow financial reprobate, Nick.
