I mentioned earlier that most of the bad stuff you worry about never comes to pass. But sometimes, I was now discovering, it does. You fall into a kind of Bermuda Triangle of hard-ass reality. How long was this going to go on? I asked myself. I finally managed to get off the drugs by taking smaller and smaller doses. And slowly the bloat weight came off. I phoned for an interview for a technician’s job at a factory less than a mile from my building, and I was hired that very day. I couldn’t believe it. The job was a piece of cake, too. I went in and read the paper and drank coffee for an hour before anyone got ambitious. There were numerous breaks and good camaraderie all the way around. Even so, it was hard to get through a day. I didn’t have the stamina. Coming back from Stage Five was tough business. In the annals of no-jobdom, it’s rare. Almost unheard of. I had pulled off a big one.

Pretty soon some of the design engineers were hanging out with me, asking my advice on projects and so on. One thing led to another, and I was promoted to senior engineer and making a third more than I got at the last place. It was easy duty, this job. I got into the work and—zing!—the time just flew. I never had a job I liked before. I didn’t think such a thing existed.