I don’t just hate my job, I resent it. I’m kind of trapped in it, until I can find something better – well, trapped by my finances at least, I’m technically a freelancer, so I’m not exactly bound by a contract. Unless I just want to stop paying my bills – but I’ve heard that doesn’t go down very well.

I did say there was a plus side though, and that plus side is Sam, my boss. I hate my job, but I love my boss. Sam is my editor and I can tell that she tries her best to give me the good jobs and, of the very few perks you get being a local faux journalist, she’ll often toss a few my way. She’s great when I need time off, she lets me off the hook when I arrive late – she even buys the office pizza on Fridays. Sam really is a wonderful boss.

Money isn’t great… I know, it’s not really great for anyone right now, is it? But I live within my means. My apartment is small (which means my rent is too), but at least it’s close enough to work for me to walk. I just keep doing what I’m doing and hoping things will get better.

I was a little down in the dumps today because David, my boyfriend of four months, cancelled our plans this evening because he needs to work late. He’s a lecturer at the university, teaching Palaeobiology (I didn’t know what it was either). I wrote my dissertation on yellow journalism and the paparazzi. David gets more excited about things like mass extinction. We might not have much in common, but we still get on really well. Sometimes opposites just attract, don’t they?

So David was going to be teaching young adults studying for their master’s degree all about macroevolution (I don’t know what it is either, I just remember seeing his lesson plan over his shoulder and feeling like a bit of a dummy) tonight and I was going home to my tiny apartment to watch Hollyoaks… or so I thought.

I was just about to leave work, after a particularly gruelling day writing an ‘article’ about a local window cleaning company, when Sam called me into her office. She had two tickets for the live filming on a new TV quiz show, but it was her husband’s birthday, so she wasn’t going to go. She offered them to me and Gemma, the other girl who does the same job as I do, so with nothing better planned I made the short trip to MediaCityUK – the development in Salford where all the big TV studios are based.

I didn’t think anything of it when they told us we had to download an app so we could play along, nor did I expect anything eventful to happen to me when I found out contestants would be plucked from the studio audience. But then I sat down and, as the filming started, I couldn’t believe it when my phone started ringing. Mine. I had been selected at random to play the game. Gemma was fuming, she’s not happy unless she’s the centre of attention. I was just a combination of embarrassed and terrified. I’ve never been on TV before – well, how many people have? – but I’m not really the kind of person who likes to be the centre of attention and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many eyes would be on me – and not just here in the studio.