Two weeks ago two of my best friends, Chris and Hannah, got engaged. Since then I have been struggling to find a way to put into words just how happy I am for them, but I do now think I have found the way to say it.

Before it gets all mushy, I want to just give you some background on them, and their story.

I met Chris almost 5 years ago through a friend on mine who I had met at uni. I was at a real low point at that time, so our mutual friend had been helping me deal with things - if by 'deal with' I mean ply me with beer and cigs. Anyway, we were out and about one night and he knew Chris was out at a club not too far away so he suggested we go down there and see what the craic was. What we didn't know was how much that night was going to change things!

Now I will be honest, me and Chris didn't really get on at first - sometimes it takes a while - but as he lived with the guy who introduced the two of us I saw a fair bit of him and we started hanging out and built it from there, even getting past the fact that he is a Newcastle fan! So anyway, by the summer of 2009 we were hanging out on a pretty regular basis and one day, whilst I had my head buried in some books in the library revising for an exam, I get a call from Chris along the lines of 'Oi Burns, come the Terrace (Leeds Uni's main Union bar), one of my mates is down with people off her course - she is a 'Scouse' like you are.' I'm not going to go into the many theories on alternate universes, but I like to believe that our lives reached a fork in the road there which relied on me deciding whether or not to come for a few beers.

So anyway, we rocked up to the Terrace and Amy was there with a load of other student nurses and, according to Chris, it took him all of 30 seconds to notice Hannah and want to get to know her. Now I don't know how anyone feels on the matter of 'love at first sight' and destiny, but from having been there watching their relationship develop from that moment on, I would say that they as a couple are as close to those phenomenons as anyone I have met.

Over the past 4 years they have had, as any couple have, their ups and downs but I can honestly say, hand on heart, that at no point did I ever not envisage the two of them together. They worked almost flawlessly as a couple and I am genuinely honoured to have been friends with them all this time and, as I said before, to have been there seeing their relationship evolve.

So anyway, lets flash forward to December 2012. I went to visit Chris and Hannah in Chester around Christmas and, as Hannah was in work, Chris decided to show me the ring he was planning to get for Hannah. He had a plan, an objective, and all he had to do is put it in to action. Flash forward again to Easter weekend 2013 - the ring has been bought, and Chris tells me he is waiting for the right moment to ask for Hannah's father's blessing, he even gave me a preview of what he was going to say to him and, honestly, if he had dropped to one knee and proposed to me then I think I would have had to say yes - it was genuinely beautiful what he had to say. We now have the final chapter of the end of Chris and Hannah's beginning, the proposal. 27th June 2013 - 4 years to the day since they officially became a couple. The proposal was made, the proposal was accepted and our story has a perfect finish to the first act.

Since then they have put in an offer on a house and subsequently had the offer accepted and the mortgage confirmed. Things are moving quickly but the stars seem to have aligned and things are falling in to place.

I want to say this just one more time - I could not be happier for the two of you, could not be prouder of you, and will admit to being jealous of you - Chris, Hannah is perfect for you, Hannah - he'll do I guess! 

Finally, I want to wish you the best in everything that happens from here on out, and look forward to seeing you two living your lives together.

You turn up, for the sake of argument, Monday to Friday every week, work from 9 to 5.30 – which I know isn’t what everyone does, but hear me out, ok? – and you feel like you just want it all to end so that you can get home and forget about things till the next day when it starts all over again. Sound familiar?

Well don’t worry, you aren’t alone!

We have all felt it at one point or another. You wake up, usually on a Monday, and you just think to yourself ‘can I really be bothered to drag my arse out of bed?’ So you jump in the shower, begrudgingly iron that shirt that you promised yourself you would do the day before but forgot/were too hung over to do/got caught up watching football and left in a crumpled heap on the floor, and bomb it out of the door having snoozed your alarm one too many times and ended up 20 minutes behind time.

So, what are you gonna do about it? Bitch and moan about how it is soooooo unfair? Just get your head firmly buried in the sand and pretend that it is all going to be ok? Or are you gonna stand up, get your head in the game and be counted?  

(What’s that….oh come off it…fine) Apparently you’ve gone with complaining about how crap it is. So if you aren’t going/ can’t be bothered/ don’t care enough to make changes at work, it is probably time to find a new one.

No there are three ways to go about this:

1)      The right way

2)      The wrong way

3)      The T Dog McLane way

Now the right way is probably the most direct, but also the least fun. You all know the drill by now – send your CV off to everyone under the sun within the sector that you work, go to meaningless interviews with recruitment agents who ‘might, possibly, maybe’ have something for you and then a month or two down the line end up doing the same job but somewhere else. Boring but effective.

The wrong way is probably my favourite and, to borrow a line from everyone’s favourite show that they aren’t watching, Franklin and Bash, when questioned on where they will get the money to pay their staff in the pilot Franklin (the short one, not the guy from Saved by the Bell) offers to ‘Sell his ass on Sunset (Boulevard)’.  This is a job that takes commitment, drive, and more upper body and ab work than I can really be bothered to do in the gym, but don’t tell me you don’t think it would be hilarious to be a ‘worker’. Flexible hours, never have to be up before midday, no taxes. It is an absolutely flawless plan! And on the subject of Franklin and Bash – give it a watch, you just might like it. Malcolm McDowell is hilarious and, as of the third season, Heather Locklear has joined the cast and let me tell you – she still has it! Somehow she has transcended the decades and still looks as good as when she was in Spin City opposite Michael J Fox.

Now finally, there is the T Dog McLane way. I only discovered this today when speaking to a friend about my current situation, and he told me about a mutual friend’s way of stopping the boredom setting in when he was looking for jobs. This is something that has taken over popular culture – the concept of being ‘meta’. What he has done is take various pop culture references, for example Pokemon or the career of Will Smith, and created covering letters based on them, signing of as T Dog McLane. The craziest thing about this was that it actually worked! Employers see the same damn thing over and over that sometimes, they might just pick up a covering letter that is taking the piss and think ‘You know what, you got moxy kid. I want to see what you are like!’ T Dog actually got a couple of interviews from this, including a job offer, and I’m pretty sure it made the monotony of job hunting that little bit more exciting!

I’m not here to tell anyone what to do, how to think or anything like that, but I hope you have gotten a couple of laughs whilst avoiding doing any work and maybe even found it slightly useful!