Thursday, 8th June 2006.

"This...is the longest day of my life."

Jack Bauer is the embodiment of cool. He has the clothes - a smart-casual, sophisticated look; tasteful jacket-and-shirt combinations, practical but stylish footwear, designer sunglasses and a decent haircut. He has the mobile phone, the Palmpocket, he knows LA inside out and he can more than handle himself in a firefight. We can even forgive him for driving a jeep in the middle of an urban metropolis, given that he constantly seems to be taking it off-road at a moment's notice and ploughing through a terrorist-strewn forest or dusty compound. He's become as cool as Keanu Reeves was the first time he put on that black raincoat to storm the lobby during the climax to The Matrix, and any red-blooded male who doesn't want to be him just a little bit is lying.

Unfortunately, what I've labelled as the coolness factor does not extend to his job. I know that the adrenaline rush is a big part of 24. Post 9-11 nearly everyone wants to take down the terrorists - one of the actors from the recently released United 93 said that the early takes lacked realism, on the grounds that the whole cast were rushing the hijackers because everyone wanted to die a hero. You're supposed to watch the show with feelings of awe and inadequacy coupled with a fervent desire to save the world - you know that you'd probably be caught in the crossfire and die an early death at the end of the first act, but that doesn't stop you thinking that if you were in that situation you just might be able to handle yourself. It's an acceptable fantasy, because it does at least imply an awareness of right and wrong - you know that the characters' working methods are unorthodox, but you admire their pluck, and part of you wants to be there saving the world with them.

It wasn't until the other week, when Em and I were discussing the matter in the wake of watching the season one finale, that we came to the conclusion that this sort of wishful thinking is sorely misplaced. The truth is that CTU is an absolutely shit place to work, and to even apply for a job there you either have to be sorely committed to the cause in the face of mindless bureaucracy and general incompetence, or just a little unhinged.

Let's take them one at a time:

• Your PC is constantly monitored, with all systems activities recorded and then examined on a half-hourly basis. It's therefore impossible to send personal emails, browse the web, spod or even play a quick round of solitaire without having Big Brother constantly looking over your shoulder. Oh, and you can't make personal calls, even quick ones, because all telephone conversations are recorded and transcribed.

• The chain of command is forever being revised, due to the alarming regularity of the head of CTU being shot dead, sent into the field or exposed as a mole of some sort. This means that there's no consistency of management, and you're constantly having to update the new acting head on what you've been working on for the last few hours, only to have them tell you that your working methods suck and that everything has to be done according to procedure from now on.

• For security reasons the unit is buried deep in the bowels of a large and aesthetically unappealing concrete block. There's not a single window, and the subsequent lack of natural light has a negative effect on general morale and is liable to make you feel sleepy.

• Working hours are erratic to say the least. When bad things happen there's no possibility of getting out to go home - you're stuck there until the situation is resolved, your only comfort being the knowledge that things will probably be nicely wrapped up exactly twenty-four hours after they started. In the meantime you're stuck at your desk in a state of unofficial (and hence unpaid) overtime with the GPS monitors and the encryption software - and without a single allocated pause for a meal or bathroom breaks, given than no one ever seems to eat, sleep or go for a dump. And as CTU is always trying to save the world, slacking off at any time is completely out of the question, as the subsequent emotional guilt trip from the management just isn't worth the hassle.

• You can't move without running into Teri Bauer, snooping around the offices asking awkward questions when you're trying to have an important conversation, glancing at confidential data and generally getting in the way.

• Trusting anyone is absolutely impossible because if they're not one of the bad guys, they're generally convinced that you are. There are no casual water cooler conversations about last night's episode of The O.C. (not, as we've already established, that you'd have time for coffee breaks anyway) as you'd get instantly panicky that some casual throwaway remark about Pat Robertson's right-wing fanaticism would be hideously misconstrued, making everyone else think you were a Communist.

• Despite the apparent security of both the building and your job, you never know when the whole thing is going to come crashing down around you…in a quite literal sense.

Maybe I've sold out, and you can call me a contemptible cynic, but I think I'll stick to the publishing house. Nothing I do matters, but at least I get to go home at 4:30.