Five types of jobs

1. What I thought jobs were like when I was a kid
If you had asked me as a kid what work was going to be like when I grew up, I probably would have said that I would have been like my Dad. As far as I was concerned, Dad sat in an office in the local shire council buildings with a pen in his ear for eight hours, and then came home. I have no idea what he did in this eight hours. Maybe he balanced the pen on opposite ears. It seemed like a respectable profession, at the time.

2. What the Prime Minister does all day, according to some kid in Britain
"He wakes up, eats breakfast, sits at his desk for a while, then switches on the telly to see whats happening in the world and says, 'Oh Dear!'"

3. A 1920s British office manager, according to P G Wodehouse
"Jenkins!" roared the stentorian tones of the portly office manager, causing all the doors to shudder and the safes of the Withersin and Blackersdyke Subjunctive Bank to shiver with the noise. "In my office, now!"

The face of Jenkins rapidly turned from its natural shade of pink to turquoise, to blue, to white, to a particularly attractive shading of vermilion, and then to a lampshade green, before turning white again.

4. Jenkins, according to me
But later that day, Jenkins and the chaps had a spiffing time at the club over a few glasses of port with some copies of the Spectator and Punch to keep them entertained.

5. My actual job, as according to actuality
I have no idea what it's about at the moment. I've been seconded from my usual work as a typing monkey and am now working in vast excel sheets and online databases doing intensely menial tasks. Sometimes, I cut and paste a code in one cell and then paste that code in hundreds of other cells. Sometimes, I cut and paste a section of code with slight variations in each cell. And sometimes, I enter in seemingly meaningless pieces of number data into other seemingly meaningless pieces of internet data, and then write those results down. None of this has any real meaning outside the narrow world of clients and executives that is our office - I'm doing a job that will allow other people to, perhaps, do another job for other people, if they want to.

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the kitchen balancing a pen on both ears.