For free

Having given up on trying to secure the kind of paid part-time work I’d really like to do – helping people in a variety of contexts, basically – I’ve moved on to the world of unpaid work. My first port of call, or rather airport of call, was Bristol Airport and I really fancied this job. I like meeting and helping people, I love being at the airport for reasons that probably make no sense to people who don’t and I have a half-decent knowledge of what’s going on. Given the problems some people have had this year, I thought I could do some good. This was, it seems, not a view shared by Bristol Airport.

On 13th July 2022, I wrote to the airport offering my services in exchange for no money, but I received no reply. So, on 2nd August 2022, I sent them a reminder. Today, 1st September, and I have had not so much as an acknowledgment. I think it’s safe to say my services are not required.

This isn’t good for a fragile ego like mine, full of self-loathing, caused at least in part by failure in the professional world. The only thing I can is hope that something went wrong with their system, not that they took one look at my application and thought, “Well, he’s no good.” But I don’t and can’t know that. And due to the aforementioned feelings of self-loathing and professional failure, I can only conclude they didn’t want me, even for nothing.

If at first you don’t succeed, then the only thing to do is apply for something else to not succeed at and to this end I have now applied to work at a food bank, once again and obviously for free. I do so with great trepidation because during my ill-fated job at the British Red Cross, I took a number of service users to food banks and although I found the entire experience dispiriting and upsetting, I knew it was an essential service. Today, it is more essential than ever. I’ll let you know how this one goes.