Maybe an intro to something longer, maybe a one off. Worth the effort scaling the brick wall I've hit?

Awful title - any suggestions?

Ten-thirty, Saturday morning, Bolton town centre. I’ve been given the cheap end of town among the discount pound stores and charity shops. To my left there’s a nasty looking fairground ride that’s loud and manned by a topless youth with badly spelled tattoos. To my right there are benches where old people and knackered out looking thirty-somethings rest and have a smoke. They’re outnumbered by pigeons. Clip board in hand I make my umpteenth pitch of the day.

‘Excuse me sir?’

Nothing, just walks on by. Bloody hell, this is demeaning.

‘Sorry to disturb you madam. Do you have time to answer a few questions? It’ll only take a couple of minutes.’

Eye contact and a little shake of the head, superior smirk on her face. God almighty, just one, just one bloody person to answer some stupid questions.

‘Excuse me?’

Ah, result. He stops and turns my way. Meets my eyes.

‘Do you know the way to the station?’ he asks.

For god’s sake. It’s supposed to be me asking the questions. I know…

‘Only if you’ve got time to answer a few questions,’ I reply.

‘Piss off,’ he says and off he goes, thankfully in the wrong direction.

I’m beginning to wonder if this new career is worth all the hassle. When I went to the job centre, this was all they could offer me. Twenty-seven years as a market data analyst and all they can offer me was this. Collecting data on the street for a third party research company. This is the sort of thing I had occasionally commissioned in the past but due to the unreliable data collected they were often not worth the cost or trouble. My first hit of the days proves this.

‘Excuse me sir? Time to answer a question or two?’

He stops, puts down his bags, straightens his hair and looks at me.

‘Yeah, alright,’ he says.

‘Right, good. Do you own, or have you ever owned a mobile phone?’

‘Yeah. Well no. But me mam ‘ad one an’ I used it sometimes.’

‘I’ll put no then.’

‘I used to use me brother’s too. But ‘e battered me when ‘e found out. Mind, when ‘e went inside I ‘ad it. Lost it somewhere.’

‘I’ll put yes then shall I? Now the next question is which service provider did you use?’ As an afterthought I add, ‘By that I mean Orange or Vodaphone or whatever.’

‘Don’t know mate. Used to take it down to me mate’s. Good like that ‘e is. ‘Ad it rigged up to ‘is laptop. Fiver a time. No bother.’

At this I give up. I can see the supervisor approaching anyway. I quickly tick a few random boxes and enter a friend’s postcode.

‘Thank you sir. That’s all finished now.’

He shrugs his shoulders, picks up his bags and heads off. The supervisor has been distracted by another clip board on the other side of the benches so I’ve got time to quickly fill in another questionnaire before she reaches me. This time I put my sister’s postcode on the sheet.

‘How’s it going then Frank?’ Sharp two-piece suit, nice legs, pretty face, overly made up, complete bitch.

‘Er, three I think,’ I stutter.

‘Three Frank? Three’s not enough. You’ve got to get out there and grab them. Make them want to talk to you. Watch.’

With that she takes my board and walks straight up to the saddest looking middle aged man I’ve ever seen. He’s just got to single and desperate. Of course, she scores a hit straight away.

‘There you are Frank. Nothing to it see? See you in an hour or so.’

She’s off. God. So what I’ve got to do is pick on some desperado who thinks they want to shag me. Trouble is, I’ve not got the face or the legs. I can still see hers now, receding into the distance. Bloody hell. I’ve got no chance.