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The Pro Files
What An Excellent Affliction, Doing Nothing
The great sage Brad Pitt once remarked on what silliness acting is.
“It’s just silly for grown men to go around pretending,” he spake, throwing down dicta for the ages and licking chicken grease off his bananas for fingers. Absolutely nailing embarrassed sagacity.
Then the great philosopher rested and looked a little lighter for it. And at the feet of the Master we sat, and his wisdom took root like teeth.
I was just cutting my teeth on some wisdom of my own then. At a dinner party the previous night, a grey man with a grey face and grey shoes cornered me.
“What do you do?” He asked, handing me a glass and touching my fingers as long as he could.
“Well, how do I put this,” I said, smiling hideously as I sicked up a little in the vicinity of my back teeth. “You could say I’m a writer. Only not really, at all. More of a journalist, really. Except not even. A trade hack, I guess you could say. There or thereabouts. And what is it you do?”
I was panting with the exertion.
“Accountant. But hold on. What trade and how do you hack it?” He persisted.
“Well, where do I begin. Let’s say trade means any industry, as it does by definition, and hack is the flipside of flack. I’m an industry reporter. Specifically the IT industry.”
“You write about computers?”
“Kinda sorta yes and no. It is that, yes, but also about the market for selling and buying IT. What gear from which vendor has the biggest margin, what manufacturers compete unfairly with their partners, the best training and certifications, compliance, that sort of thing.”
“So about everything but the actual computer.”
“Well, a computer is like one tenth of a percent of what information technology is about, to be fair, but sure, we talk tech too. Why not. Why the hell not.”
“Jesus, people make a living in the weirdest ways,” he said.
“Mind what you mischaracterise as making a living, “ I said.
