Wildewire

I sat down to write this entry a couple of days ago but my preparations for leaving my job caused uncharacteristically busy days. I handed back keys and laptop and phone and LOTS of responsibility... and the security of a slightly laughable but vital wage check...  The adults with learning disabilities who are looked after by the organisation I've just left wanted to say good bye to me. I told them in complete honesty that they always cheered me up and were the best thing about my job: they greet me whenever they see me even if that's a dozen times in a day. Of course I've been reflecting on my current situation. The mistake was that my job was conceived without assessing whether it would be allowed within the organisation's "Charitable Objects". It turned out that even though my job was to create a separate, linked organisation that would do things that were outside the 'main' charity's "objects", the Charity Commission ruled t...

Yesterday was SO WEIRD. I got to work and expected to be able to update my blog but in fact didn't get a chance to write more than a first line.(I'm going to finish it later today) At my Redundancy Meeting on Tuesday, I was offered the opportunity to leave immediately. Had they not offered me an acceptable severance- nothing fancy but at least I won't have to work my month's notice, I might have taken up the offer, but I knew that a lot of stuff would just get dumped on other workers here and I felt that wouldn't be fair. I agreed to stay on till Friday to tie loose ends etc and perform a proper handover.  By yesterday I was regretting it due to coming up against the strange logic of the Finance Manager- yet again. I have been managing up to 13 different activities funded by a dozen or more funding sources so of course I was going to have several interactions with this person but a couple of them were downright odd: In one: I suggested a simple way for one of ...

I'm reeling from the discovery that anyone actually reads this blog. Unfortunately, despite avoiding most names, someone has identified them self in one of my posts and has taken severe exception to what they found. There ARE people I have criticised and slagged off in this blog, it is my only socially acceptable response to the amount of 'sucking it up' I feel I am often forced to do. If one of the people I've actively criticised discovered this blog and vented their anger I'd be largely unconcerned but as it is someone who now, wrongly feels I have been untruthful to them whilst slagging them off behind their back I am sincerely saddened and seeking to make amends. I write this blog for my sanity! I find myself in situations where I am expected to be calm and polite and to accept the unacceptable with grace whilst a scene from a Kung Fu movie featuring much blood and carnage plays in my mind. I have been a lot more calm and able to deal with the crap on my p...

So, almost at the end of the day yesterday I got an email from the boss marked "Redundancy Warning": next Tuesday morning a meeting has been set to discuss my exit from this job. I felt so relieved. Of course they're going to try to wriggle out of paying me any compensation so I'm trying to find someone with experience and gravitas to be my advocate at the meeting. Sadly the people I know who would do this brilliantly are in London. Previous redundancies in this organisation have been instant and clumsy. I have no reason to expect anything different. I am torn between making the appropriate preparations so that the negative effects of my departure will be minimised and just leaving them to work it out for themselves. I have been reflecting on how different this might have been had my boss shared with me the decisions of the Board of Trustees to terminate my contract when it was made in February. They honestly thought I would stay for another year as their careta...

My friend and his on/off lass came to collect some things from me at work yesterday. She was even more sour than has become usual. She made a couple of comments about my friend not being able to take care of himself as if he was floundering without her. She wants him to give up his lifestyle and live with her in a house where he is not allowed to move crockery, to cook without her "cleaning up after him" i.e. putting things away as soon as they've been used so he has to relocate them to continue cooking. Its obvious that until or unless he gives in to the attrition she will wear that face. I will avoid visiting him while she is there and I will tell him if he asks. I won't waste time on "advice" because what I'm writing is what he said about her the last time they were together. I don't dislike her per se, but I hope this stint doesn't last very long; her relationship with my friend is toxic.

I am involved and engaged in a wider range of activities than most! It is not surprising i suppose that such a range of issues niggle at my existence. For the most part; the grit in my ointment is inconsequential, but occasionally they conspire in concert to test my patience. Hmmm... when there is a major issue bothering me is when the mass of minor frustrations are most irritating. The more intractable the problem- if it is dependent on the actions of others for example, the more antsy I become. It is at those points that I have to be more alert about not snapping at people or overreacting the small stuff because I've let my feelings about real issues spill over into the minutiae of life. The internet was lost from work just after lunch yesterday. I was finally sending a piece of info to officially close the admin for a grant I raised last year but was unable to complete it with no internet. I went to find the appropriate worker but his response appears to have been to go ho...

After fire alarm tests etc I went to Leadgate to meet the owner. The lass was there- talk about "buzz-kill"!:still on her "it doesn't matter what I say" trip. I found myself looking to the not too distant future where she'll be off the menu again and calling him all the names under the sun. The meeting went OK... I think we made it clear that the excellent relationships Garry had developed over preceding months had all been lost. Where there had been joshing and camaraderie it seems that the workers have been told not to engage with us at all. It is also apparent that the local ward councillors  have had some input into the disastrous current situation where we're now having to negotiate creating an opening so we can have a gate out of our property to the new cycle route and road beyond. It was good for me to be able to explain what we're doing and planning to an enquirer. I think the sooner we get the local councillors in and shown around, the...