Today I join the billions of people across the globe proclaiming ‘Thank You Groupon!’ at the top of their lungs for saving them money on thousands of meaningless products and days out. Yes, thank you Groupon, but not for saving me money, (no offence, but up until two weeks ago I was tossing up whether or not your pop-up was spam or a deadly computer virus). Today I am thanking Groupon for saving my life.

Two weeks ago I was trolling the job sites desperate to find a job to pay for the abominable student loan I have festering in the corner of my bank account entitled ‘debt’. I happened across an opening for a copywriter. ‘Why not,’ I thought, ‘I’ll have some practical application of my writing skills to put on my CV’. Why not indeed.

A week later I found myself sitting in an interview room on Liverpool Street in some brand new clothes and expensive perfume, the kind you only wear at Christmas, telling an Eastern European sounding woman that I could write about teeth whitening products all day and be happy. I could sit in a seventy-five foot chrome hive with all the other worker bees and keep my sanity. I could make me, little rage-prone me, adapt to a life of nine to six with unlimited, unpaid, enforced overtime. I could do it, because I care about Groupon that damn much! I answered her spitfire questions about what it takes to be a good creative writer; the ability to think on your feet and endless bounds of creativity, a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at yourself. But what I forgot was passion.

I went home in anguish. I knew I’d done well at the interview, years of acting training has taught me how to read people and be whoever they want me to be at any given time, but my thoughts could not rest. What if I did get the job? What if the next three months of my life became a mad rush to get up in the morning and crawl onto the sweatiest seesaw in England; the tube. What if my days became the monotonous hum and click of a PC with the only payoff being brand new ways to describe how skin bleach could enrich your life? What if the woman in the interview room was serious about the compulsory morning workshops wherein everyone sat cross-legged and discussed their feelings and drew with crayons to take them back to that place of ‘child-like splendour’?

I tried for days to talk myself down. To think about the money and how good it would feel to be two and half thousand pounds less in debt. Of the sense of accomplishment I would feel once it was over, similar to the rush I had after enduring three years of university. The thought occurred to me that I could go freelance, and then I remembered that ‘freelance’ is just another word for ‘unemployed’.

I was like a prisoner on death row, taking in every second of my limited freedom, trying not to waste a single moment before the swivel chair that would systematically remove all the life from my malnourished body. No matter how I self-comforted I knew that this job was not what I wanted but I also knew that when they offered it to me, I would take it.

And then today I checked my e-mails. There it sat, highlighted in Windows Live bold, the answer I’d been waiting for. I took a moment, (a small moment, this was Groupon not the NBA finals), and then clicked on the illuminated icon.

Dear Miniq… We were very impressed with your capabilities and agree you have a great deal to offer. However, after much discussion and deliberation…

I didn’t get it.

I was stuck between that place of stunned silence, jilted humiliation, and unbridled joy. There was a giant Bon Jovi grin on my face that could have been the ad campaign for any of the teeth whitening products Groupon would have forced me to write about.

I didn't get it. I wouldn't be fighting for elbow room or protecting my personal boundaries packed like a sardine in a moving tin can. I wouldn't be eating take-out every night because the time it takes to prepare my gourmet meals I would have spent inevitably arguing with a faceless boss about why it is important for me to leave on time every day; that I actually occupy roles outside of my job description.

I was happy. I was so grateful. Because what Groupon didn’t say, what I read between the lines, was- run. Run while you still can. Run while there is still life in you to fight. Don’t be drawn into this mediocre bureaucratic existence. You know who you are and this is not it. You know that you will perish somewhere like this.

Allow me to echo these thoughts to anyone who is considering doing what God gave me the good fortune to avoid. Don’t get trapped in the interim. Don’t do something that you’ll hate yourself for every day with the endgame of being less poor. Because being less poor doesn't make you rich, and being rich only makes you poor in spirit. Don’t forget the passion, it’s the most important part. And don’t be afraid to know who you are. It doesn't make you arrogant, it makes you wise.

So thank you Groupon. Thank you for realising before I did that I am way too good for you. And in the words of Robyn; ‘you can’t handle me’. I have more character than I could fit on a CV. I am going to follow my passion. I am going to write real things. Things that matter, if only to me. I will write them here as a résumé of my thoughts.

Hi everybody. I’m Miniq Brown, I’m twenty-one, and I am an unemployed writer. Join me won’t you?