Hello 2022. Goodbye 2021.

Last year - well, I got a new job. I'd been looking before the pandemic, aware that when T finishes school and hits 18, the money coming in would drop and my commute would make my job unviable financially. I stopped looking for a time because, with so many people being furloughed and things looking pretty unstable, it was at least secure. 

A side-effect of lockdown and being able to work from home while the office wasn't having colleagues in, was realising just how shit the commute is and what it's like to have those hours back as my own time. What a revelation. I was used to working fulltime with the commute beforehand and didn't really question it, but being able to lift my nose from the grindstone revealed just how rotten it was. Work/life balance! Woot. That was a motivating factor to resume the job hunt.

Added to which, for years now, the department boss has been hard to work for and I think Covid pushed her over the edge. As the office opened up and she started to base herself more at mine again (circumstances had kept her at the other office for the best part of a year, which was such a relief), I knew it would become intolerable. 

I don't want to have sleepless nights and cry about work. What I do, what the department does, is not that important. I have a work ethic and I want to get things right > our role does keep the wheels turning in the organisation > the work the organisation does is valuable and something I believe in - but my role was pretty low level and shouldn't have been high stress. 

I've often struggled with the way she behaved towards me, but I thought it was me not fitting in, and also thinking maybe I was being over-sensitive. I had been keeping a file of emails to document what was happening, considering raising a grievance on and off for the last few years. But I started to see it wasn't just me it was affecting and she upset a lot of us. When K got a new job and left, it was the start of the dominoes falling and her two direct reports gave notice shortly after, and others too. (Over a third of her team left in the space of three months. Talk about voting with our feet.) One of those direct reports gave me the heads up that there was a job going at their new place of work, and I applied. 

Honestly it was a godsend. 

At my old job, it was decided that there no option for me to work from home, even one day a week, not even just while the office was very under-occupied, while the level above me got that option. This seemed arbitrary, unfair and pointless. They do a lot of talk about us being "one team", while going to a lot of effort to demarcate hierarchical differences. Even though the office was still operating at less than a third of capacity, they tried to jump me straight back into doing 5 days a week despite me requesting a graded return (fortunately HR agreed I should be allowed to build back up my days in the office more slowly).  

The final straw was when they told me they were changing my hours to 9 to 5, so not only would I have to do the commute every single day, but I would have to do it in peak traffic. 

I protested this change: I felt absolutely screwed over. What adds to my feelings about it all is just how hypocritical it seemed that the department head is a "well-being champion" and bangs on about work/life balance, yet had zero qualms about making my job conditions worse. Maybe she wanted me out. 

I knew that my line manager wouldn't support me because she wanted to keep her hours as they were, also 8 - 4. She was actually the logical business choice for the 9-5 hours, in my opinion. I don't altogether blame her for putting her own interests first, but she did throw me under the bus. Still, she's still there with oh so fun boss, so there's that. 

I told my line manager at the time that if I had something to go to, I'd have walked out there and then. As it was, I duly went off for a week's annual leave (great how they broke it to me just before) and, during it, went for an interview for this job. C wasn't on the interviewing panel to make sure it was fair on the other applicants. 

I went back to work after my leave and sat on the knowledge I'd got the job, even went on another interview within the business, which my line manager knew about, until the offer was confirmed and I had passed all their checks. 

It was very pleasing to be able to tell my line manager and then the department head in person that I was quitting. I didn't burn any bridges, although my exit interview with HR was honest. I believe the others who left were also pretty open about the whys or whos of leaving. I hope something is done about the way she behaves to people. 

The last few weeks working out my notice I was very cheerful indeed at work. 

The new job is not perfect, in that it still involves a similar commute. But I get to WFH a day or two a week and I can work 8 til 4. I'm free from the hypocrisy and misery. Knowing C actually wanted to keep working with me gives me a real boost of confidence in both my competence and likeability. I miss some of my old colleagues, but I sleep at night.

So that's the big change of last year. What else? 

I took up learning Danish on Duolingo. I'm not sure how well it works as a teaching method, but I'm giving it a go and enjoying it. The hope is to have a little bit of understanding/conversational mostly and to keep the brain active. I chose Danish because I'm sort of planning to have a city break in Copenhagen when I'm confident of travelling and have the money. 

I did a lot of sketching for some months, which I want to pick up again. I was definitely getting better. 

I've started doing jigsaw puzzles. Or jigsaw puzzle, I haven't finished my first one yet. 

I'm doing the Guardian quick crossword on a regular basis. 

A lot of these seem to be about keeping the brain going - I am worried that my memory and my, I don't know, willingness to learn/think about things(?) is getting worse. It might be something like menopausal brain fog, but anyway, I'm trying not to let that happen, and to keep the brain matter in shape. 

I gave up my message boards as I realised they are massively implicated in a compulsive eating habit, oddly. I'd post something and then go off to the kitchen to get something to eat while waiting to see how people responded. I'm hoping stopping that activity will help me with the food issue.  

I'm four years sober. I should applaud that sort of thing, I guess. I don't think about it often but I suppose it is an achievement. I never actively want alcohol, so that's good, and I've been to a works social and gigs without either feeling pressure to drink or like I'm missing out or unable to socialise. Don't miss it, don't want it, don't need it, staying off it. 

I wonder sometimes if my somewhat disordered eating is a displacement activity though - guess haven't resolved the trigger.

We lost some of our rodents, which was sad. Two of them were S's pets, within a day of each other. I didn't tell her about the first one, her hamster, on the day as I wanted to wait until I saw her as planned that weekend. I was also somewhat traumatised by her death as it was pretty awful - she was old and she had a prolapse and basically shat her guts out but was still alive, and it was horrific and so cruel, I frankly if there's a God who allows that kind of thing to happen to tiny harmless critters then he can go fuck himself. I took her to the vet to be PTS. Then her guinea pig, died suddenly as well, so I had to tell her about both (leaving out the detail). That was terrible. 

We acquired new rodents! I adopted two new guinea pigs from the pet rescue centre. This brought us back up to full herd strength (4)  briefly, but then we lost one of our older ones, who was beloved by all and a nice little character. Thus, currently we're at three, one old hand and two newbies. 

Relationships wise, I have "an understanding" with D and that works well most of the time. I'm terrified of commitment/the relationship escalator. 

I was annoyed/dissatisfied at one stage last year and thought this is stupid, this isn't enough, maybe I should try dating, so I joined OKCupid. First day I was on there, I got a "superlike" from an ex-colleague who had always seemed quite interested (he'd left, I was still working there), so we chatted a bit and then I thought let's crack on and meet up if we're going to, I don't really want to spend a lot of time making awkward conversation online, let's see how awkward it is in person to see if it's worth bothering with. 

It was actually quite hard work to arrange the date, which I suppose was a warning sign. A few things were hard work, to be honest. He'd been quite pushy about what village I live in, and I didn't want to tell him as it's quite small and it wouldn't take long to find me. Is that over-cautious? I don't think so. But he kept pushing about it, although we made a joke of it. 

I wanted to meet up for a walk or something, he wanted to meet up for a drink. I don't drink and don't really like sitting in pubs. 

He lives about 30 minutes away, and as it happened, I was asked to work at one of the other offices which took me past his town, so it made sense to meet up then. The date ended up being in a Wetherspoons near him. He bought the first round using the app, beer for him, coffee for me. The server brought over the beer and quite snappily told me that there was a machine and it's basically get your own. On the upside, free refills. 

Off I toddle and get it, regretting my choice to change into heels, and then back up the stairs to rejoin the guy and start the date proper. Conversation flowed quite freely and it was very pleasant, although the first hour was basically him bitching about the organisation. (Hey I've just spent ages whinging about my old job on here, so maybe not one to talk. On the other hand, this is my blog where I get to talk about whatever I want and no-one is obliged to read it and most likely isn't. Not that I was obliged to listen to him either). Don't get me wrong, I was actually fine and enjoying myself even. But a few alarm bells were starting to go with his references to recurrent meetings with HR and disciplinaries.

It was rather awkward when it came to the next drink. I should probably have bought it, right? But I was a bit fish out of water, as I don't go to pubs except for a meal with family usually, I don't have the app installed, there's no-one at the bar, it's my first time in a pub since the pandemic started, I feel like I don't know how it works, and the server's already been stroppy with me. So I feel a bit panicky about it, fail to offer and he makes some jibe and orders himself one. 

Also, I feel like I'm the one who has made the effort, by leading on setting up the date and by being the one to travel - I asked him to suggest somewhere not too far off my route and easy to find, and he went for slap in the middle of his town, which made me boggle a bit. And my refillable coffee was a quid or something and his pint is 3 times the price.

Anyway, you can no doubt tell by the way this is going, that this date didn't end up with wedding bells.

He went on to talk about how his present (or possibly past by now) job is also rubbish and how badly treated he is there and - it seems there's beginning to be a theme here. We get on to relationships and I tell him more than I intended, and regret it, and he definitely tells me far too much. The fact one of his ex's called the cops. He thinks I'm a sympathetic audience, but big old sirens are going off mentally.

One or two experiences with work or relationships where you're victimised or it all goes horribly wrong is sad and understandable, but when it is sounding like a pattern, I'm starting to think: what is the common denominator here? And I am profoundly not the sort of person you can tell that your ex called the police on you and expect me to immediately, unreservedly, think "oh that woman must be insane, poor you". 

All in all, there were a lot of red flags popping up with him on the date. (Probably with me too, I am far from perfect).

What worried/worries me, in retrospect, is that I was actually open to a second date initially. You think you've made progress and worked through some stuff, and turns out, you really haven't. 

Fortunately I got annoyed by the interaction we had online in the following day and decided to leave it. Actually I deactivated my account and bailed completely, so I guess ghosted the guy. Which is not the best response, but OLD was proving quite stressful aside from him. A fortnight of it was enough.

And I was back to thinking, "you know, what I have with D suits me really well". 

Well, that was a fairly epic post.