While at university I got a work/study grant typing for a professor who was doing a study of the evolution of English spelling and typography (or something like that) based on comparison of editions of King Lear across the centuries. I got an hourly rate and a set number of hours to work. I forget how many.

The first edition I typed was a rough go because most but not all s characters were a tall curly f-like character that wasn’t on the keyboard and needed to be typed as $ every time. The play was great though.

I was halfway through a second edition with no odd characters to slow me down when my allotted hours were up. But I was so looking forward to that bit where Gloucester and Ed(gar?/mund?) were in a field but supposedly at the top of a cliff that blind Gloucester was going to pitch himself off, and all the other tragic events, that I just kept on going. The prof said “You didn’t have to finish it, you know.” Yeah, but I did.

It was in a dingy computer lab and the keyboard was all greasy and gross, but it was still the best job. So much fun.