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 reckon Jackie works in HR. Martin is a civil service finance manager or similar.

The house is pretty valuable today but I reckon they’ve lived there about as long as my friends who live a couple of streets away (from the house in real life), and it would have been perfectly affordable when they bought it.

Martin is for sure an engineer but the sort that crosses in to science areas, possibly teaches engineering. I’m married to a Martin. He also likes eating out of date food, to prove a point.

@jendifer Martin can't work for Ofqual, they are based in Coventry

I think Martin might work or teach something to do with Space. Reading between the lines of how offended he got when Adam suggested living on the moon.

Martin works in the council offices, no-one is quite sure exactly what he does, not good with IT, keeps hitting the stapler instead of the mouse.

Jackie is a Dr’s receptionist or admin role at the local hospital

Jim has never worked, stayed at home with his awful mother and has inherited loads of money from relatives

@VienneseWhirligig where is it set? Realised I’ve never thought about it, or that ofqual only have one office!

Martin's main area of niche research was in a team of 2, centred on trapping feral pigeons and carrying out complex tests to see the impact when flying things are caught in jet engines. Despite seeing a lot of ways to branch out, he has not been awarded funding for any of the projects and is biding his time on something else. His team member went off to Boulder university with a research student after 6 months and never looked back.

Jackie has a lovely job, travelling usually in the evenings to hired arty and expensive places where international architects, MOD recruits, or pulmonary surgeons have to dash in to top up their CPD hours, limited by discretion and time. She is the one hired to meet and greet them and give out name badges as the CPD provider is totally arms-length about it. She knows many of their star signs, as it's one of the first things she tries to guess when she meets them.

Jim works for something like the Swedenborg Enlightenment Centre but has been having doubts for some time.

There's surely space for a - not Christmas, a Rosh Hashanah - special where both sons (more accurately, their partners) have to take turns each Friday to host Jackie?

and what's Jim's job??

I think Martin would like to be a kissagram if he had a secret life! A perfect job for someone who is always boiling.

Jackie yep, doctor’s administrator.

Jim, well he doesn’t work at Battersea dogs home. 🤣

RIP Paul Ritter and thank you for so many laughs.

"Jim works in the archives of a really obscure section of a massive library. He has an office in the basement."

My first job (as an intern) was in such a place. I was sent down to the basement on about day 2 and there was indeed an office there - lovely chap but very, very like Riff-Raff from the Rocky Horror Show (the hair and build was the same). The offices were labelled things like 0.8.a, 0.8.b and so on - his was 0.8.p. P! How do you get as far as P?

Oh good point about the nanny meaning Jackie wouldn't have been an SAHM.

Martin went to Leeds University (probably doesn't help) and hates technology so what might he do!!

Jim I can imagine being a civil servant. At very least I can imagine him working in my office - he'd fit in nicely. 😄

I think Martin would be one of those awkward but loveable teachers/lecturers.

Jackie I’m not sure but itd have to be something she’d act very professional and kind at work but go home and have a good old gossip about customers/clients.
I reckon Jim is from a wealthy family and doesn’t have to work (remember his late aunt or someone had gifted him some plates from royalty...or something).

I reckon Martin is in something like Planning or Highways at the council. But hates it since they started doing everything on the computer maps and much preferred it when they used to use the big map on the wall. He joined after getting a 2:2 in Geography at Leeds. He planned to be a teacher and started the course but had to leave after the unfortunate incident with the mugs and a dead mouse in the staff room. Horrible Grandma was friends with a councillor and he pulled some strings to get Martin a job with maps.
Jackie met Martin when he moved back home after leaving teacher training college. She had hoped to go to Manchester University to study history but got an E in French so went to Birmingham where she changed from history to sociology although Nice Grandma told everyone she was going to be a social worker. Jackie temped at the Council where she met Martin. She then left to work for an estate agents in the office and liked looking at the photos and commenting on people's taste in curtains. After she has the boys she went back to work as GP reception but is now practice manager. She wishes she could tell everyone what she knows about Jim but would never be that unprofessional.

I see you've not put too much thought into it @Councilworker

I think you are onto something there - it's very fitting. Throw in Jim being a clerical officer in the civil service (Department to be announced) and I think we've solved the mystery.

*I'm not in Britain so not too sure if there is a Clerical Officer role in the UK civil service - just presumed!!

Martin an engineer

Jackie a part time job maybe in a bank or admin in a home

I’ve often wondered what they do

I don’t think she is a PA or secretary as she said to the not nice Jackie on being told she was a legal secretary ‘someone’s a clever clogs’

I’ve found it!

THE WHITE HORSE

Whenever I see a white horse, I'm immediately cast back to the time I was a wee laddy. Back then, my dad used to run an employment agency for computer programmers and – according to him – a white horse would pop into his work every day for a chat. "The White Horse came by the office this morning," he'd tell me. Of course I believed him. Who wouldn't? But now I realise my father was making the whole thing up: horses make terrible computer programmers.

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/19/friday-night-dinner-robert-popper

I don’t think she worked (didn’t she say so in the other-Jackie-the-anti-semite one?). Lore only knows what Martin did - I can only imagine him in a small office with stacks of papers and files all over the place. Didn’t he have to be shown how to use the Pc - and didn’t he buy a fax?

Surely managing the local programme to reintroduce red squirrels to local parks and woodland?

@VienneseWhirligig

Jim works for the council and is avoided by everyone in the office.

100%. I've worked with the council Jim.

@ContinuousMonotoneBeep it's kind of an amalgamation of my Jewish in laws although none actually worked for the council as it was a bit declassé! I reckon Martin loved talking longshore drift every time the family went to a beach with groynes and he'd make a bad joke about groynes too.

@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.

Jim was born in a zoo, he tells Jackie that when she's doing the counselling course.

I agree with the Martin being an engineer comments, all those copies of New Scientist can't have been for nothing,

Can see Jackie being a PA as well 😂

Just thought - maybe Jackie is actually Jackie Weaver. I could see her as a parish clerk.

Such a great show 👏 I’m thinking she’s a SAHM and he’s in insurance!!

@callingon

Jim I always imagine as someone who lives off benefits but whose parents bought a house in North London for £20 in 1962 (or something...) and he lives in it for free and is probably a hoarder.

Yes, definitely.