And Smiles To Go Before I Sleep...

A lot of people are in the wrong job: 

to name just one.

We've all said it.  We've all come back from that restaurant meal, during which the waiter sneered, spat and sighed his way through service, and said "Blimey, he's in the wrong job."

Of course he is, and he damn well knows it.  That's why he takes it out on you by gobbing in the arrabiata. That waiter harbours dreams of being a folk-musician or a flamenco dancer, or an accountant — it doesn't matter what, the thing is he KNOWS he's in the wrong job.  It's only the misfortune of an impoverished skills set as a direct result of parental disinterest that keeps him in it. 

Take El Hombre, for example.  He hates his job with a passion so deep, throbbing and rounded, that were I a less confident woman, I'd feel threatened and hire a private detective.  He is the classic

Such is life.  He is not alone.  We play the hand we've been dealt and go fish.

But what if you're in the wrong job and you just don't know it?  What if, say, you think you're in your dream job — believing, indeed, that you are born to it — but if push came to shove, you'd be the only person willing to write you a reference?

That's what El Hombre and I were up against today.  A valuer who would have been much better suited as a children's TV presenter.  Or a cat-loving spinster.  Or a person specially trained to giggle... 

I mean, it's not as if she didn't have options.

Mrs Valuer clearly LOVED her job; loved it so much that she couldn't help smiling.  She smiled and smiled and smiled and smiled... and when she was done smiling she simply switched off her eyes but kept her lips in place.  My own cheeks spasmed in sympathy, responding no doubt to some inaudible scream of distress similar in haunting beauty to whale song being emitted by her zygomaticus major.

Poor woman, if the wind had changed direction she would've been stuck as Mrs Sardonicus, and that'd be a shame because then she would die from hunger and thirst and whilst she could do with maybe losing a few pounds, death would leave her looking positively GAUNT.

Less is more, Mrs Valuer, when it comes to using smiles as a sales technique.  You scared our custom away with the rusty sickle of your grin.  We were scared of contracting lockjaw. 

Needless to say, El Hombre will be in touch with another valuer's office, hopefully one who doesn't enjoy his job quite so much...