Servo

  

I was so charmed by David Goodwin's Conversation with Richard Fidler on RN that I reserved Servo immediately from the library; perhaps I wasn't the only one listening, because I had quite a wait. I felt a certain fellow feeling with Goodwin from the start, having also spent my young adulthood working in a menial service job (in my case, phone sales and admin at a record company) while finishing uni and aspiring to be a writer, interspersed with odd bits of overseas travel. However, my job in phone sales took place during daylight hours, rather than between midnight and sunrise in a service station, and I never had to deal with the levels of weirdness and drugged up lunacy that Goodwin faced on a nightly basis (at least, only at conferences...) On the other hand, I worked at the record company for thirteen years, while Goodwin lasted a paltry six, so I'm not sure who really had more stamina in the end.

Working at the servo changed him, Goodwin says. Firstly, he found confidence in being able to stare down the various 'characters' he encountered (good). Then he tried drugs (bad). Then he discovered meditation (good) and a kind of Zen peace with whatever life threw at him, as well as fistfuls of random scribblings to turn into a book. There's not a lot in the way of plot, but Servo's glimpse into the hellscape of someone else's job is both entertaining and a cautionary tale. Bonus points for Goodwin being a Western Bulldogs supporter.