I recently became unemployed. It has been a while. I last signed on in 1994, and since then I’ve had a relatively unbroken work record, the majority of which took place outside this country. Even at the worst of times in my life (during a period of homelessness) I always managed to find work. I’m a tree surgeon, and the niche status of the business has helped. There’s not a huge amount of competition.

My attitude to employment is something I’ve struggled with all my life. I’ve always had an unhealthy respect for it. I was nicknamed Boxer after the workhorse in Animal Farm for my habit of going into work no matter what kind of state I was in. I’ve read Animal Farm. I liked Boxer, but I didn’t appreciate the nickname. I sensed it was an underhanded slur – something about blind loyalty.

My parents are old-fashioned people who worked in education, and they believe that employment is a moral fact. No matter how bad a job is, it’s better than being in a dole queue.

I shoveled shit in a pub in Kilburn – I cleaned up the turds of a half-crazed, 50-kilo mongrel that lived on the roof. I’ve worked as a contract cleaner, a security guard, a courier, a labourer, a barman, a doorman, a roofer, a painter – the list goes on.

I remember a conversation I overheard in the tea room between two Dublin workmen at the place of my very first employment after secondary school – hanging glass at the IFSC. There were redundancies approaching.

“It doesn’t matter how good a tradesman you are,” said Anthony, a middle-aged, overweight glazier from East Wall. “They’ll come down here, read the timecards, and that’s how’ll they make their minds up.

“Look at Derek over there,” he continued, nodding his head at a thin, quiet man sitting across the room who was picking bread crumbs from the hair of his moustache. “He can barely tell one end of a hammer from another, but he’s here five minutes early every morning and he keeps his head down. They’ll pick him every time.”

And they were right. A month later most of us were let go, but Derek was one of the few they kept.

Having worked for small business owners for the last eighteen years of my life, I have developed hatreds for certain kinds of bosses. At the top of the list is the Bounderby. The “I’ve dragged myself up by my bootstraps” kind of man. For this type, it’s not enough slaving your guts out forty-odd hours a week. He also expects you to listen; and he thinks he’s an omniscient fountain of life-skill wisdom. When the regal mood is upon him, his demeanor will become conspiratorial, and he will lean in close. He confides that six years ago he hadn’t had a pot to piss in. But blah blah blah has resulted in the exalted position he inhabits today. He fails to mention that his success is due in part to his ability to get suckers like me to do the work for nothing.

Most employers want all of the rights of a feudal lord and none of the duties. Obedience and respect are more important than initiative or ability. The most important undertaking in their lives should be the most important one in yours.

One thing I’ve noticed about being unemployed is that I spend a lot less. Looking back over my life, I squandered a lot of money comfort-spending to make up for the drudge of working in the first place. Nights out in pubs and restaurants, electronic entertainment gadgets, holidays abroad twice a year.

My days are much calmer now. I rise early, and every second day I go for a long run in the surrounding countryside lanes. I cook my own food and have cut drastically back on my drinking. I write in the mornings and read in the afternoons. Bill Hicks said: “You can spend your day flipping burgers in McDonald’s, or stay at home, get stoned and learn to pay the zither.”