The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon

The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon
Shortlisted for The Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now First Novel Prize

Saturday 26 May 2007

So this is me...

For 16 years I built a career as a Specialty Packaging Account Executive. Basically, I sold pretty boxes. All of that came to a thunderous halt on November 20th 2006 with a surprise request to visit our corporate board room.

I walked in and met The Hatchetman.

He was actually a very nice man who looked like he'd rather be helping people. It was his job to tell me all about the restructuring plans that our company was going through and exactly how I didn't fit into them. Restructuring is just another way of saying that even though we say people are our most valuable resource they're actually as disposable as Kleenex if we can save a penny or two.


Well, a stack of legal documents and a $157.00 taxi ride (billed to my former company, of course) later found me on my doorstep in lovely Fergus. For the first time since I was twelve years old I found myself without a job.

So what's a guy to do when suddenly he finds himself without employment for the first time since...well, ever?

Go to Mexico, of course!

The trip had been planned for months but my company's timing was perfect. My old highschool buddy was getting married and he needed a best man.
There I was at the Paraiso Maya resort near Playa Del Carmen in Mexico sitting on the beach, drinking a frozen beverage looking at my wife and kids. It was then that after years of routine, I woke up.

For years and years I had been promising myself that should I ever find a surplus of time I would commit seriously to one of my life's great passions - writing. I had an epic fantasy novel hanging around my neck like an albatross but with a sales job that demanded way too much time and a young family I could never finish the damn thing.

When we returned home finishing that book became priority one.

The great thing about being fired without cause is that the employer needs to make nice with the money. My severance package was generous enough that they knew I wouldn't be throwing up too much of a stink. It was also generous enough that my former employers were, in essence, paying me to finish my novel.

Ahhh... I like my beer cold, my steak medium-rare and my justice poetic.