I suppose its been what you might call a more productive day. I've again not really left the house yet but I've applied for a job and had a call back for it. Within 30 minutes of applying. It went pretty well and the woman on the end of the phone didn't hang up on me when I said I didn't drive this time. Instead she put me forward to the company for consideration for interview. It's working back in a call centre - the thing I took the last job to try and escape from, but what can I do?
There is, of course, a big proviso for this job. It's about one third less money. The basic salary is £500 more than the job I left almost four years ago. There is what they call "a very achievable bonus" but if it were that easy to get, why not add it to the basic? Consequently, although it accounts for almost 20% on top of the basic it's not something to be accepted as a given. What they will probably do is only pay it once the probational period is ended so you could wait anywhere between 3 and 6 months for that. A smaller one is that it's not 9-5 and (although it does state in the job description) it's not Mon-Fri. There will be "some weekends required" I was told, "but that will only be Saturday from 10-6.30 and shouldn't be anymore than one in every three weeks".
It's funny how quickly a silk purse is found out to be the proverbial sow's ear. The basic isn't really enough to live on in my current flat. I will have the last pay from here though - which boosts my finances somewhat - but that doesn't last forever. Accepting something like this makes things very tight indeed. I will have to stop living on my own once I'm able to get out of this contract, I suspect, as I'm well below my agreed minimum. It means everything has to be considered before it is purchased and there is no room at all for the divinely decadent purchase.
Well I haven't got the job yet so I needn't worry too much. I will think about it all over the weekend. Everyone else has landed pretty much their brilliant job and the redundancy will be looked upon as a blip. It isn't that for me. This is a major re-organisation of my life. I've never worried too much about money before. I have always lived within my means. I'm no saver but I don't exactly have much in the way of debt either. Now the belt will have to be tightened.
What irritates me is the fact that I've actually lived without excessive debt. I don't own a morgage and I don't have thousands of pounds owed on credit cards or a huge overdraft with the bank. I pretty much pay off all I owe each month (with the exception of the last couple) and I have saved a little money here and there as well. Now I'm out of work and paying for, what I consider to be, the follies of others. If you are sitting there wondering what I mean, look at what you owe and think about the pressures of your job, open a bottle of wine and kick back and relax. You can fix it all in the future. Well perhaps not. Losing a job can really fuck everything up. Trust me, if you've debts then don't come to me for sympathy. I'm already paying.
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