Movers Day

It's 9.50am and I'm sitting in a rather silent flat, waiting for the movers to arrive. They should be here any minute now. I called to check what time they would arrive and was told they'd be along after they got the MOT done on the van. So assuming the thing is actually roadworthy they will be here within the next half an hour. I'm still trying to work out if I'm getting a good deal on this, but the people are going to load my stuff and unpack it at the other end so I don't have to worry too much about that. Sometimes little things like that really do make the difference.



It's strange when you look at how you cope. A couple of weeks ago I could barely get myself out of bed and life seemed pretty pointless. I guess it still does seem pointless but the difference is I have to do this. It's not a case of choice, it's got to be done. Actually I'm glad I didn't stay on the extra month here. I am not helping myself just sitting watching the days go by. I need something to change and right now the only thing I can change easily is where I live. So the adventure goes on.



I've still got quite a bit to do here. The stuff I've left to take with me needs packing and the kitchen stuff is going into storage tomorrow. There should only be a small box worth of that and as the deal today involved not carrying any breakable items this way makes more sense. Once that's done I can clean the flat - this shouldn't take too long as I've got almost no stuff here anymore so there are fewer obstacles. I think it'll take a couple of hours but I should be able to get the place looking pretty presentable in that time. My vacuum cleaner seems to be able to suck the dust from between the fibers of a carpet - which is pretty good in my book.



Tomorrow I head for North London and sharing with my friend and as there's not much coming with me so I will lead the simple life for a while. I'm trying not to think of all of this anything more than a necessary transition although deep inside it just feels like failure. Coming here and living on my own was the grand experiment. The final proof that I could stand on my own two feet and face a life on my own. It just hasn't worked out. Circumstances have really conspired against me. It is fair to say that I had little to do with the fact that I was made redundant, or that this place I rent really eats quickly into my financial reserves. Yet still everyone wants to feel that they can tough it out in times like these. Well I haven't been able to and, for all the words of encouragement I receive from my friends it doesn't provide much comfort.



The 13 week review went quite well. The person I met with was quite pleasant and understanding and even suggested I look at vacancies in the civil service. She suggested that with the background I had I could easily find work doing what she did for a living. I suppose it's not out of the question in reality. I've never really seen myself as a government man. They will at least be pleased that the last recruiter to call (yesterday afternoon) has secured me a real live interview. This is the first since April. I have some experience for the job but not masses as its more sales orientated. That said, it is fair to say that as long as the guidelines are clear it should be easy to go in and pick up any training and do a pretty convincing job of it. It's about knowing what you do and being confident. In front of people I can make them believe both of these things.

It's now 11pm and the move has been expensive but rather pain free. There is still the small matter of the kitchen stuff to ship off, the charity shop stuff to donate and my trek to North London. It's off to bed and let's see what tomorrow brings.

Ninety One Days

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from the employment people summoning me to my 13 week interview. For the first 13 weeks I am permitted to look for jobs specifically within my field of experience. Once that is passed you are required to "review your progress" and come up with some other options in order to find a job. It's supposed to be a way of guiding you back into work yet I know that tomorrow is about punishment. You haven't managed to find a job, you've failed to do so and now you have to explain why you've failed and what you are going to do in order not to fail again.

This will involve agreeing to apply for jobs I've not done for over half a decade, jobs I've stepped away from. The things that chart your progress as an individual. I've been one of those people who looks at work as an area of my life I've always been able to control and measure my success. Without it I've discovered how little I have nothing to aim for, and nothing to drive me forward. There is too much time to sit around and think and after a while you just shut down, because it seems like the only way to survive. We all like to take pride in our work, no one ever really thinks about what happens when the work is gone and there is nothing.

I've spent a lot of time in the past 2 weeks worrying about everything but my career. There is just the one day to go before the movers arrive and there is still masses to sort out in the flat. To be honest, I really don't need this bloody distraction. I spent Sunday working on my CV to produce something which would be seen as an alternative to my training CV to apply for some customer service jobs. I think I spent about half a day working to produce something which will result in earning about half the money I earned in my last job, and about one third less money than the one before that. I will not have anywhere to live by Friday and am forced into staying with a friend (still paying rent, bills, and now storage fees) all to try and downsize enough to be able to survive and live my life - if that's what I can call it. My focus at the moment isn't about work it's about getting through this week and into next week.

I've had the support of people and some have been giving me the most tremendous support and encouragement to get through this. I'm suffering some terrific lows and some quite wonderful and unexpected highs in the process. I seem to have a bipolar life at the moment. I wouldn't say I'm bipolar but the things that are happening can only produce extreme reactions. The coach I have seen helped me look at everything and come up with some options as to what to do. Most of them were actually quite realistic but also fraught with difficulties and uncertainties.



I've not been able to predict anything in the past few weeks but I've become an increasingly honest person about where my feelings are. I still feel like I'm doing all of this on my own, and that's the hardest part. People don't get let into my life that easily and it means you end up needing twice the strength to face and deal with everything sometimes. As I sit here and write this I suddenly feel dead tired and next week seems a very long way from here.

Six days

Time runs out, moving quickly taking me towards the move. Everything still needs packing and tomorrow the back of that should be broken. It's hard to have to face up to this leaving as it seems like it's circumstances that are causing it. The same ones which have left me sitting first in twilight and then watching this cold darkness descend, leaving me blank and helpless.

I've had a week where I've not felt despair and it's all been about finding a way out this mess, yet tonight it seems to have returned again. Like an old unwelcome friend its back again eager to suck the hope from the marrow in my bones. The sugar rush replaced with some kind of real comedown I don't want to face. I feel tired again and really not terribly able to deal with all the testing trials thrown in front of me. Things are a lot better but the doubt I feel is painfully real and I worry about what happens outside of the time frame I can safely predict.

Today I became the 612th person to apply for a particular job. It's about half the money I was earning but the prospects are supposedly good. Actually the reason I applied is that I know one of the managers at the company who I worked with a few years ago. It's a ridiculous number of people and I doubt my application will even get through the vetting process. It's prompted me to update my CV somewhat but with all the other chaos going on I don't think it is really yet absolutely providing the best description of my experience in customer services. Going back to square one is really my best option at a job. If this doesn't work with a concerted effort over the next few weeks then I really will have run out of ideas to make it work. The prospect of real long term unemployment may really become something of a reality.

There are some grounds for hope - the flat in Depford I went to see is looming back into the picture. The owner has said that the place is now being redecorated, the huge wardrobe can be removed, and they would consider adding a washing machine to sweeten the deal. I'm not sure if this is exactly good news and I'm not saying it's the solution to my problems but I have agreed to go and see the place again once this is all completed. Someone up there seems to be providing me with a possible solution to one of my problems and I am keeping my options open.

I still have lots of support from people and I really have to focus on the positives, but that's hard for me to do sometimes. The morning leaves me facing the packing and really having to push to get everything done. Things like that help focus the mind. I know I should probably spend more time looking for work but there is only so much time to do everything during the day. I'll work on that more closely when I'm somewhere close to having reached my new destination. I've no idea what I will be doing or thinking next Monday. I'd usually see it all as a new adventure and another chapter, but right now I don't know what to think about anything most of the time and I don't know what to make of that.

Nine Days

Time here is almost over. To be honest this hasn't been the finest period of my life but at least it's almost over. I do have a beautiful flat but the difficulty in keeping it has left me quite tired and demoralised by a lot of the experiences of the last few months. When I came here I really felt like I was starting out on my own. No housemates to share with this was the time to finally assert my independence and live life on my own. The whole experience has been one of failure. My moods have dipped so far that I'm not sorry to go.

I don't know what the future holds at the moment but there is a time limit on the new flat. The costs of storage are pretty prohibitive so the impetus will be on finding some work and a new place really are urgent. I have only a finite amount of money in which to sink into storage and that will be pretty much gone after 3 months. The place itself isn't too expensive but the insurance is cripplingly high due to the sheer number of Cd's that I own. I have keep them secure so it's the price I have to pay. I could find a bedsit for almost the same amount of money.

I've got most of the stuff sorted out. The movers are coming next week early to whisk my stuff off to the lorry and into the (already arranged) storage. I've then got the rest of the day to clean up the house. I'm not sure if I'm going to stay the next day or move my stuff up. The check out is the day after and then I'm out of this place and off to start the adventure in North London.

It's been a pretty productive time. It's funny how a looming deadline really can focus the mind on a task. After feeling so resigned to everything for the previous month I feel like I've found some reasons to get on with things. I've had lots of support from people and I've found a lot of support from someone I'm just getting to know but whose been on the fringes of my social circle for some time. Small things which help boost my spirits really do seem to be changing my whole view of the world.

I'm off to the coach today to discuss what else I could do with my career. The chances of getting any decent work is becoming smaller and smaller. So many of the alternative jobs I'm looking at seem to be phenomenally badly paid and I'm starting to think that I'll be forced into taking a second job in order to make sure I have enough money. It's entirely possible that something may change about this. I am prepared to admit that I'm hopeful at the first time in ages. I don't know about what but I feel the fog of depression has lifted - if only for a short while. I'm not anywhere near being hopeful and happy about the future at all. Yet for the first time in an absolute age I am prepared to see it as a future.

Changing Days

I began the last blog saying things move fast, they do. At a point yesterday evening I was on the phone to a friend of mine talking about what I'd been doing on Sunday. I'd been to a topical comedy show at lunchtime, it was fun although I made the mistake of making an early contribution and inadvertently provided the panel of comedians more mileage than the whole of the Sunday newspapers could manage. That's comedy, I guess. It was fun and it did somewhat remind me that there are times when my skin may still be thicker than the transparent thing I think it has recently become. Recalling that was like recalling something which had happened weeks ago.

Things this week have changed so much I am almost unable to say what is going to happen next. I went to casually check on my claims after signing on and discovered that the whole thing had not gone even remotely the way it should have done. I was so dazed I couldn't even think of going to see about storage. I felt knocked sideways again and utterly unable to even think straight. I went down to the place and just wandered around near to the place without ever going to discuss storage because if I'd gone and done so I'd have either rented something the size of a box, or an air hanger and I probably couldn't have told you which a couple of hours later. Instead I had to fix the problem I had so that I actually end up with some of the money someone told me I was entitled to but not getting because of the sheer utter bureaucratic pettiness some officials have in "doing their job" and actually then not admitting they are wrong, when they are. I wandered around before this contemplating walking into the traffic and doing everyone a favour. Fortunately none of it was travelling fast enough to make that option even remotely worth the slightest consideration.

This week began as the first step in a personal healing process, something I need to do for me to change things. I need to sort a lot of stuff out in my life and I'm beginning to realise that I probably can't really move my career (if that's what going to work has ever been to me - something I actually doubt) forwards. Without this I probably won't ever feel I've succeeded in my life at all. Yet all that has been put aside, the landscape totally metamorphosising before my very eyes, not once but about 3 times. I'm almost at the point where I think concrete planning days ahead isn't possible, not because I can't face them, but because that won't be what I'll be doing. Something else will come up. I just have to keep finding more and more to do this just to survive through to the next day. It's bloody hard now and I really don't know when it will stop. Everything seems so relentless at the moment. This has been probably the worst period of my life. I've dealt ably with things before this but now I feel like I spend so much time fighting just to stay on my feet as I'm battered by a constand flood.

I've realised something about the last few weeks of writing this. The darkness that has descended on my life is affecting me in so many different ways and its odd the way its affecting me. I've always been quite guarded about what I tell people. I don't share emotions easily unless they're about art, music, politics, theatre, sport, or some abstract idea or viewpoint. Then I have passion. The people stuff is empathy and understanding of what I think about other people but it is seldom about how I feel. That's the healing that needs to take place. There are people I know who are reading this who I cannot face and tell what I write here. Some of them I don't actually think want to hear me say it, but they can read it here.

All this stuff has cost me one friendship so far. That person doesn't know how deeply affected I am about that, and probably never will and I don't even think they care. They felt I wasn't honest. Everything about me, I built it all on lies. I do that to survive, to get through the day and it's what I've always done. There are people I am now being honest with face to face. Then there is blog where I can face up to things in a different way. Perhaps I am this unfeeling monster that just takes the bad stuff and buries it in a box. I told someone that the other day and they said that it would mould and eventually this would grow so much it would push open the box and then the mould would be outside and would need to be dealt with. Perhaps that's what I am realising now.

Then there are the pressing issues. The next is sorting out what I am going to do for work. I have to sit down with the career coach sometime in the next couple of weeks and construct something which will give me the opportunity to get some kind of work again. This won't be so much a case of "think outside the box", more build a new box out of the bits and pieces of experience I do have from years of doing all kinds of strange and wonderful things. The only issue is getting anyone to want these fairly unproven talents when the jobless figures jumped faster than they have ever done. I'm part of that record but I don't think it's going to stand all that long. 23,000 people a week are being made redundant in a time when one financial institution celebrates its recovery by returning to old fashioned reward system. These are difficult, different times.

Sixteen Days

Things move fast sometimes, maybe too fast. There is always the opportunity for life to get just a little more mangled than it already is and my trusty life managed to find a couple of curve balls to add to the mix in the past 48 hours. As a consequence I'm now on the countdown to leaving my flat and heading off and up to North London in sixteen days. I'm off to sign on today and now also have an appointment for my 13 week interview with the Jobcentre people which will be right in the middle of moving house.

As I'm a single 45 year-old man with no children, an ex-wife demanding money for their upkeep, disabled, or ill or infirm in any other way, the chances of the council actually providing any decent help is next to nothing. I think I pay my council tax (when I actually pay it) to have my rubbish taken away. Yet I actually create so little of this I usually throw out a bag of rubbish every fortnight. Somehow I think the knowledge of this would probably make them view me as something approaching a model citizen. That said, I don't expect there is anything really they will do to help me as I've only been in the Borough for 6 months - if that. So thankfully I have friends who can at least help me out with somewhere to live for a while at least.



I'm off to check out some storage options tomorrow so I should have quite a bit of the ground work done by the end of the day. It will then be down to finding someone to move my stuff to the place and arrange what day that will be. After that, I just have to get the little stuff I'm taking with me up to my new abode and hope to goodness that I find some form of employment reasonably quickly so that I can begin the process of finding a new permanant home. Somewhere where I can at least have most of my stuff with me. That said I think the TV may be making its way to my sister for a while to come. I don't expect I'll be living on my own so it would be a waste just to have it gathering dust.

My mood is very changable. I felt like I was turning the corner and this has certainly knocked me back. I woke up at 5.17am this morning very stressed and couldn't sleep again because of the worry I was experiencing. All the doctor stuff and the moving forwards in that department will simply have to wait until I've sorted all of this stuff out. That said I may go up and register myself in the area next week as feel this is going to one of those occasions where there will be a burst of activity before I actually run out of things to do and turn back in on myself for a couple of days. People are being brilliant and very supportive still and I really don't know what would be happening if that wasn't the case. My one friend is still silent, and I'm quietly coming to terms with this.

I've got one little goal to complete before I head out of this place, and that is to watch the final series of The West Wing. I'm shamelessly addicted to this since I got the box set about a year and a half ago. I've been really good and only watched about two episodes a week up until season five. Since then I've been binging on the thing like there is no tomorrow. I've got through two seasons in a matter of weeks and now have 16 days for the last one. I have to say it is one of the few things in this house which absolutely animates me. Throughout the programme the performances and the characters have been strong, the earlier seasons have slightly sharper dialogue but the later ones have driving plot which makes them almost more addictive for some reason. There is more plot and less nuance but it still makes for compulsive viewing. Yes, I do know some of the key developments in the last series but I'm sure it will not spoil the pleasures of watching it. At the very least there are about 20 hours of the next couple of weeks I can look forward to.

Sunday After The Week Before

It's almost exactly a week to the very minute since I discovered I'd been robbed - part of a series of events which has got me to today. We could all say that, but there have been things I've had to admit this week which have been difficult. I wrote about them in the last blog and I'll continue the theme through this piece. They are all relevant and Friday's post really did only half of the thing justice.

It's been a very difficult week and a half really as it all began on Thursday of the week before. I'd had a big argument with a friend of mine and we decided to meet up and clear the air. A good day was had but by the end I'd gone way deeper into myself than is really healthy for me. I explained (and in some ways) faced up to the inner self - the place I never go - and a place people aren't supposed to go and see. It all got a bit emotional, as I said in previous post. When I tried explaining in an e-mail it all kind of came out wrong and so, it would seem, we're not likely to be talking ever again. I feel a terrible sense of loss about this. The odd thing is, it's made me talk to people.

There's an old addict's truism which says that you can't fix a problem unless you first admit it. I've talked to a few people this week about the stuff behind what I write here in the blog - ironically neither of the people who I spoke to have had the time to read all of this. The Tuesday one set the alarm bells ringing, and all the people who have been in touch have been amazing. On Friday I went out and saw a friend of mine DJing and had a very nice time indeed. I had a long talk with an old friend about lots of things and was able to be honest about what was happening. I'd done the same thing on Thursday with another friend of mine. So yesterday morning I woke up for the first time in ages and actually wanted to get up and not think, "what's the point?", pull the duvet over my head and try and go back to sleep. I had a friend come see me for dinner last night and we talked a lot about each other's difficulties. He's got lots of problems too, and it gave me a new perspective on mine which was useful too.

I'm going to concede that the next step is seeing a doctor. I don't actually want to be medicated in any way, but I do want to look at talking to someone more about the way my depression is working, how it's affecting me, and what I can do about fixing some of the faulty wires inside my head which are causing it. All of this is very scary stuff and involves going places, far from the here and now and properly facing them, not putting them in a box and carrying on as if nothing really happend. I'm beginning to realise that this is the only way I'll get through this, find another job and be at peace. The darkness is still there, and capable of descending like a fog, paralyzing me.

It's odd, when I started this I wanted to document the trials of job hunting in a time of recession. I should have known, like my life has always been, that it could never be that simple.

Mid Days

In the trough that I find myself in these days I'm rarely really ready to do much before midday - the time it is just approaching now. I usually wake somewhere between 7 and 8.30am but I don't usually bother to actually get up immediately any more. If I do, I tend to go back to sleep for an hour or so after having wandered around the house and generally wondering why I actually got up in the first place. I feel something like a grouchy old person, one much older than I actually am.

I've had a couple of leads this week for jobs. One company spoke to me about a role, but we reached the "do you drive?" question and that was the dealbreaker. I was unflinchingly honest with the interviewer in stressing that I really only wanted to have to learn if it was an absolute necessity. I really don't want to add to the already skyrocketing CO2 emissions unless it is just not practical otherwise. The other job I applied for is, on the surface, something I should be able to do - although "an interest in the maritime, logistics, and energy sectors would be preferablem but not desirable" has to make this one of the more interesting jobs I've applied for. That said, I can fit most of the other criteria that they have descirbed.

The job is a fascinating example of how employers seem obsessed with "dressing up" some of the basic responsiblities of a role. One job I've applied for this week expects you to "interface with" certain people including "subject matter experts". What they actually want is to make sure that the experts in the subject are met with, and kept informed as to what you are doing - including possibly agreeing (or signing off) anything you plan to use in training. I'm honestly not sure why people go to such lengths when describing this stuff as it does really strike you as that management speak bullshit that people are still clinging to in parts of the working world. Either they don't realise there's a recession on, or it was one hell of a slow week in the office.

I applied for a job today, realising that the last time I'd actually done so on this particular website was 22nd June. This is despite the fact that I probably look at the site almost every day. I remember the last job I applied for from them the message said that it was the only of job of its type they had. This was out on 90,000+ jobs (although you could reduce the number by considering that it was only London. That said you would probably even find less than 20 in the whole of the UK. When I think about that the grey mists descend again.

I'm writing this in between doing the washing up, something I frequently forget. I fill the bowl and put the stuff in, go back to the computer, stare at virtually nothing and then a few hours later I go back to a sink full of soaking plates and cups in stone cold water. Time passes in this fog. I've decided not to take the other flat and hang on here for a few more weeks into August, although, if I'm honest, I don't think it's helping my state of mind all that much. Solitude is somewhere to escape to. Trouble is, since not having a job it's become the place I live. As I've said before, we are defined by our work so much so it's almost imperceptible. We yearn for the free time I have, but it just leaves you empty and inert - if you let it. All in all not a good situation to find yourself in. The Government provide enough to keep you alive, and that's it, There is precious little left once the bills are paid and the cupboards filled. Precious little left to hope for either.

Bleak Days

I went for a drink with a friend of mine the other day and ended up crying quite openly in the middle of a bar. I revealed quite a deep part of me. The part I like to lock away. I felt slightly liberated by some more positive events and had a lovely day up until that point. Then in the excitement my friend had his phone stolen. This did at least give me a chance to regain a little composure and focus on something else - although I then just felt bad about the fact that I'd been responsible for this happening.


There were some grounds for hope last week. I had a long conversation with an agency who seemed both genuinely interested in what I had done with my life, charmed by the person they were talking to (one of my better attributes), and committed to helping find me something to do. It was, without question, the best interview I'd given since I got my last job which started exactly a year ago from the time of writing. On top of that someone managed to find me a possilbe place to move to which would accept housing benefit. It's in Depford and the person I was talking to lives next door and is a very interesting person. Little things should pick you up and give you hope. I'd had a bit of a run in with the person I was out with on Thursday in the previous week and so had been glad that we'd managed to find a way to communicate again.



Of course all of this has proved to be quite a big emotional false dawn. The flat is dark and small and I'm sure I could make something of it but I'm not entirely sure I want to be somewhere where there is no washing machine. In this day and age I do really consider having a washing machine in my house as something close to a basic human right. I don't know if I really can give that up - whether they accept housing benefit claimants or not. I can always stay at my friend's house but it does mean I need to find some kind of work of some description and then even then I know that the chances of finding somewhere decent to live will be severely limited by the fact that I'm unlikely to earn even two thirds of what I do now. That also limits the kind of places I can live comfortably.



I've been honest with my friend about a lot of things and he seems to be not talking to me and I'm beginning to wonder if that's to do with one key thing I said to him. He is a person, like probably many of my friends, who believe in honesty. I'm not the most emotionally honest person I know. I've probably been at least mildly depressed for most of the past three and a half years since my mother died. I have dealt with an awful lot of difficulties in my life and I struggle with them by putting on my face - the smile. After a while it's easy. You walk up to the door, take a deep breath, tell yourself you can do this, smile, and open the door. The rest is automatic. It's how you survive when you don't feel good about life, about yourself, about what you are doing with your life sometimes and it is the thing I am finding I am becoming increasingly unable to do.



The truth is that I don't know what my life is anymore. I've done all these things. I've achieved little, but there are things I can say, I did that. I want enough money to buy the things I like, and have a little left over for a rainy day. That's gone, so have all the things I've done. I feel like they've been taken from me. I don't have huge debts, in fact I am one of the rare breed of people who have none. Yet I also don't own a house or a car, or have a love in my life, so in the eyes of many I don't have anything much either. What have I done with my life? I've lived it, I've drifted and, in the eyes of many, I would guess I would be seen as someone who has failed. Suddenly I'm 45 and I have to deal with this awful place I have here.

Then Saturday night I went out and end up inviting someone to come and have some wine I have back at my house as there is nowhere else to go. I fall asleep at about 8am and when I wake 4 hours later the person is gone. So is my phone, my camera, the money in my pocket, and a spare phone I had. Most of this isn't insured and the person who stole these things even knew I didn't have a job. I've sat numb for 2 days trying to work out why this is happening to me again. My life has been one long series of abuses by other people and it just keeps happening. I've used all my strength trying to deal with all of these it's hardly surprising that I'm running on empty.

People keep saying to me that things will change, something will happen to make it better. Something will turn up, and I am asking myself more and more, what if it doesn't? What if this really is all my life will have ever been? I'm worried with each passing day that this is the truth. I'm some large sea creature slowly burning in the sun stranded on the beach and never likely to return to the water before I die. I look inside myself and find nothing. I'm staring into a void, forcing myself to go out and shop, come home and eat food because right now I really don't care anymore. After the weekend I know there are places further down the spiral, each seemingly worse than the last. I don't even know where I am anymore and I also don't know how to get out.