An Ugly Word

The way things have been up and down at work began to make sense this week. My Boss's strange moods suddenly make more sense.

Things have gone bad. Very bad... and they are going to get ugly...

My company is ditching part of it's business that has been making a loss and this involves redundancies. It involves a lot of them. 40% of my team will go. We are one of three areas to be hit but other individuals have also been targetted and some have already gone. So now we get scored, given the opportunity for voluntary redundancy etc, etc.

Thing is, once you announce such things to customers, things tend to pick up speed. Those who may have been shown the door after Christmas, may now be shown the door before, who knows?

It is a nasty process. Friends go, teams get broken up and you face either job loss or a role that will likely prove hellish for a time.

I suspect I may not post here for a bit. I don't want to think or dwell right now. I want distraction and avoidance. I have more than enough time to be miserable at work and much of what I would have to say would not be appropriate on an anonymous blog....

I love you all dearly and will be back, so never fear. And I am alright, I think I am one of the lucky ones, whatever happens to me.

Signs of Hope

I know I have probably said this before but, as much as I hate my job right now, I still don't quite think the time has come to jump. I have had a habit of jumping ship rather easily in the past. Sometimes of necessity as a habitual temp, jobs do end and new ones begin, but I have also prematurely left a lot of positions....

In my younger days I had a habit of leaving jobs after 4 months cos I started to get bored. My longest length of time in a single position is a year. There are one or two places where I have been for longer periods but in different roles at different times. Places I have gone back to.

Sometimes my jumping ship has in effect cut off my nose to spite my face. Looking back I wonder why I did that, why I left there before I had drained it dry of benefit, before I had a real peach of a job to go on to. When I graduated I had a job, one of the places I kept going back to but my Boss left as they finally had enough of their Boss and had a very nice job offer. Without my buffer and friend I was the direct target of the Over-Boss and after my first tongue lashing I decided that I was not going to stick around. I think leaving that job and not pursuing the links I made signed a death warrant on any hopes of a career in Environmental Science I might have had, at least so far it has...

I feel as if I have something to prove by staying put, by enduring, by demonstrating that i can put down roots, that I can.... That it is needful somehow, although the whys and wherefores have not been made clear to me. I might be completely insane in this but I feel as if I will know when it is time to go, that something will happen, there will be some sign.

All the signs right now are suggesting hope and future happiness while saying now is not quite the time.....

I left the house to find a pair of magpies eating on the pavement opposite. I got to the shop to find a beautiful and vivid rainbow in the sky. Marc Coen's song Walking in Memphis came on and this always speaks to me of hope and tells me I am in the right place. Then at lunch, two more magpies, in a bush nestled together. I got to and from my car inbetween hale showers, yay for not getting wet! And afterwards there was another rainbow in the sky.

Hope springs eternal and maybe soon my dreams with be able to blossom..... Maybe it is nearly time. Maybe....

Fear

Fear holds us back and makes us miss opportunities. Then we get cross because we are missing out....

Some friends took an opportunity to join a larger group. I held back because I had some not so good experiences in a similar group. In fact some of the people I like from the old group are in this new group. So I held back and my two buddies jumped on in and now I feel a little left out. There they are having experiences and coversations and fun that I am not.

Of course, any time I want I can go for it and join to.... But I don't really want to, I just want my mates back, all to myself. Greedy.... Selfish.... I don't want to share them. I don't want to open myself up to all that. I also don't want to get that involved. I am dabbling a toe. Trying to be half involved.

I am not sure this is an old theme for me either. I worked on a few projects while at Uni. One of these was a contract that bought me in contact with potential employers. I had to finish graduating but I had a couple of people in different organisations interested in employing me. When I graduated there were a coupld of lecturers who suggested sending CV's to a couple of places. Did I do any of these things? No.

I worked some dead end jobs instead.... Some opportunities do evaporate if you let them, but friendship, if it is true, never should.....

Chain Reaction

So many little things......

Some good, some bad.

A beautiful tea, Marks and Spencers Enchiladas. Lovely. I am completely stuffed and happy right now. Sated.

I had to go to the pharmacy late and the only one open was on a retail park, With a Marks and Spencers next door.

I went to the Doctor and he looked at both my ears and said the reason I am not hearing so well when I put my ear plug in the ear with the burst drum is that the other one is full of wax for which I can use drops.

Work insisted last week that I go back to my Doctor to make sure I had the correct information regarding my ear and noise.

When I booked the appointment, i booked it for out of work hours as I try to do with all my appointments.

Later on i had a dentists appointment which was in work time. I was two hours late but my boss knew the time and place of my appointment so should not have been surprised.

Later, my co-worker got sent home an hour early to enjoy an early start to the weekend while I got a telling off for being so late and was informed I had to make up the hours.

As I was going to the Doctor, I stayed late at work and did the first half of my time making up.

At the Doctor's I explained that work was insisting I came back for further guidance, i explained what I was doing, all of which he agreed with and he wrote a letter to my work to, in his words, 'shut them up'.

When my Boss returns there will be a note booking annual leave for my next dentist appointment. Once bitten twice shy. The rules change and I am not going to play that game.

*********

Writing this, what do I see? Bad has to have a source, it constantly renews itself from something. Bad needs effort and work. Good on the otherhand reproduces if you let it, from a little starting event you get a lovely enchilada tea, but only if you are open to it.

About Face

I am not sure what to believe or which way to turn right now.

Work is downright bizarre. One second I don't feel valued, the next I feel like employee of the month (maybe slight exageration but you get the picture). I think there is just so much going on that what I see is the tip of the iceberg. I think it is going to take a while for me to really catch up with everything that has gone on. Possibly months... *laugh* I think the word confusing could be used and I am goignt o try and stop thinking and let it just be for now.

I am tired and there are changes and lots of work round the corner. There is possible overtime and possible redundancy. Such is the joy of working for a company with multiple divisions. In good times you all benefit and in bad times you all suffer - even if you have more work than you can manage and are turning a profit....

But yes, I am tired. my social life is trying to take off but I am stubbornly digging my heals in because I know I can't take it right now.... Not this weekend. Not yet. I also can't face reading blogs right now and am planning a catch up at the weekend. I want to curl up somewhere warm and practice being rather than doing. Little Dog is providing an extremely good example of this right now and I think I shall go join her.....

Friend or Foe?

Today... The things I expected to be bad were not and some of the things that were hard took me by surprise.

The H & S back to work thingy was fine and I have all the ear protection I could possibly wish for.

People's reaction to my return varied, quite a lot. One bad tempered chap from outside my department saw me and all the words shared were hello, but he looked sympathetic. One person from inside my department didn't hear me the first two times I said hello and when I said louder he responded but didn't look at me.

The people in my department who I thought were my friends, apart from one, proved themselves to be so. They didn't say a lot but they looked pleased to see me which to be honest, was all I needed them to do, big long conversations are not really my thing right now.

My best friend at work has always been my Boss and she is the one I feel has let me down. I can ignore some of the grumpy things she said to me while I was off. I can ignore the fact that there was way more text messaging than there needed to be, if she just paid attention to what I told her the first time. (no I can not tell you anything right now because, as I already told you, my appointment is for much later today and I already said i will call yoy as soon as it is over....)

The thing that really got my goat though wasn't even direct. It was very much indirect. Someone else is off right now with a chest infection but they have a named serious chest infection. They have not been off long as yet but there was my Boss arranging for someone to go pick up their sick notes and arranging for a whip round for a get well card and boys mag to cheer them up.

It hurt. I pride myself on being honest. I wouldn't expect a Boss to necessarily see and respect that but I do expect a friend to. So I guess the end result of this is that perhaps they really arn't much of a friend. The grumpy comments I could forget as there has been a lot of stress in their life but the lack of trust and faith in me, i can't.

The company I can forgive to, their procedures are not bad but the way my Boss sometimes implements them on a personal level is not so great.

So i am sat here feeling pretty tired and yucky and a bit down. I shall go in tomorrow and slowly people will forget I was off sick and things will return to normal. I am not sure I will forget that my Boss may pretend to my friend but that when it comes down to it, they are not.

Small Mercies

So tomorrow is back to work. No symptoms left now except for tiredness and gurgly ear, so I know it is time. Going back will be tough but will help me get my strength back now. I have barely been out of the house in four weeks. I have done nothing physical beyond the every occasional bit of washing up. So work is going to hit me hard. This week will consist of work, eat and sleep and not much else. I may not be on here much.

So there is that and then there is the fact that I get the impression my Boss thinks I should have worked through it and I suspect this will be a common attitude. Then there is my meeting first thing. Add on to this the fact that there will be a considerable back log. My colleagues have been doing overtime all weekend and there will still be much to do. They will be tired, grumpy, stressed and will see me as not really having been much help at all.

I know I will go back and probably not feel much a part of the team for a bit. But then, to be honest, I just want to drift into the background right now anyway. Not sure I will have the energy for much else.

I have often thought that if I ever did win the lottery (yes I really do spend a lot of time working on this dream *laugh*) that I would dish out some to colleagues. This month has persuaded me that no, I perhaps wouldn't want to. I don't actually have an out of work relationship with them and now there is a little distance, I suspect, very strongly, that if I left there are not any friendships strong enough there for me to carry forward. If I did get lucky, I might give them a treat but I wouldn't make them fellow millionaires.

I am not really dwelling on going back however. It is at the point where there is nothing I can do, I don't know what will happen, it is just too darn scary to think about and I have to do it anyway. Instead today I had some WoW time with F and our old friend. It was good working together to solve puzzles and have a little fun.

This is a team we have found ourselves. A team that has stood the test of time and been a real source of strength. Of all the people we have met and befriended while playing WoW, this friend is the one who has become a real part of our lives.

We were pushing it today. We could have minced around obliterating everything in our path but we decided to have a go at something a little beyond us, to be honest. We didn't suceed but having a go taught us so much about these new characters we have made. We looked at their abilities and how to use them, we specialised our characters to allow them to work better together. We took different roles. We made plans, tried them and then changed them. Each death was a learning opportunity. Each mistake an opportunity to laugh or learn or both. No one was the leader but we all led. All equals. Friends.

Being given jobs, getting stuck in roles... When people worked in communities, did they chose their preferred teams? Was their choice? Did people naturally gravitate towards what worked best and most happily? I suspect they did. Why would they not? Roles would change with efficiency, so as people aged and become less energetic, they would find themselves as advisers or deposed by challenges if they held on too tight.

I work in a dysfunctional team... An overly emotional Boss who can be quite confrontational. The Lady of Lies who is very capable but also pretty lazy. The Little Princess who is not so hot, except for very brief spurts if someone stands over her with a whip. An older person who is in a position of responsibility but the precision required is slowly slipping away. I personally feel that I carry more than my fair share of responsibility within the team and do more than my share of the work, for lower pay than most as well. I bet my being absent has made things tough.

So no, going back won't be fun. I won't have an easy ride as I catch up on my work. I shan't enjoy team spirit, as least for a while. I shan't enjoy feeling well for a little while either. But I shall enjoy friendship and I shall enjoy love and have fun, just maybe not in work straight away. But then maybe I won't have to be there to long. Even if I don't get to change jobs there is our plan - the one where in the not to distant future, I get to be a stay at home Mum.

Feels Like Trouble

I was feeling pretty happy. I am feeling better. OK, so I am going to tire easy for a bit and sometimes my ear gurgles and itches. But basically I am going to be fine to go back on Monday as far as I can see.

Each visit to the Doctor's I have updated them. I had agreed to speak to my Boss on Sunday to confirm that I could definitely return to work. Since telling them about my burst ear drum on Tuesday I have been thinking about the fact that a lot of the building I work in is pretty noisy. So much so that if you spend more than fifteen minutes in some areas you need to use ear protection. The company also regularly conducts hearing tests on people working in those areas.

I don't work there. I work in a quieter area, there is some occasional noise but I basically spend 90% of my time sat behind a computer. Given there is two of us doing the same role, it wouldn't take much to adjust things so I was behind a computer 100% of the time for the next few weeks. OK so maybe I would need to walk outside to go to the facilities, maybe they might need to buy me some big posh ear defenders, like headphones.

It is doable. Having told my boss about my ear, they should have been thinking about things. Thing is my Boss is a physical type who doesn't shy away from a fight, who speaks before thinking, wears their heart on their sleeve and feels emotions very strongly, negative and positive. So when I spoke to them and pointed out about my ear and noise and asked them to talk to the H & S person, they weren't best pleased.

They did and they called me back, so now when I go in on Monday, before I even get to head to the place I work, I get to meet with my Boss's Boss and the H & S person. My good mood has evaporated. I think my Boss would quite happily see me gone right now. Four weeks off sick is more than they can really deal with and not being fully able to do everything I did before doesn't sit well either.

Thing is, they lack a certain amount of education. They are a get it done person rather than the sort of manager who knows all the rules and regs. Sometimes they react and then discover that legislation ties their hands. I do wonder if this is a bit like that. I also wonder, given my company is announcing redundancies, whether I will find myself faced with constructive dismissal or just paid my notice and gone. So now I am pissed off and stressed and all the good feeling I had from watching Bride and Prejudice has evaporated. So my Boss may have expressed emotion that the company would deem inappropriate but it has still been expressed.

The way I feel towards them right now, I am actually hoping that they do get rid of me and I can sue their butts. I do think I need to get armed with some data about what noise levels I can and can't be exposed to right now.... I actually was sat here thinking up nice happy, non-whiny posts for today too... *snarl*

Moon Whispers

What can I say?

I am not really ill any more. Not really well yet. Very soon I visit the Doctor and I am sure he will give me the all clear and then I shall be back. Chances are it will be pretty miserable. The days will be too long and will leave me drained. The weekends will be just enough to patch me together to go back for another long week.

And for what?

I don't do an important or worth while job. I don't help anyone and neither does my company. I don't do anything real, I just alter fictional numbers. I work pretty hard for a pretty low wage. This money mostly just goes to pay for me to live and to sort out finances. It doesn't get me anything I really want because what I really want feels so far beyond my reach.

My life is all about things that keep me from living, as are most peoples.

Things are not all bad though. We have a plan. Next Summer, thereabouts things will start to get better. Instead of sorting out old things, we might finally be able to start moving forward. It just all feels so far off. Seems to be taking so many years. Sometimes hope wears low. Particularly when you are put back by illness and don't want to go back to work. Would just much rather quit and never have to go back.

I really don't need my hormones leaching away at me right now. I guess at least I know that in a day or two balance will resume. How much our little feminine hormonal imbalances affect us! I guess the only question I have is when do we see clearest? The rest of the month or when the moon draws us close and whispers in our ear. Sweet lunacy?

How Long?

Time for another whinge about being ill....

I had my nasty chest infection and the doctor continued to sign me off but didn't renew my antibiotics because he felt it was viral and wanted to give them a chance to work. I was starting to feel a little better when F comes down with a bug.

Suddenly I have snotty man with a temperature lurking about. Of course my immune system is shot. Not just from my own bugs and chest infection but also from the antibiotics. I am not sure if the antibiotics were damping down my own bugs or if F's bug have now come to visit.

Yesterday I had to visit the shop to get some food for Little Dog and I felt dire when i got back. A twenty minute excursion was all it was. Today my chest has bloomed and is sore etc. Work call because they want to know if they need to get some cover in or not and to try and get me to get an appointment as soon as possible.

Feeling a bit harassed I tell F, who is a little stern with me about money and so forth. Then I call the Doctor and find that they are snowed under and obviously have sickness too. So I am off to the Doctor next week and not even to see my own. Apparently the Doctor will be backdating my certificate.

I feel miserable now. I feel as if I have been backed into a corner of being off all week, whether I need to or not. I feel as if F is losing sympathy a little (I suppose at least one of us a constitution made of sterner stuff but I guess it makes it hard for him to appreciate where I am at). I now know that whether I need drugs or not, I can not get any.

I think the term for my position is snookered.

Down but not Out

I went to the Doctor and got myself another nice little piece of paper. No more drugs though as he feels my chestiness is viral. No mention of bronchitus or pneumonia or any other such thing. Swine flu may have been present but it doesn't matter whether it was or not because there is no way of proving it one way or the other now.

I am just ill and I have another seven days off work.

I am in no hurry to get back. I don't want to go back. I am restless and waiting for the wind to blow me on somewhere else. All the politics and difficulties and struggling colleagues. I just don't want it.

I must admit, before I got ill, that last time. On the Friday when I felt rough and had had enough of everyone. I prayed to the goddess to not make me have to go back. I guess you should be careful what you wish for. It also doesn't stop me from having to go back. It just delays it and gives me a breathing space (*laugh* with a chest infection*).

So where do I go from here? Is there any way I can avoid having to go back but still have money? I have to give a months notice. I have no other job to go to and there are not that many about right now. If I didn't go back I would get a bad reference making it harder to get another job.

I guess I just need to accept the inevitable and keep praying that I win the lottery.

I guess not liking your job is pretty common.

Hope

Last night F made it clear he thought I should give work ago. So I did and it was dire. I felt awful. It is one thing to feel well while sat on a sofa gazing gormlessly at the TV but quite another to feel well when you have to be up and moving about, dealing with people and working. I felt very fatigued, physically exhausted and slightly fluttery.

I lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes before meeting with my Boss and coming home.

I went via the shop to stock up on easy food as I probably won't be going anywhere much for the next few days. Then I went home and called the doctor who i shall visit tomorrow.

So why am I going to the doctor? I have a virus which has knocked me about a bit and although the coldy and stomachy symptoms are gone it has laid me low. Nothing they can do about viruses... I do want to talk a little about my hormones though as this whole thing really began last week. But really I am going to the doctor so I can say to work see, I went to the doctor.

Isn't it dire? In order to feel justified in taking time off work, I have to go to the doctor knowing they can do nothing for me and I am wasting theirs and my time. This probably seems a very, very bizarre situation to those of you in countries where health care is not free. Not uncommon here though. I can't say if this says more about my feelings about being ill or whether it is a true reflection of employers attitudes to sickness.

I don't get paid for being off sick though. I have not worked there long enough. I guess that is a point in my favour... It does mean money is going to be tighter next month for me but I have lovely man... I have been good this month though. I bought my beautiful socks, which arrived today. I have bought some leg and arm warmers paid for by an unexpected payout for some previous work. The troll bracelet was paid for by birthday money. No wild excursions. No visits to friends with bottles of wine. No meals out. So hopefully it won't be too bad. Next month there is a whole bunch of overtime coming my way so December will be fine for finishing off present shopping, for those I havn't made.

I left the house and found a rainbow glinting in the sky in front of me. I caught it three more times in different places before I got to work. It is a blustery day with little showery clouds scudding across the blue sky. Rainbows to me signify hope and beauty. To see so many in such a short space of time.

When I left work I saw two magpies and then a third as I drove away. A time of change, a promise of hope and beauty. I do feel that this year in this job, I am trying to prove something, that this is only a temporary thing. Something I have to do. To not flit about. To stop searching and let my life come to me, until I know what it is I am searching for, until fate and life and synchronicity take me on somewhere else. A time to be patient. To hold down a job.

The other night I was feeling pretty down so I dragged out my tarot. Over the last few days I have done three different spreads. The onw about my life and the one about the general situation were not very interesting. Little I didn't know. The other was a spread called merlin's Mirror which is all about identifying the real you.

I had six major arcana in my reading. Most of the more mundane cards were about where I am currenly at and what I am currently doing. I had Gawain (Strength), the Washer at the Ford (Death), The Cauldron (Temperance), Sleeping Lord (Judgement), Fool and the Green Man (Devil). In my other readings I also had Merlin (Magician), White Hart (Lovers) linked to relationships and The Spiral Tower (Tower) linked to my future.

That is a pretty heavy lot of major arcana to get. Things are moving in my life under the surface and change is on it's way. I hope it is time for my dreams.

Baking the Cake

Work today was not good... Not really.

One of my colleagues is stressed and has with stress become increasingly inept. The result of this is that he has become less skillful in his tinkering with the figures. Suddenly we are all wise to what he gets up to. His methods are in question and decrees passed to improve them, which he then ignores. Suddenly he is no longer the all knowing guru. Not that he ever was, it was just an act, with little substance underneath.

When he has to do certain jobs he would rather take the Little Princess than me. She doesn't question him whereas I do. She doesn't find his mistakes, I do. She does exactly what she is told, i don't.

He had been told not to use her for a specific job because she didn't do it very well. Basically because when she does it with him there are mistakes because she is not on the ball enough. Today he took her (when the cats away, the mice do what they damn well please). He knew he shouldn't but he did anyway.

When they came back, he worked on the figures. Maybe he cooked them a little, who knows. I did a lot of work recently on one of the classifications. I catalogued them and labeled them and had them examined and so on. He had the emails. He was notified of the new procedures. He is supposedly in charge of such things after all.

There had been no notifications of changes to this classification according to the new procedure but yet his figures wildly differed from those previously verified. I went and checked and found no change and confirmed with someone who looks after them that there had been no change. The cat sent me for a further check with the two mice. Suprisingly enough, the figures we got this time were exactly as they should be, given there had been no change.

Lead mouse didn't react to well to all this and had a blazing row with the cat. Myself and the second mouse quivered nervously. Instead of accepting that he had been making a hash of it, he insisted on a new procedure. Which is fine, but it meant my afternoon was spent with more labels. There was nothing wrong with the old ones. They were legible and had all the required information. The new ones just have a letter and a number.

Why didn't he suggest this the first time I did it (which would have saved me a lot of time)? Give his job title and pay, how come he had never noticed that his figures for this classification varied a lot? That things would appear and then vanish only to reappear, suggesting they had never actually gone anywhere? How come he never ever got to the bottom of this? How come he never improved his own procedures? How come he earns so much?

I guess the other thing that really annoyed me, was that I later was alone with him and he gave me a little talking to. Not very subtle. About team work and so forth. Trying to make me say the old labels were bad and the new ones better. Maybe they are, but the old ones should have been good enough, given he used to claim it was done perfectly accurately before there were any labels at all.

I was cross but there is nothing I could say. I can not criticise him and how he does his job to his face, it is not my place. It is my Bosses. He seems completely oblivious to the fact that he isn't doing his job and is making a lot fo mistakes. That people have started double checking his work. That faith has been lost. He really believed the finance person wouldn't hve noticed the figures had mysteriously changed over the course of a week? The finance person he believes his victimising him? (although they have just lost faith in him and are being very, very careful)

The net result of all this is that somehow I felt to blame for it all. But I am not the one who made the mistake. I am the one who saved a bigger fish up the ladder from finding it and causing all manner of problems for us all. So who is to blame?

Why should anyone have to be to blame? I don't want his job, he is safe. Surely any mistake I spot is one I have stopped from going to far? Surely that helps him?

Things

So many things seem to be happening right now. So many things seem to be about to start. So very much a time of change.

The weather has suddenly decided to go all summery. Beautiful clear skies. Air so fresh it tastes sweet. A beautiful gentle warmth cooled by sea breezes. Lovely. And I like it even more because it isn't Summer. There is a slight nip to the air at times that lets you know this Autumn. The night is lasting longer and longer. This is September at it's best.

The last few days I have been stuck in work of a day and to busy of an evening to make it to the beach. So I promised Little Dog we would go first thing today. And we did. 8 am found us stepping onto Perranporth Beach with a fairly low tide giving huge expanses of golden fluffy sand. And I do really mean fluffy because the beach cleaning tractor was there sifting sand for trash and laying it back like a fluffy powdery stuff.

Little Dog was pretty good and I got a better balance today between her desire to chase after the ball and her need to not run herself ragged. As we left the beach it was just beginning to get warm enough to make running risky for her. She cooled off in the stream before we headed back to the car.

A good start to the day. I then spoke to my Mum and discovered she is also trying to lose weight right now for her diabetes. She has decided to give herself a treat with every half stone. She is going to buy a troll bracelet with her first milestone and a troll bead or charm for it every one after that. We are going to do this together now because it is such a lovely idea. By the time I am thin I should have a beautiful collection of beads that I would have trouble justifying normally.

The diet is going OK. I have planned the meals for the rest of this week now which seemed to take ages. It doesn't feel easy yet. Last nights tea was a glitch though.... Now I just have to make myself cook it all and stick to it. I need to make myself go out shopping really... I left lunch to late and let myself get hungry. This is something I do and then I go and get all the wrong foods....

The new TV has arrived but I can not unpack it until F gets back. It is our first real big purchase of something new together and as such we will enjoy it's first moments together. I would love to be able to watch it tonight though... Oh well....

Work has gone a little odd in some ways but in others it is fine.

Jewellery making is now progressing at a snail's pace. I am making a bracelet for my Aunt (thankfully she has tiny wrists) using tiny delica beads sewn into tiny squares and then sewn together. The way it sits is a bit like an egg box sort of a shape. F's Mum's necklace has ground to a halt because I ran out of beads. My sister's earrings have swelled in number to three sets but I got bored of earrings and stopped for a bit. My Mum's bracelet is done. This just leaves my Neice, who isn't turning gothy after all. Of course this is only the first round - they all need birthday and Christmas presents....

On other crafting - I need to do some silk painting and some sewing (eek) and some how neither seem to be getting started. It is just a question of making myself get started really... *sigh*

Some major decluttering has been accomplished while I was safely out of the way at work. F has removed a wardrobe and now I can actually see all of the width of the window from the bed. The room seems so much brighter suddenly!

I think I am putting off going shopping....

Bottom of the Heap

This week and the next, there is a high possibility that I shall not be posting each day. Do Not Panic! Chances are I shall not have time to stack up posts to schedule either so there will be gaps.

To be honest, it actually feels kind of nice setting up some non-blog time. And next week will be my no reading week for TAW and I suspect this might not be such a huge problem next week either...

It is all a little unfortunate really. Both my work and family are making big demands but family has won and I am not sure that work entirely likes that! Work soooo likes to be boss doesn't it! At what point did work start to own my life?

So I thought I would look at working week times and discovered these do not include work at home, just paid work. Europe bought in a working time directive limits the working week to 48 hours maximum. France went one step further and made it a 35 hour week. The UK didn't bring in the directive, they opted out so that people can work more than 44 hours but can not be forced to do so. My contract states that by signing it, I agree to opt out of the working time directive.

If I wasn't away this weekend and was working all the overtime hours my Boss would like I would be way over the working time directive. I know some people cope fine with long work hours but I am not sure I do. Ideally I would like to work part time. When I have kids I would like to be a stay at home Mum.

I guess another thing is, some people want to maximise overtime pay. I don't, I want to do what I have to and get out of there, as quickly as possible. I don't want to have to do one extra minute I don't have to. I believe that while I am in work, I owe it to my employer to work. I do chat, a bit, but I also work very hard. I am efficient and good at planning my work, I achieve a fair bit.

Some people seem to have the goal of doing as little work as possible while at work. I can't imagine anything worse that sitting staring at a screen doing nothing. Surely pretending to be busy is just as energy consuming as working?

Thing is, all that lovely work I do benefits someone else. I get paid but what real benefits do I see? I work as hard as the managers and directors, while I am working but they get paid an awful lot more. I am just as clever as they are. I work in a dark dingy place while they have light airy offices and sea views. It is my work that supports them, they don't contribute directly to productivity, I do.

I don't like this model of work. It feels wrong. Something has to give at some point. There has to be another way for me.

Tribal Happiness

I have been thinking about things today. This is quite a common thing I know but a few things have come together...

Last week some colleagues bought some music in for us to listen to instead of the radio. It was good but not quite what I wanted to listen to so today I took my turn. I liked my music but it was pretty obvious that no one else was feeling it. My enjoyment of my music went down hill very quickly and i ended up putting the radio on. I think this relieved one or two of my colleagues. I kind of hope we don't do the music thing again but I suspect we will.

We listen to a local radio station and I don't think a single one of us really enjoy it. We have a few old rockers, a young dancey thing or two, some older easy listening types. I kind of like it all but not as much as my own music. I was kind of edgy in my music tastes when I was younger and I guess not everyone loves my tastes even now, even when I pick things I thing they will like. I liked things in that kind of area around grunge, goth, trance and punk. very much a child of the precise time I was in my late teens, a frozen snap shot of what the coolest alternative scene was at the time.

We have to listen to this station though, or one like it because it is more important that none of us really hate it, than none of really love it. I like some of the songs, occasionally there is one I love and I reckon all of us would say that but probably not about the same songs.

In school and college we divide up into tribes often due to tastes and interests. At work we are forced together with people that we perhaps wouldn't choose to be with, that we might have nothing at all in common with. We end up behaving in particular ways to get on with this mass group we may or may not actually want to spend time with. Not many of us really enjoy work, and even if we do, I doubt we enjoy it all the time.

I mostly like the people I work with and we have a real laugh but we are not at all alike. We can't sort ourselves out into tribes so well at work. We can a little by our choice of job but it isn't perfect and other factors apart from interest are in play.

I had been thinking about writing this and then I got home and read barry's post today about the effect on us of happy people around us. A happy next door neighbour is likely to make us more happy. So is a happy friend or sibling living close by and a happy spouse definitely makes us happier. Even a friend of a friend who is happy has a knock on effect. Apparently it is probably a proximity thing.

The only people this doesn't work with are colleagues. A happy colleague doesn't make us happier. is this some side effect of the artificial tribe thing? Maybe if we chose our own colleagues they would affect us more.

Some how this just makes me feel that the rat race is so phony. Even the society it creates doesn't somehow work right. I am not saying this is so everywhere, some workplaces might have a genuine bonding into a tribe.... Not sure mine does... Not really...

Undercurrents

Do you ever get that feeling that lots and lots of things are going on? That you only know some of it? That there is much more lying under the surface? Do you ever have times when you had no idea that anything was going on and suddenly you discover lots is going on and you had no idea?

I had one of those moments today. What it was doesn't matter. I have even been party to some of the events that were sparked off but they meant little to me, beyond their standalone worth, because I lacked the piece of knowledge ready to pin it all together. And then you get that little piece of knowledge and you cringe, just a little, because you had no idea and you almost feel like you should have guessed something was up and dug a little deeper...

Work is like that to. There is so much going on. I have no idea if I have any idea of how it all fits together. It is all so complex sometimes, that I have no idea if I already hold that crucial bit of information. The Lady of Lies has spun a web around her life, others know far more than me, but I actually find I don't want to dig and learn and uncover because that would mean becoming 'involved' and that is not what I want. I know enough to know that she is a sad young lady that I can not help and that trying to is just a band aid stopping her from really having to face herself. I might be wrong, I reserve the right to change my mind.

The politics at work are stepping up. It is suspected by some that there may be redundancies before Xmas. This is a feeling and may be completely wrong, who knows, yet. We can all feel it in the air and some of us feel safer than others, some of us care more than others. I have been used to temp work and the thought of not working and having a permanent job doesn't scare me so much. I can imagine that some who have never had temp work, or been out of work, or had many jobs at all, or been there a long time might find it a little different to me.

There are also some there who are on slightly inflated wages and if they can not find exactly the same job they will be taking a huge pay cut and have to work harder. National agreements can be lovely things.

Thing is nobody knows for sure right now. Plans change in the wind. Those who do know can't say. Already you can sense the weaker ones who might be cut from the herd. The temps for one...

The work situations I am aware of and I am aware that I do not hold all the pieces. Slowly the jigsaw is fitting together. I don't like the other sorts of jigsaws so much, when you don't know they are there till the last couple of pieces fall in. I like change more than I like surprise I think.

I Want To Be....

If I had five other lives I would be...

An explorer

A gardener

A seamstress

A museum curator

A librarian

Hmmm... Maybe I thought too much who knows..... This list seems kind of exactly what I would expect from me, nothing earth shattering really.


I would love to travel but not in a guided tour sort of a way. I like maps and finding places on them to go to. I like taking roads to see where they go. I would love to explore further afield, up jungle rivers, desert canyons and palm fringed lagoons. But I am quite happy finding nature reserves on the map and going to them. Driving down to find isolated little coves.

I would love to garden and the sad thing is I have a garden but don't garden.... Why? I need to get on this...

I like the idea of sewing, making soft furnishings for my home, making clothes for me and mine and maybe the odd cuddly toy. I have a sewing machine but have never worked up the courage to have a go. I havn't used a machine since school. i need to get on this as well...

I think the museum curator is the desire to have interesting things bought to me from all over the world. Seeing the whole collection, not just the select few items on display. I like things and I like learning. I don't necessarily want to own them.....

Librarian is no surprise at all. I like books. They feel like friends to me. There is something beautiful about a wall of books. Books are the best....

So I need to keep doing what I am doing but sew and garden as well....

Enervate

It's another night when I have nothing to say but feel there has to be something in my head that wants to come out. Except there isn't and I want to go to sleep.

I just finished monstorous pink necklace demanded by the f m-i-l for some friend. Yay! Now I don't have to make any jewellery again for some time. Except I promised a pair of fairly intricate earrings to someone and sometime soon I should start on the little rash of presents I have to have prepared for the Xmas run. Problem is, in my extended family four of the women have birthdays around Xmas and another is a little earlier. It turns into a bit of a military campaign of making. Can I really face that much jewellery this year? Not sure.... Maybe silk scarves of simple design.... Stand back and throw paint? Would that do?

My new antibiotics have made me susceptible to wind. It seems to have made me very sensitive to sugar. Maybe this is a good thing. I actually turned down a doughnut this afternoon. This is un-heard of...

It's a good job I REALLY LIKe some of the people I work with because some of the others are really odd. Not obviously odd but the more you get to know them, the more obvious it becomes. There is the Lady of Lies and of course the Little Princess. You already know far too much about the Little Princess but the Lady of Lies.... Have you ever come across someone who is forever a victim, forever taking of help, forever requiring of help but slowly things come together and it is obvious that there is a web of misdirection. I feel sorry I really do, she is a damaged person, but men seem to end up a lot poorer for knowing her but yet she never seems to have enough money.... My jury is out, I have no proof of anything and she hasn't involved me of anything but the more things that happen around her, the less it feels like accident.

I had to spend some time with her this week without anyone else around. It meant leaving behind my nice protective charm bag (If I wear jeans it goes in my pocket, if I have high necked top then it goes round my neck but that day I had neither so it was in my bag). It didn't take long for the subtle dragging down of energy to begin. I had to sneak back to the office for my bag...

I am slowly realising the energy dynamics of my office... The Lady of Lies gently sucks energy, continuously and effectively, Little Princess knocks my energy off kilter and sometimes when she is really off colour she really packs a punch if she gets too close and the Boss sometimes gets very stressed and then everything gets lit up with little lightning bolts of static. The odd thing is that the men of the group mostly have little to do with the energy dynamic. Is it that women are more susceptible to womens energy?

It all makes me wonder what my energy does to the group. How do I affect the dynamic and now I have my little bag of tricks how has that altered it? Working with these people has really taught me about energy. I have had to learn how to guard myself, how to recognise the effects of others energy but I still have a long way to go, I am not very practiced at all but I have begun.

I read about centering, grounding and sorting out chakras a long time ago but the neccessity of such things has really hit home here. I have gotten very good at emergency grounding and cord cutting and barricading myself away but my charm bag really helps. I don't have to be quite so on the ball to spot when I have to do it. Sometimes I would realise too late and getting back your energy and protecting yourself are very hard after the fact...

Do other peopl out there notice energy like this?

I guess I found something to talk about. Sometimes I find some odd things come out. Sometimes I think I would be better keeping my mouth shut when I should be asleep...

Revenge of the Pigs

I quite like pigs and it often seems to me that of all farm animals they are the ones with the biggest sense of humour. I remember pigs nibbling my feet in my wellies at local farms. I am very fond of pigs. I don't think it is their fault that their flu and our flu have mingled.

Cornwall is an out of the way sort of a place and I guess we were insulated for a while from Swine Flu. No cases for ages but then one and then another. A few schools affected here and there. As it starts to pick up across the country in a big way, the cases start to trickle in around the county.

I returned to work after my holiday to the slightly disturbing news that swine flu has now reached my world here. Two people at work have it and another hasn't got it yet but someone they are close does. So all of a sudden, three little infected people I could have come into contact with while they were infectious.

One of them even tried to return to work, still sick and sniveling. Why would you do that? Oh did I forget to say? My company doesn't pay full wage if you are sick and I won't get any sick pay till I have been there somewhat longer. So no wonder they tried to come back and no wonder the other person who may be infectious is in work.

Nice company eh?

My company has just decided to get hand wipes and things in to try and make people feel that they are nice and proactive. This might convince some people but it doesn't really convince me. People are infectious before symptoms show and it is very easy to spread this sort of flu. From those three potential germ carriers at work, a lot of others could already have contracted it.

Over the next few weeks the workforce there could be decimated and trying to slow rates of internal infection was their only way of stopping that really, but they acted too late and now it is the hands of chance. And the air conditioning...

Does this bother me? Of course I don't like any of this. I would rather not have swine flu if I can possibly help it but if I am going to get it, I would rather get it earlier than in the middle of winter. Also now the virus is relatively mild, it could mutate and gain killing force and this has happened before with previous swine flu epidemics. Getting it now will give some immunity if it does turn nastier.

In Britain they keep saying that a vaccine is close and we will have it by winter but I have my doubts as do articles I have read on the net. It seems only the Brits are claiming this and there appears to be no back up evidence. Please prove me wrong if you can....

My potential getting sick is now in the hands of my immune system, currently decimated by nice lump killing antibiotics, and chance / fate. I am not going to panic. I am not going to suddenly start dosing myself with everything under the sun. I have tissues on my desk and I shall freely hand them out to any less organised snivelly snotty person who comes my way. I am not going to try and get this bug but if I do, the world won't end.

And people are being snotty. All of a sudden everyone seems to have sore throats and bunged up noses. People look worried when someone sneezes. People are scared. I have faith, not in my immune system but in something else... no matter what, things will work out...