Joanne McNeill: Finding a sinecure no holiday

Joanne Mcneill.

Paid public holidays are sentimentally accepted as universal taonga.

However, of the total NZ working age population, only 63 per cent is currently in employment. Of that, statistical break-downs distinguishing actual employees from independent contractors and the self-employed (who are not covered by the Employment Relations or Holidays Acts), are hard to find. Arguably, those still enjoying paid public holidays are, in practice, comparatively few.

For the retired, unemployed, self-employed and contract workers - and for those providing essential rostered 24/7 services - the obligatory charade of celebrating possibly functionally obsolete public holidays is a difficult act to muster during the desperate exigencies of business as usual.

Instead of stewing in jealous vitriol however (not recommended) on Labour Day, it was the perfect time to consider employment prospects that might fund mythical paid holidays.

The CV is not promising. Anything involving numbers is out (the applicant is discalculate). An ancient criminal conviction and redundant language skills don't help, and physical work is off too, both on account of age-related deterioration and of there being no living-wage labouring vacancies left in the land, as far as anyone can tell.

There's still plenty of scope though.

Royal portrait painter appeals. What with recent incumbents having executed notably ghastly pictures - and royal sitters reproducing apace - the demand is clear. Portraiture is not my preferred genre (rather too intimate), however I have form and would graciously overcome any scruples for the sake of a London studio (with wooden floors, natural light, fireplace, kitchen, ensuite and generous stipend) for the several years it would take to lovingly detail floor length ruffles of antique christening lace.

Poet laureate appeals too. Admittedly I have not actually published any poetry but I've scrawled plenty and quoted liberally from it (unbeknown to readers) throughout my published prose which, were it still collected in plastic rubbish bags rather than ritually immolated on the annual Guy Fawkes bonfire, might by now have featured in a reality TV show about hoarders crushed by their own junk. However, I am confident I could rustle up a weekly poem in the national interest - heartbreak, obituaries, sublime landscapes, lateral ironies and sheer terror are specialties - especially since I hear a generous supply of champagne is part of the remuneration.

I'd do a stint as a war artist too. Have passport, 2B pencils, paper and digi-cam, will travel; although requisite craft knifes (aka box-cutters) for pencil sharpening could be tricky at borders and the essential multi-lingual, IT and navigation assistant to handle tech, chauffeuring, butlering, tent-pitching and security duties would double the payroll.

Thinking back to holidays past though - the blue guest house at Brighton where we swam under the pier on hot summer nights, cockles from the mud flats at the bach at Pounawea hung floor-to-ceiling with yellowed newspaper clippings, the big saggy bed at Urquhart's Bay with the best view of Marsden Point's fairyland lights, and a Bay of Islands sailing trip of exquisite tedium diving into the clear blue of one beautiful bay after another - it occurs that travel writing might suit.

For someone perfectly capable of spinning a trip to the front gate into the kind of thrilling epic adventure tourists can only dream of, think what could be done - given generous page space - with the delights of terra incognita. All offers considered.