I'm Erica, and I love my job.
Don't hate me.

Have you ever asked an old friend how they are, and they respond with their salary? That depresses me more than if they'd brought up the word "cancer". I asked how you were, I didn't ask what it's worth for you hate what you do day in, day out.

The term "rat race" isn't meant to be a pretty one. Have you seen rats race? It's grim. Fair play? Gone. Manners? "lol" They say David will always beat Goliath, but secretly we all know it's because David fought dirty.

My fight has never been about money or mortgages (though I'm sure at some point it should be, at least in part), but against boredom. And finally, I think I'm winning - and trust me, I am not special.

"Only boring people get bored" Three types of people say this. The first type is our friend Mr Fifteen Quid an Hour, a man so entrenched in his denial he'll pretend no one likes their job - even more so in the face of hard evidence to the contrary. Another is the guy who gets paid to do something he would do for free and has no concept of spending more time with data-entry software than with humans.

The third type is your mum; she just wants you to leave her in peace for a bit.

My all-encompassing fear of boredom started in my first year of uni. Studying didn't take up nearly as much of my time as it should have. The main activity seemed to be drinking and pranking - don't get me wrong, there's nothing funnier than your friend waking you up by yelling "WHO GAVE ME A MOHAWK?!" but the day wears on. Yes, even at uni, the best years of your life, boredom was my main enemy.

Let me tell you what boredom does...

To combat boredom, I got into theatre. A lot of it. It started off with one play, then another. Nepotism set in and suddenly I was acting more than I was studying. It snowballed until I was doing six plays at once. Acting, writing, directing - I did fire spinning at the entrance for plays I wasn't in, I worked tirelessly on the ones I was. Next step? The League Table. Who's done the most plays? I shot to the top of the table, Most Acting Roles, and that's when the rats came out to play...fellow students competing for the top spot were no match for me - they did other things you see. Like sleep. Eat. Shower (when they liked, not whenever they got the opportunity).

One particularly ambitious Chemistry student went further than any other young actor to knock me off that top spot...and ended up in hospital with kidney failure.

You see what boredom does?? It puts your colleagues in hospital, is what it does!

Now, the beast is tamed. I am never bored. I'm doing a Graduate Internship in exactly what want I want to do. I love my job now. I love being challenged, liking my boss, having my work torn to pieces in a way that has me walking back to my desk smiling. I love that when I leave here, I'll be employable even in the face of economic crisis.

I'm not lucky. I Googled.

I'm Erica, and I love my job.
Why don't you?

PS (That league table was taken down, and no other Chemistry students have been harmed in my further pursuits of entertainment)