In a (very) previous life I worked for a company that made planogram software for Windows CE handhelds. This caused me to have a (brief) subscription to The Grocer magazine. We had a contract with Transport For London (TfL) and Cadburys to help update the rather outdated chocolate vending machines in the London Underground - the metro/tube. These machines had no screen, or indeed viewing window. They looked like something from the 19th century. But they did have an IR port. I recall learning the details of the IR protocol ( > 20 years ago. I don't remember its name) with an aim to gathering telemetry as part of the refilling routine.

I got to spend a day following a guy from TfL as he wheeled boxes of chocolate around the stations, with a route calculated to require the least amount of stairs. He had caches in locked rooms in a few stations. What strikes me now is the sheer analogue concreteness of it all. The selection of chocolate was limited by the rather small machines. The machines had power connections but no other active comms. I don't think the IR ports were in use at that time, so everything boiled down to the TfL guy's record keeping on hand-written notes. The route was governed by the combination of accessibility - meaning we serviced some machines in a station, but not others on a different, hard-to-reach, level. We moved from station to station stopping off at the locked-rooms to restock his trolley.

I did get to visit the offices of the chocolate factory at Bournville, which could be smelled from some distance. Dreams of Willy Wonka aside, I didn't even get a selection box, never mind a tour on the chocolate river. Ho hum.

This job was probably the two worst years of my career. I learned for more than I wanted to about layout of cereal boxes and magazines in supermarkets. I travelled a lot - two international flights a week, every week. I nearly froze to death trying to find a bookshop in Montreal. But I learned one really valuable lesson. There are plenty people in the world doing jobs that are boring, even to them, but they don't care because they can make a living, and that's the important thing. I am not one of those people. A job that doesn't engage me is one that I do badly, and will eventually get fired from. I left this job just in time, for something much more interesting, and initially at least, much less well paid and I never regretted doing so. Not for a second.