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Thursday, June 21, 2012

The problem with doing a clinic today is that all my patients have now realised I'm not a doctor. They'll be asking me to take them to the toilet now, instead of inviting me to join the Masons. It could ruin my standing in the community.

But despite that, I've had a nice day out in the Sussex countryside, screening people who don't want to live near a hospital. I was reading the village noticeboard at lunchtime (there was precious little else to do), and it highlighted perfectly the problems of living in a well-to-do countryside location. It was full of 'wanted' ads for cleaners. It seems that the local residents are desperate to get some staff in, but there's no one working-class enough to do it.

It makes sense of course. If you can afford to live there, you're not going to be doing menial work for a few quid an hour. You're going to be advertising for someone to do it for you. But having viewed the noticeboard, I think there's a definite gap in the market for an enterprising young entrepreneur. Frankly someone could clean up in more ways than one. The locals are willing to pay up to to £10 an hour for a bit of hoovering, and most want about three or four hours a week, so by the time you've signed them all up, you could probably afford a mortgage on one of the houses. I might have to bus Lisa up there a few afternoons a week.

One corner of the market which has reached saturation point, however, is the home tuition sector. There were notices advertising one-to-one tutoring in foreign languages, primary school education and GCSE maths. I wasn't sure about the last one though. He was promoting himself as "a Cambridge applicant", which is hard to distinguish from a reject. Let's face it, my sister's an ESA applicant, but it doesn't mean she can teach you much about the moon.

4 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

Only 8% of the doctors were on strike, so you can easily pretend you were one of the loyal 92%.  As for the posh areas you frequent, I suppose they don't even know what a charity shop is - no wonder you were bored in your lunch-hour!

A passer-by said...

I was thinking you must be one of those doctors who put patients before pensions!!

Jon the Bassist said...

Come on Phil, for many years most of your patients have suspected
that you were never a real Doctor due to the fact that you never ever offered
the back of your chair for them to drape their clothes over when they undressed,
AND the fact that you never warmed your stethoscope up!


 

Poirot said...

A spot of lunchtime housework then as new business venture ....hoover and out