Today is the penultimate day of my job. On 28th April 2008 I was made redundant and on 24th April 2009 the same thing is happening again. Ok, there are probably thousands of people going through this and more who are going to, as it's becoming a fact of life. For me, it's twice in a year which is really rather careless a way to deal with your employment situation. If you want to stop reading, I'd do so now. I intend this to be a place where I will come and tell people what's happend and how it's making me feel. My moods have been up and down during the 4 week consultation period (mainly down) and will probably go the same way. So, if you're not up for being depressed then this probably isn't the place for you to be reading.
So who am I? Well I'm not going to reveal exactly that here but I will tell you some things about myself. A lot of the things may well come out through the telling of the story and others may be things you can guess through the mere fact of what I say. I've yet to decide whether I even tell my friends about this blog at all. For one thing I'm going to be honest about my feelings here and I don't want to worry them all unecessarily. They do that already and this may well just make things worse. If I get miserable and self indulgent, so be it. It's my blog and I'll be sad if I want to.
So here are some things I will tell you. I'm 44 years old and I work in training. I live just south of London and I moved to where I am because I was travelling from West London and the journey was killing me. I thought it would be much better to be here. I also have a lot of clutter, anyone who has visited me knows this, so it made sense to move. I was sharing a rented flat with some friends and it was really no longer big enough for all of us so it all made perfect sense to move when the contract was up. It meant all the expenses in the flat are mine.
Oddly, doing this feels deliciously grown up. As you'll probably gather as this goes on, I've got a rather strange sense of myself. Anyone who wants to take that as an excuse to pass me on to the people who sit down and help people deal with things, understand this: I know I am a bit fucked up at times, but that's just it, I wouldn't be the person I am if I wasn't. I'm not so much in touch with my inner child as sometimes utterly supressing my outer adult. I'm not irresponsible just capable of looking at things in a very unconventional and almost childlike way sometimes. In short, I've never really felt all that comfortable seeing myself as a totally independent and responsible adult.
I will talk about a number of things on here as this is going to be my mouthpiece and my way of trying to make sense of the whole thing. It will probably include some talk about the world, what I'm doing to get work, how I feel about things, cooking, music, books, maybe even some observations on the world in general. I don't really know, but if I cook something nice then I will probably share the experience.
Tomorrow is my last day. I've not got much to go in and do as I've handed over all my work to my colleagues already. It's odd but last year I was a lot more concerned about getting everything done before I left. I cared about my work almost up to the point when I switched off my PC for the last time. This time I feel very differently about things. I went in today and taught one of my colleagues how to use a database I've been responsible for. There are lots of things on it that I said I'd complete before I left. Instead I spent time at home applying for jobs as I found it difficult to do it in work. My manager didn't mind at all, then again he's leaving too - although they've extended his consultation period because he's waiting on a decision about a job he's applied for in another part of the company. There wasn't anything like that for me. It's been a very different experience all round this year.
Last time they made over 250 people redundant by closing down a call centre. The whole process began almost a year before when they trialled an outsourcing project. I was involved in the implementation of this and knew pretty much the moment I went to the other site that everyone back home was going to loose out. When I returned I had to promise not to tell people what I knew. I don't like lying to people, except about sex which I lie about almost constantly. If you're wondering about that, I'm a virgin. So I lied and lied when people asked me what I thought would happen. I am very accomplished at this, I've discovered, but it did not make me feel anything other than dead inside. I had good friends there who I never told. We received written notice of the consultation period on 23rd December... Merry Christmas everyone. The proposal itself was revealed just after Christmas when the scale of the cuts were revealed. By anyone's estimate they went far beyond what we expected and effectively shut down the operation in the UK. Although I knew it could happen I was genuinely stunned at the scale. There then followed 3 months where I effectively waited for the axe to fall, and another month afterwards. Almost a year after the first announcement we were gone.
This time it's been swift. We found out 4 weeks ago, and tomorrow I'm back on the scrapheap. I got this job after 2 months of looking and a lot of the time wondering if I would ever get another job in my line of work. I had never considered the job ultra secure but, ironically, at the moment I felt at my most secure the axe fell. So here I am waiting for the final day.
I've much more to bore you with but I'll stop there. As the Young Marble Giants wrote, I hope,"as the final day turns into the night, there is peace outside in the narrow light".
I cried today for only the third time in years, I am bit sad.
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