So long and thanks for all the fish...

Those of you keeping an eye on my journo career (thanks mum, you're the best) will know that I went freelance three weeks ago. As so often in my career - three months at The Net magazine; six months as a reporter on Network News - I didn't stick at it for long.

It's not that it wasn't paying. I've worked out I earned 50 per cent more before tax than I did when I was fulltime at Dreamwatch. That's what a combination of doing three days a week in freelance shifts and writing features and workshops for a number of computer and other magazines will get you. I was actually starting to enjoy it, even if it did eat into my weekends and nights out a little bit. I even turned work down in my first month, which is a cardinal sin in most freelancers' eyes.

However, I'm like a magpie to a shiny thing when an interesting job offer comes along. Two in particular caught my eye. In the end I wasn't offered the one on a Playstation magazine - what a year it would have been to be working on one of those! But I have taken up the offer from Vnunet.com.

There are so many reasons this job is perfect for me. For starters, it's daily news. And boy do I miss doing news. I've also worked at VNU* before, so I know what to expect. Not to mention that at the moment the website staff are the golden boys of the company for pulling in so many readers and VNU is taking its online presence very seriously. From a comfort level point of view, the journey to work shaves about 20 minutes off the hour-plus it takes to reach Titan. And the pay is back at the level I was on at IPC, having taken a massive cut to go and work on Dreamwatch. That's without even factoring in the trips abroad those nice technology company like to send you on.

So, a good job that pays OK and offers personal perks. I think that's what you call a no-brainer. I start on Monday :)




*Incidentally, the VNU building features in the realistically created London streets in The Getaway. So if I have a bad day at work I can just get the PS2 character to repeatedly smash their car into it. That should relieve some stress ;)