Stocktaking

I'm sure I am not the only sixty year old who feels that they have been discarded far too early. My decisions have been my own: I did not HAVE to leave Durham County Council's employment nearly three years ago more than six months before the end of the contract, but a primary reason for taking the job was to repair the damage that being out of work for seven months before that had caused, more than halfway through the contract, all I had managed to do was to stop the financial hole growing bigger. When I found out that school-leaving youngsters with minimal responsibilities were being paid more than me- managing fifteen staff in a venue with nearly £600K turnover there was no turning back.

Had I known I was about to spend nearly three years looking for a job, would I have left?... It would have been possible for me to turn up and do little and get paid, I met a couple of council employees doing just that, (I had to get rid of one of them!). That is so outside my modus operandi: I have (foolishly?) tried to do my best in any job so that my reputation would be enhanced by the end of it. That has worked to some extent, in others it has been a problem: I seem to be not prestigious enough for some jobs and I seem to have frightened other potential employers because of the range of things I have done. It is hard not to think of the times I have been overruled and brilliant opportunities lost or whole organisations have folded: The London Lesbian and Gay Centre, The National Centre for Black and Asian Performing Arts, Cowgate Neighbourhood Centre, The North East Sustained Theatre Hub- any ONE of those should have been enough for a fucking legacy (LOL), all were lost because of the people to whom I was reporting...

I am not sure how my cancer diagnosis factors into all of this. I have never been aware of any problems caused by the cancer- it has simply shown up in tests and scans, but the fact that not all of it was removed means the likelihood of further future surgery. Apart from that, arteries in my lower legs are narrowing causing cramp-like pain after walking for a few hundred yards, but I remain keen to work- as much because I am used to deriving a sense of self worth from my work as it would add to my financial security.

I am rejecting, or rather; not wasting time applying for jobs if there is ANYTHING in the job description or person specification that I can't confidently reference from my first hand experience... That has been depressing: my biggest failure seems to have been a lack of continual professional development. In reality: I was either working for organisations hard strapped to pay staff and running costs so that sending workers off for additional training was rare, OR I was looking for work. I have never... very rarely had as much as a month's wages 'spare' in my bank so have never invested in training. I don't doubt my capability to perform the duties of the jobs for which I have applied- once I'd updated myself on the current jargon, it amuses me the changes- mainly in language, I have observed since I started working in 1984. I think there are people who make their money from "rebranding" often perfectly servicable terms and phrases just to give the impression of freshness and development. 

Part of me is... BORED by the idea of working again for people I may end up despising which has been the recent experience. My number one fantasy is the People Centre project, but until it is my turn to win BIG on the lottery, there is little I can do about that at the moment... I wonder if Idriss would cough up £1m? [ROFLMAO- Idriss: I wish I knew if he knows that I have been trying to contact him... Mind you, I am not sure what I would say to him now; when I first tried to contact him there was the possibility of a performance space being named after him, now, I'd probably just beg him to bail me out. Idriss owes me nothing, there is no reason he should help me, APART FROM the fact that the last time we spoke (about ten years ago), he fervently encouraged me to contact him if I needed to.].

The more realistic aim is to register as a foster carer- it is one step up from the contract I have with social services to care for Care leavers, but foster carers are paid about three times more. Since hearing the horror stories my current charges have shared I realise it would not take much to be outstanding in that field... I resisted it years ago when I was desperate for cash: I could not square the idea of looking after vulnerable kids simply for financial gain. I was being hard on myself; the main motivation has always been about parenting- which is also a bit problematic for foster carers. Nevertheless, I can see a situation where one of my lodgers leaves in October when he becomes twenty one, the other one is only eighteen and currently happy to stay with me as long as he is allowed to. I am hoping to be accepted as a foster carer by then so that the room vacated by my current lodger can go to a foster kid.

The advantage of fostering will be that I will be able to work from home and complete some of the writing projects I've been tinkering with for YEARS, updating my blogs more regularly is part of getting back into the writing groove.