A decade of office miseries — and why I’m working for The Post

When I was 23, I went for an interview for an office job in Moreton. Back then I had no qualifications or prospects, and had been unemployed for well over a year, surviving on a balanced diet of ramen, ketchup and cigarettes. When the interviewer asked me about professional ambitions, I confessed I only had one: to write. I didn’t really mind what – poems, film scripts, books – but one day, I’d make my living with a word processor.

“Oh, well,” he said, “I suppose this is the kind of job you can do in the meantime.”

Unfortunately, life is what happens when you’re waiting for it to start. While I wouldn’t stay in that human battery farm, the mark it made on my CV earned me other office and admin positions. Some were in converted shipping containers on industrial estates, others were for waste management companies or city centre bars.

Soon, a decade passed me by. And even when a job was less onerous, or if I did manage to publish the occasional poem or article, I could feel a part of my soul shrivelling every day.

Last year, when I applied to be a writer for The Post, it was such a longshot that I actually began the covering letter with a list of reasons why they shouldn’t hire me. I had no journalistic qualifications, and while I was variously published as a freelancer, these were in the fields of essay writing, poetry and screenplays, rather than straight reporting.

Nevertheless, The Post decided to give me a chance. I did well in the subsequent interviews and, in a fact that still feels surreal today, I got the job.

Why? I’m not the person to answer that. But ever since, I’ve tried my hardest to justify their decision.

Sometimes it’s been a steep learning curve. And as I’ve done my best to grow into the role, I’ve become more aware of the responsibility it carries. The funny thing about pushing paper in an office or being the faceless employee of an international firm is that you can disappear. Put your head below the parapet. Do what you’re paid to do and go home. In this job, that’s not an option.

And yet, paradoxically, it’s made me less interested in my own story – to the extent I’ve found the above quite difficult to write. So when I speak of responsibility, it isn’t to myself. It’s not even to my boss who eccentrically decided I was the man for the job. It’s to Merseyside and the people who live there.

Because – as cheesy and credulous as this sounds – I believe in The Post. I think the project of bringing investigative and detailed local journalism to the Liverpool City Region is not just worthwhile, but essential. As a reader, it’s the kind of thing I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.

With all due respect to our regional competitors, who boast resources we likely never will, they are servants to an advertising model, clinging to a rising balloon of online click-farming that takes them ever-further from the possibility of real journalism.

What Abi and I are trying to do is something different. It almost feels like an anachronism: to bring broadsheet-style reporting, investigation and analysis to regional issues. And while our parent company Mill Media has received investors, amazingly, we aren’t reliant on ads, clicks, or billionaire owners. We’re paid for by a little over 1,800 paying members. 

Since you’re already one of the 32,000 free subscribers on our list, I know you feel that what The Post does is valuable. But the truth is, you’re missing out on some of our best reporting. 

In the past few years we’ve broken huge scoops, and conducted investigations into the likes of the Eldonian Village and Liverpool charity Big Help Project. Even when we’re not first to a story, we’ve provided the best and most detailed analysis — like with the Southport riots and the recent tragedy at Liverpool FC’s parade.

But that’s not all you get: by becoming a member, you can also join in on our comments section, which I believe is the most vibrant forum for all things Merseyside right now. 

Despite how I started this note, I’m not here to beg for my job. If The Post somehow became unviable, I (somehow) have a wealth of experience in different fields to fall back on.

I also more than suspect Abi would be OK. At her age, I was scribbling verses on lined jotters to keep myself sane, or banging my head against the metal bars they put on the office windows to stop us from jumping out – she’s being nominated for national journalism awards.

But it’s that diversity of life experience and writing styles that makes us a good team. And considering the service The Post is providing to the City Region and beyond, if it disappeared, I’d always think Liverpool and Merseyside had lost something special.

Help us stop that happening. Because it’s you – the readers – who benefit. 

Thank you,

Laurence