Your Problems Solved, With Holly Harper

12-05-10

Dear Holly,
I recently joined a government 'Back to Work' programme which was intended to stop me claiming benefits and start actually being a productive member of society, whatever that means. I was under the impression that this would be a positive step forward for me, but it turns out that not only am I expected to actually get out of bed and get dressed in the morning, I am also supposed to do things, like carry bits of paper from one room to another, or sit in a room with other people and talk about the next time we will be sitting in a room talking to one another. The whole affair is really starting to stress me out and I think I might have to sign off on the sick. What is your advice on this troubling matter?
Ivan
London

Dear Ivan,
I know exactly what you mean - work sounds just like being at school. One minute, you're happy as Larry, doing actions to inane songs about farmyard animals or drawing demented stick-people with massive heads and fourteen fingers on each hand; the next, you're in a drafty sports hall trying to work out the relative velocity of two trains travelling in opposite directions to each other at 3pm and 5pm respectively. If my mummy and daddy had warned me on my first day of school that this was just the beginning of a long and painful journey stretching out until adulthood, I would most certainly have refused to go. However, as we all know, if you want to earn lots of money to buy big televisions and bread with olives in it you have to work hard every day and pay attention to what the teacher is telling you. If you don't, you might end up like Andrew Harris, sitting in library corner doing finger paintings of deformed animals and licking the spines of books while everyone else is busy learning about where electricity comes from.
Hope that helps!
Holly