Eric - it sounds Godawful. Get out NOW and join us Easylives in business:-

Arrive in the office about 9.30, read the newspaper till half-hour coffee break 10 - 10.30, e-mail friends and acquaintances for an hour or so then two or three-hour lunch (on expenses of course!), back in the office for a couple of hours pinching the secretary's arse and drinking Earl Grey, leave about 4.30, exhausted from the day's labours, home by 5.00, on the golf course by 5.30 and not a thought of what we laughingly refer to a 'work' until 9.30 next morning. Weekends? Saturday - more golf, or a trip to Oxford Street looking for ways of boosting the share prices of the major luxury goods retailers by spending some of the vast fortune heaped on me each month by my bounteous employer. Sunday - on the internet playing the stock-market to boost my already-embarrassingly-huge bank account. Holidays? We-e-e-ell, life's one long holiday really, but the annual month in the Seychelles, the January ski-ing week and the July grouse-shooting and salmon-fishing break help to keep life bearable. And when time permits, usually a couple of weekends a month, the wife and I do a quick channel-hop in the Beneteau to replenish our wine-cellar.

NOT!! The Truth - up at 6.00 and in the office by 8.00 am, work straight through until 6 or 6.30 (no coffee/lunch/fag breaks), driven by the harshest task-master of all - PROFIT, attempting to manage staff whose sole ambition is to reduce me to a gibbering wreck by their sloth and idleness, abused by customers, suppliers, superiors and colleagues alike, home about 6.45 - 7.00 pm, eat while signing cheques/reading report/checking accounts or whatever other joy I've brought home with me, remain at kitchen table to complete tasks while wife watches telly alone, if football's on Sky, try to catch the 2nd half, collapse into bed around 10 pm, wake up around 2 am and get up for a couple of hours to think about what went wrong yesterday and how to put it right tomorrow, back to bed around 4.00. Up at 6.00 and on the treadmill again. Weekends? Saturday - up at 6.00, in the office by 8.00 am, work until noon or 1 pm, take wife to Kwik-Save late afternoon because the butcher's counter is reducing prices on stuff they haven't sold. Night-time, same routine as weeknights. Sunday - up at 6.00 (it's a bastard of a habit to break), log on to our office Network and answer e-mails that have landed since lunchtime. TAKE THE REST OF THE DAY OFF - Shameless layabout that I am! Holidays? Most years I'm persuaded by my employer to only take three of the four weeks my Employment Contract says I'm entitled to, and one of those three is usually taken up by some bloody conference he insists I go to. However, I do manage a week's camping in Scotland or the Lake District, so I shouldn't moan too much. Training? It's of the 'Accountant Train Thyself At Thine Own Cost' variety. And my salary, after five years of evening and weekend study whilst holding down a full-time job, followed by thirty-plus years taking responsibility for my own work and that of many others, is somewhat less than that of the average middle-school teacher (I almost said "Of my age, but most of them have taken their severance pay-off and are on pension or supply teaching for double-pay by the time they reach my time of life). AND I LOVE IT!

Sorry Eric, we can all play your game. As I said before, we all have crosses to bear and I reckon they all weigh about the same, irrespective of where we work or what we do. Stop moaning or do summat else. Your choice.