Curriculum Vitæ: a working life story, Chapter 24: “Tell me about a time you worked with a difficult person.”

[Previous chapter] [The Tech Agency: February – April 2017 (a couple of weeks)]

The penultimate significant writing Job in my Freelance Career prior to The Midlife Crisis that prompted me to begin this Curriculum Vitæ was for The Tech Agency that Wife # 1 had Worked for Irregularly since we both went Freelance, five years prior, in 2012. They provided Technical Services and Solutions (i.e. websites, apps, etc.) to other Agencies, and direct to Clients. I’d rewritten their Website Copy for them once back in 2013, and then again in 2015; and the sentence above that begins “They provided” is the closest I’ve got to explaining their offering in terms that tech Laymen—among whom I number myself—might actually understand. 

I’d also done some editing and ghost-writing of articles to help them find new business. And edited blog-posts that their Staff had written for The Company Website, so that people who weren’t fluent in several coding languages might also be able to understand those—if, for some unfathomable reason, they happened to end up reading them. But this new Job they had for me was different. They’d somehow ended up building a website for a Gym-Food Start-Up. There was some writing and editing Work required for the Content side of it, and they had no-one In-House to tackle that sort of thing. While Wife # 1 had gone back to getting regular Work from her pre-[Redacted] Job Contacts, I was frantically trying to finish editing The Novel, which had by then ballooned to in excess of 1,000 pages in length. But because, in February 2017, The Tech Agency asked Wife # 1 in the first instance, instead of me, it turned out that I was in fact Free to do The Gym-Food Start-Up Job that spring. So that’s what I did.

The role

This Job was only a couple of day’s worth of Work, in truth, Prospective Employer. And the fact that I'm giving it its own chapter (in which I've already described it as "significant") is, as you will surely be coming to recognize, indicative of the general state of my Freelance Writing Career by this Juncture. The Gym-Food Start-Up already had a Beta Website, which gave a garbled impression of their Brand and Product in a half-formed, somewhat jetlagged Tone-of-Voice; and The Tech Agency already had a Dummy Website with new draft (or placeholder) copy for a Homepage, an About Us page, an Our Story page, and Sales/Product pages. It already had a lot of writing on it—far too much, if anything—so they just needed someone to whip it into shape, cut away the excess calories, and leave it lean, muscular, and sales-oriented. (Yum!)

As with a lot of start-ups, the people running this Start-Up had very particular ideas about how things ought to be done, and weren't afraid to spend other people's money in order to get those things done in that particular way. So even though they were based in The City of Angels, quite literally thousands of miles away, they’d decided they'd better come all the way to The Great Wen to Meet the Technical Lead who was responsible for delivering their Website. Which meant that I had to go all the way to The Great Wen (which probably took me about as long as it took them) so that I could be in that Meeting Room when they Met. So in February 2017 I took a train down to meet with the Bossman and The Technical Lead from The Tech Agency, and to see their rented office in The Great Wen, which only had a couple of people in it because most of them—very sensibly—Worked From Home. The guys from The Gym-Food Start-Up were supposed to be there 30 minutes later. So I sat about in the lobby, waiting for them; reading and re-reading their Beta Website, and The Dummy Website, and looking at the time on my phone, and calculating exactly how much I was being Paid for doing nothing as another 30 minutes slipped by, and The Gym-Food Start-Up guys failed to materialize.

I was charging £300 a day on this Job. Which works out at about £18.75 per half-hour. Sitting about in the lobby was a great way to make £18.75—for the first half-hour. But after the third one I really felt like I’d rather be at Home, earning nothing, and Working on The Novel. The Start-Up guys eventually arrived (although “rocked up” seems somehow more appropriate) a cool three hours late, just as we were about ready to give up on the day. Long flight. Jetlag. They were really tired. They’d had to relax in their hotel for a while and have a meal, and a few drinks, and a swim, and a quick workout, and a nap… Yeah. Cool.

I’d already read a bit about the main Gym-Food Start-Up guy; or the guy who was the main guy in the Our Story section of the website, at least. So I had half an idea of what to expect. He was Scandinavian—they were both Scandinavian—and he was a semi-pro bodybuilder who’d once started a gym in Central Europe with Dolph Lundgren. So far, so LA. In person what became immediately apparent was that he was enormous. Spiky bleached hair. Indeterminate age. Looked like he’d been poured into a mould and then baked for three hours too long, and that his stylist could have been either a lottery-millionaire golfing grandad, or an over-enthusiastic toddler. We’ll call him Knut. 

“Did you see The Superbowl last night?” asked Knut, all teeth and tan.

“No, actually I—”

Knut had already turned around to talk to somebody else. (Had they watched the Superbowl last night? Evidently they had.) That was the first and last thing Knut said directly to me for the duration of our brief acquaintance. His buddy, who we’ll call Harthaknut, was about—yep—half a Knut, in terms of physical size; but he probably weighed about a quarter of one. I idly wondered whether Hathaknut doubled as something to bench-press when Knut was caught short at baggage reclaim. During initial exchanges I gathered that Harthaknut, if either of them, was The Brains of The Outfit. He was Knut’s nephew or son-in-law or something, and a professional hairdresser in his own right back in The City of Angels. But Harthaknut moonlit (or sunlit, or, I was beginning to suspect, possibly gaslit) as Brand Guy and COO of The Gym-Food Start-Up. He’d come up with the (very LA) Name of the Product, and was also responsible for the Branding on the Website, banged out on an iPad in a private jet somewhere over Texas one morning, while hungover and/or high. High or not, they were both hungover when they turned up to our (by now) early-evening meeting—and, boy, didn’t Knut keep going on about it...

The purpose of that first meeting was ostensibly just to introduce everyone to each other. I never worked out why I needed to be introduced to any of them. But Knut spent a lot of time going on about the various Investors’ Meetings he’d been to lately, and what round of Funding “we” were on, and how much Money they’d already got Invested, and how much of that they’d already haemorrhaged—eye-watering amounts, it transpired; as strongly implied by The Transatlantic Trip they’d made for a Meeting about a Website, only to then not bother turning up On Time for it. The more Knut talked though, the more I warmed to him. He was an undeniably Charismatic guy; and even though I’d no proof that either he or Harthaknut were On To A Winner with their allegedly new gym food product offering, I could well imagine how their combined odd-couple charisma, their endearing northern European accents, and their quirky personalities could be successfully deployed to part a wealthy but clueless American Investor from a wodge of digital dollars.

The product was a packet-based meal—or rather, a choice of about four or five different packet-based meals, containing a set number of calories (from 250 to 500). The Gym-Food Start-Up ethos was that only by using The Gym-Food could you be sure of consuming fewer calories than you burnt, in order to lose weight or achieve your fitness goals—which were, let’s face it, probably to lose weight. Unless they weren’t, in which case you’d need to consume more calories than you burnt in order to gain weight; in which case, you probably wouldn’t need much help from A Packet-Based Meal because you could simply devour An Entire Roast Chicken each lunchtime—while standing up in the Staff kitchen—like that bodybuilder guy at The DIY Company used to. The packet-based meals were organic, and could be enjoyed (or certainly eaten) hot or cold. And they didn’t even need to be kept in the fridge—unless, for personal reasons, you wanted to enjoy (or eat) them cold. Knut insisted that the Product was Unique because of the combination of the aforementioned factors. It was (at that Time, according to Knut) the only Organic Packet-Based Food Product that you didn’t have to keep in a fridge (but could if you wanted to). I wasn’t sure about all this, Prospective Employer. I was getting quite into Huel at that time—a “nutritionally complete” powder that you shake in a bottle with water to create what can legally be described as A Meal, but which would probably be agreed by most DIY-savvy folk to more closely resemble grout. It was convenient when Working Away From Home; certainly it ensured I couldn’t gain weight, by being absolutely repulsive in every conceivable sense—and, unlike a sandwich, it didn’t matter if I sat on it. I couldn’t really imagine replacing my “liquid lunch” with what looked like an Aldi ready-meal. But then, I gathered I was far from Knut’s target audience. And I reckoned I could live with that.

The Tech Agency put me up for the night in A Business Hotel near the bar where I’d had my first date with Wife # 1 back in 2009. Eight long years ago! My room was functionally grim, and came with a trouser-press I’d no idea how to use. But I couldn’t stay with my father, because he’d by then retired from the Career he hated and gone to live in North Wales with his partner, in a flat with a view across the sea to The Villa we’d lived in as a family 20 long years ago. I could have stayed with Wife # 1’s sister—where Wife # 1 often stayed when she worked in The Great Wen—but I couldn’t possibly turn down the opportunity to experience what could technically be called A Business Trip; not least because I suspected such offers were unlikely to be forthcoming on a regular basis at any time in my life thereafter. Yes: the Gym-Food Start-Up was actually paying for my room. (Or, more accurately, I suppose, their Investors were paying.)

I sat on my hotel bed and ate some free shortbread and listened to Jackie Leven via Spotify on my headphones, thinking about how Jackie Leven had tweeted about sitting in a hotel room eating shortbread only months before his untimely death, back in 2011. After dinner I went out to meet Boots for drinks. But I forgot to have any actual dinner. (Accidentally on purpose? That would-have-been dinner being Huel...) Boots had finally left The Great Wen for The City by The Bridge, where, as part of The MA Course, I’d first Experienced the Work I was finally now doing Professionally (sort of). Boots still Worked in The Great Wen regularly, because he was an important civil servant or something. I strongly suspected my early-morning meeting wouldn’t be taking place as planned at nine; but it was Sunday, so we only had three, and I ate a modest-sized kebab on the walk back to The Business Hotel.

When I got back, I couldn’t resist another drink in the bar; purely for the enjoyment of looking, or at least feeling, like A Successful Businessman after a Hard Day's Business. I ordered a single whisky, the same brand that soured my relationship with The Language Consultancy three years ago (which felt like three weeks ago; where was all this life going in such a hurry?). It cost about eight quid, and they poured such a pathetic measure that it almost disappeared when I inhaled. Almost as good as the stuff I got from Aldi: a bottle for the price of a double measure of this. I tried to recall the whisky’s Target Audience, as revealed in the scant notes I received by way of a brief for that doomed job… Something like: hard-working, entrepreneurial, optimistic guys, 25–40; keen to make a positive mark on the world. Well, if that didn’t describe me, Prospective Employer, I didn’t (and don’t) know what did.

Next morning I got to The Office at 8:15am, only slightly dehydrated. Knut and Harthaknut didn’t arrive until 4:30pm. Big night last night! Jetlag. They were really tired. They’d had to relax in their hotel for a while and have a meal, and a few drinks, and a swim, and a quick workout, and a nap. Another meal… Coo. Yeah. The Second Meeting lasted about an hour and nobody spoke directly to me, or even specifically about me. I asked Harthaknut some questions about the Brand and Tone-of-Voice afterwards, eagerly scribbling down whatever he mumbled onto my A4 jotting pad in a vain attempt to justify the last 48 hours of my Working Life. Harthaknut seemed pretty confident that I’d got the gist of the Brand—or at least keen for me to leave him alone. (Same thing, really.)

I went Home on the train that evening. There was some back and forth about the web-copy over the next two months, until everything from The City of Angels end went quiet. I could only assume that the next round of Investment hadn’t gone as hoped. I could hazard a few guesses as to why; but these things can’t always be explained in Logical Terms, Prospective Employer. I billed for six and a half days plus Expenses. A few thousand quid for a few thousand words. Better than Content Mill wages, anyway...

Good Job or Bad Job?

The Tech Agency always Paid well, and their Staff were decent people who were very good at what they did. It was nice to finally have met a couple of them In Real Life. Alas, Productivity was Cursed on this Job. I’d like to have believed that a Website would eventually go up showcasing an innovative new Gym-Food Product, and that I could take screen-grabs to proudly display in my Online Portfolio. But that’s just not how things go with me, Prospective Employer. I knew that by now. I was beginning to think that what with The Music Website, The CMS Project at The University, The Whisky Job at The Language Consultancy, The Toilet Rolls Job, and even The Hot Chocolate Job where everyone kept leaving The Agency… maybe it was me that was cursed? A significant proportion of things I’d Worked on over the years seemed to end up coming to nothing. Surely I wasn’t... A Bad Writer?! Lots of people had told me I was A Good One. But if that was true, how come everything I touched seemed to turn to Shit? My only satisfactory explanation was that the UK or The Developed World in general was suffering from A Productivity Problem: thousands of Office Jobs, up and down the land, where people Emailed Documents to one another, and Edited them, and left Comments, and had Meetings; but ultimately, nothing was Produced—there was nothing, at the end of weeks or even months of Work, to show for It. Was there ever really any Gym-Food waiting to be delivered to eager Customers? Or was there only a Gym-Food Brand, waiting to be honed, and toned, and trimmed, on a Document intended for editing and uploading onto a Dummy Website? Were Knut and Harthaknut real people? Or just actors paid by some Globally Conspiratorial Scheme For Partial Employment to convince me that I had some Freelance Work for a few weeks in the spring of 2017? One couldn’t help but wonder, Prospective Employer. And I’m sure one doesn’t wonder if one’s Colleagues or Employers are real or not in A Good Job.

So I suppose that this Job must have been A Bad Job.

[Next chapter]