Martin & Jackie Goodman

[JustAGirlFromHoe]

We’re currently rewatching Friday Night Dinner (bitter-sweet) and have realised that Martin & Jackie’s jobs are never mentioned.

What do you imagine them doing? I see Jackie as a secretary/PA or doctor’s receptionist and Martin as some sort of engineer although my DH thinks he’d be an accountant.

Any other suggestions?

I see Martin as middle management for the local authority, maybe in planning or trading standards
Jackie also local authority, maybe finance or adult support services

I definitely agree with some obscure engineering role for Martin - he is an expert in his field but no one else understands or cares.
I really can't see Jackie working but if they had an au pair she must have done. Maybe a legal secretary?

The writer has said it was based on his family and in one interview says his dad used to run an employment agency for computer programmers ?

Jackie I could see as being something to do with data. Maybe forensic data recovery or data controller. Something that involves having a sort of off beam look at lots of information.

Martin some sort of admin council role in one of those departments where they're all a bit weird so he never feels uncomfortable.

Agree that Jim is a hoarder living in an inherited house with original kitchen and bathroom. And the bath itself is full of chicken parts.

Martin architect or obscure engineer
Jackie, medical secretary

@GreenClock

It think that Martin is an engineer and that Jackie works p/t in an admin role. I bet she was involved with the PTA at the boys’ school.

Jim inherited that house I reckon. I bet he was born in it.

100% agree

Martin almost definitely has a job involving a clipboard.

Jackie definitely works as an admin manager in a large GP practice

As for Martin I can see him writing technical manuals. Something solitary.

@GreenClock

It think that Martin is an engineer and that Jackie works p/t in an admin role. I bet she was involved with the PTA at the boys’ school.

Jim inherited that house I reckon. I bet he was born in it.

Wasn’t Jim born in a zoo? (according to Jim when Jackie is practising her therapy on him).

Martin is definitely an engineer.

I think Jackie works p/t for LA or as a secretary to an executive.

Jackie looks impressed and calls anti- Semitic Jackie a clever clogs for being a legal secretary in one episode. Suggestive perhaps.

Jackie reminds me of an old neighbour - in both looks and personality - and she was a doctors receptionist so that's what I see Jackie as too. Martin is an odd one - I think a teacher.

Love this thread

Martin went to university… I reckon some sort of engineer. Jackie I can see as a medical secretary.

Gutted it’s over 😭

Martin works in a hospital biochemistry dept. He spends most of his time alone in the back office & grows vegetables in the fume cabinet.

Jackie is a finance officer for a jewellers.

@mamaduckbone

I definitely agree with some obscure engineering role for Martin - he is an expert in his field but no one else understands or cares. I really can't see Jackie working but if they had an au pair she must have done. Maybe a legal secretary?

I also see them totally as an engineer and legal secretary - but not at a big firm, a legal secretary at a local high street solicitor. And Jim definitely works in the planning department of the local council, doing something like monitoring traffic flow or designing sewerage systems. All his colleagues avoid him.

My mum (who also worked in local govt) had a very odd colleague who ate a Ski yoghurt and a banana for lunch every single day for thirty years. That’s so Jim.

Martin is a nuclear physicist.

Jackie is kept very busy with committees.

Jim has inherited wealth and the house. Whenhe finally goes to meet his maker it will be discovered that he is worth millions.

I think Jim is either a hoarder or his house is a spotless shrine to his parents where everything is kept exactly where his mum used to put it.

Jackie would be a teaching assistant in a primary school and Martin definitely a woodwork teacher that none of the teenagers ever forgot!

I think Martin could be an academic - hugely knowledgable in one very niche area and hopeless with other things and real life! Jackie definitely a medical receptionist, or maybe a nurse?

I reckon Martin is some kind of engineer maybe in the nuclear or big chemical industries… Jackie is a PA to a really high powered executive… and Jim works in the archives of a really obscure section of a massive library. He has an office in the basement.

Auntie Val co-owns a mother of the bride type boutique.

Ooh yes I could see Jackie as a PA or a medical secretary actually.

Like a secretary to a consultant running his (it would definitely be a his) private clinic in something like dermatology, gastroenterology or even proctology. Somewhere where she could know a lot of juicy details about people’s embarrassing skin or bowel-related procedures 😂

Auntie Val is a beautician or a hairdresser.

Martin works for the council in management and would like to be local mayor, Jackie was a midwife but gave it up when she had the boys and now does a few hours at a local bespoke furniture shop.

Jim is a volunteer at the local charity shop.

Jim's a quantity surveyor and Jackie is NHS admin

Jim works in a charity shop.

Jackie - food tech teacher.

Martin - I agree with the engineer comments but I wonder if he did physics at uni and now works with ofqual or something like that.

Jim definitely works for the council.