Teen Times:Wanted: 16/17-year-old students to work as attendants during State examinations. Ability to withstand prolonged bouts of silence and boredom necessary. Tea- and coffee-making experience essential.
Certainly, if schools had to advertise this job accurately this is how they would have to do it. Over the course of recent weeks I have been forced to develop numerous survival tactics in order to prevent a complete shutdown of my brain as a result of the stress of being an exam attendant: namely making one cup of coffee a day and spending the rest of it staring at a row of lockers.
At one stage I began to dream about having a superintendent who liked to chain-drink coffee, then I would have had something to do.
I was given invaluable tips for passing the time from the lucky sixth years who were in my place last year. They ranged from writing a novel to watching the entire series of 24 on a portable DVD player, but probably the most original, yet most sensible, was to bring in fifth-year notes and study them.
Needless to say that was completely unrealistic as far as I was concerned. To be honest, the only thing I improved at over the weeks was the length of time it took me to complete the sudokus that I collected on the Dart each morning.
In my school, about 15 of us worked as attendants. We came in at the same shockingly early hour as during term-time and usually left long after the exam students had gone, so we couldn't even travel home with them.
As a result, this summer didn't get off to the flying start that I had hoped for. The weather decided a dramatic reform was in order, by replacing the amazingly endless sunshine of early June with the annual end-of-exam rain that has prevailed since.
Admittedly, I was initially relieved when I got this job because the huge increase in prospective employees following the end of term meant practically every restaurant, corner-shop and supermarket had all the staff they needed for the entire summer. Unfortunately, the contented feeling I had as I received my first ever pay-cheque evaporated rapidly when I learned that a friend was earning considerably more because she, being a few months older than I am, falls into the over-18 minimum wage bracket.
Of course, even she wasn't so smug when we heard that another friend, working as an extra on a film set, was earning as much as our combined salaries in the space of a week.
In reality, it was worth it, even if it was only for the light entertainment provided by the stressed-out sixth years, but I think Michael Palin of Monty Python fame says it all: 'It's dull. Dull. Dull. My God it's dull, it's so desperately dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and des-per-ate-ly DULL.
Ben Mitchell (17) is a fifth-year student at St Andrew's College, Booterstown, Co Dublin
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