Whitehall Woefulness

Well that's over... albeit prematurely! I am left with the memories of my many mistakes, as well as the pernicious doubt that I did not, in fact, manage to reverse the impression they built up of me in that office back in 2005, namely that I am careless, apathetic and one of life's natural botchers. Instead, I think I only confirmed it with yet more examples of heinous incompetence. In the end, frequent misordering of stationery, along with an inability to perform even basic mathematical calculations were my undoing; no doubt now compounded by leaving early and with little warning on the penultimate day. In my tortured psyche, by forgoing the last day I was cutting my losses but now I see that it might be sensible for me to lie low, at least where the Tories are concerned, for a fair while...

But what about the greasy pole? I hear you ask. Well, let me tell you, it needs a bloody good wipe! I may be twenty-one and almost a graduate but a literature graduate and a work-experience boy. I don't think it's too much of an admission of weakness to say therefore, that I am unable to calculate the expenditure of a government department in the late nineties (running into billions) at the drop of a hat. As I was explaining to somebody last night however, it is my fault for forcing my way back into a field of which I have only a partial understanding, derived, in the main, from erratic reading of Guardian columns while travelling on the train. The kind of competent, well-adjusted interns I rubbed shoulders with up at Westminster made me feel that I would be better off jumping in front of a train, rather than getting on one!

As I said at the beginning, it's over now and I have been beaten- although I'm not sure quite how or who by. In my defence, I'd say I do not flourish in an atmosphere where knowledge is assumed and it is impossible to ask questions but, again, I knew what I was getting into. Last night, I had one of those fitful sleeps, the kind you have when you have just been jilted or before a big exam; I guess I was expecting some sort of fallout from yesterday's wimpy, forlorn cancellation, today. Nothing has happened, even so I feel terrible but, as my primary school teacher said to me when I got caught calling someone 'a great big willy' when I was about 8: 'he's punished himself enough'.

I really have. I worked so hard these last two weeks- treading water, not swimming- and I've gone and fluffed it...