My dishwasher is misbehaving and needs bailing out at least twice a day. I'm smiling. My car will shortly fail its NCT. I'm smiling. Tell me my children are ugly, I'll just smile. Why? I've made a life decision. I'm not going back to school. For 12 years I've spent the last week of August dusting off the schoolbag, regrouping the notes and lessons and trying to psyche myself up for the coming academic year. No more. I am an ex-teacher.

I was never a "proper" teacher in that I didn't fall into any of the accepted categories. I came to the game with an information technology and business qualification at a time when, if you could say the word "computer" without blanching - and then plug it in - they welcomed you with open arms. I enjoyed it. Mature, adult people would come to me at the end of a class and present me with coloured-in masterpieces with lovely fonts and pictures. They glowed like small children when I admired and praised and took me seriously when I told them to put it on the fridge at home. A definite feel-good factor.

Then I got involved with exam classes. Immediately, your job-satisfaction is dependent on somebody else's achievement - or not, as the case may be. You find yourself teaching less, administering more and worrying all the time.

Absenteeism is rife and you end up ringing your students' homes to remind them about deadlines, ringing them at work because you couldn't get them at home (they all seem to work now - school is just a place to go when you're not working or socialising) and fantasising about wringing their necks. You call to their homes; you plead with their parents; you turn yourself inside out accommodating their schedules.

You bribe Saints Jude, Anthony and assorted others at exam time, and for what? They do well - they've worked hard. They don't do well - you didn't do your job. It's your fault. Before the choir starts the old chorus of "paid holidays" and "finished at 3 p.m." - don't. I was a "part-time" teacher. The system is full of us at all levels because we're cheap to run. "Part-time" means you get paid hourly for the hours you work.

No holiday pay. No permanency. No pension. No nothing. Second level works until circa 4 p.m. and third level generally until 5 p.m. "Part-time" means that the long hours you spend in preparation, administration and correction are for the love of it.

The "permanent and pensionables" ought to be beatified as far as I'm concerned. Until you've been there and done it, you have no idea what it's like. Anyone who has not faced a class of 25 or so five through 18-year-olds and tried to maintain law and order, in addition to imparting knowledge, is not qualified to scoff. Then try doing it all day, every day. So yes. I'm smiling. I have that wonderful, thrilling feeling of playing truant. To my ex-colleagues out there who are starting to feel the "pains in their tummies" as they think about returning after the summer break: I salute you. You're doing a great job. Your halos will be waiting. If it were left to me, you'd be getting gold bars and/or brown envelopes.

I told a little fib at the outset of this: I am actually going back to college - this time as a student. I'm swapping game-keeping for poaching. Here's hoping I can poach.