Job posting of the year, this one.

I have a friend. My friend is smart. My friend is funny. My friend is possessed of a wide and varied range of interests and a keen appreciation for what people call “having a life” that precludes her putting mundane concepts like Calvinism, Liberal Guilt, or Suburbianism ahead of that whole life-having thing. And one day we were in conversation; well, if truth be known we were in IM or rather, I believe, GChat: one of those things for sure. And the recurring theme of prosperity and my own lack thereof arose, as it is wont to do whenever it wonts to, and she said, Come over here (meaning England). They’ve never seen a work ethic in their lives. I am serious: They will throw money at you.

And I liked the sound of that, I did. But I doubted. Yes, I doubted my good friend’s word, despite the fact that all my English friends who do have work ethics are never short of work for long and always get paid well when they’re working. I read everywhere in the English press about the terrible plague of unemployment in the country, the near-impossibility of obtaining anything approaching a living wage, and the terrible, grinding burden of the Sisyphean workload forced upon a helpless workforce by faceless corporate overlords in Monte Carlo.

But eventually I read different. I stopped reading the news and started reading the facts.

I read a starting wage of over $40,000 per year offered to someone who hadn’t yet passed final exams (capable and worthy though we know StevenL to be) and then I read something even more interesting, although not useful to those of my rarefied gender.

I read this want ad:

Teenage Pregnancy Implementation Manager

Grade 8 £29,728 to £33,291 (bar at £32,436)

Location: Joint Health Unit, Town Hall Extension, Manchester, M60 2LA

Hours: 35 per week

We are now looking for an experienced and enthusiastic individual to support the management of the local teenage pregnancy programme. The successful candidate will be a strategic thinker with strong project management skills and a proven track record of partnership working. Reporting to the Teenage Pregnancy Coordinator, the postholder will contribute to the development, implementation and monitoring … Excellent communication and negotiation skills are required…

Or at least the ability to say, “Buy you a drink?” in a Lancashire accent.

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