In less than 24 hours I’ll be in Senegal, West Africa. I’m going to be staying with my drum teacher and his wife in their village located in the south of the country. I’m a little nervous now, but also excited.

Saturday will be my 30th birthday. Funnily enough, I’ve been so busy worrying about malaria tablets and mosquito coils, etc. that I haven’t had much headspace left to agonise about turning 30 and being unemployed.

I may be able to update you on how things are going during the trip, but if not I’ll definitely give a summary of my experiences after my return on 31 March.

Cheerio.

I had an email from someone who recently came across my site, who felt that she should warn me about the stuff that I write on here. She suggested that people that I know in real life know about this site, and that I was opening up myself to being stalked by random weirdos by revealing my interests on here.

The truth is that there are just a couple of people who I know in real life that know about this blog (because I chose to tell them about it), and they aren’t actually people that I deal with on a regular basis.

There isn’t anything on this blog that I’m ashamed of. Sure, I wouldn’t want to share this blog with a future employer, but it’s not half as revealing as some people’s Facebook pages. I’m hardly Belle de Jour (and yes, I know that she’s been unmasked now).

I can be quite open on here because this blog isn’t linked to my real identity; I never use my full name, I change the names of any friends I mention, and I am usually vague about locations. I use a contact form so my email address is hidden unless I choose to reply and my domain ownership info is masked for privacy, so I think a random weirdo is going to have a hard time finding me in person.

What do you guys think? Should I be more concerned?

Photo by rpongsaj

Sorry, it’s been a while since my last communication. How was your Christmas / New Year? Mine were quiet – nothing exciting to report.

Tomorrow will be my last day at my current workplace. It will be such a relief to leave there and have a fresh start. Last week was quite a nightmare; it was impossible to get any of my work done and I ended up taking some reports home to write up.

One of the counsellors fell ill and I ended up taking him to the hospital as the emergency services apparently had no ambulances available due to the snow…

While I was in the waiting area, waiting while the counsellor was seen by a doctor, a guy sat down a couple of chairs away from me. A minute or two later he got up and asked me to keep an eye on his bag as he’d dropped his hat and wanted to retrieve it. I nodded my assent as he didn’t look like a nutter.

After a minute or two I became concerned about ’suspicious packages’ but he came back, hat in hand, not long after that. Then he started talking to me, telling me about something that he said had changed his life for the better; it was basically to do with reciting a Japanese phrase as a mantra. What I found most interesting was when he said that he didn’t say this stuff to everyone, but he was telling me because I seemed ‘open’. Anyway, he was called away by a nurse, so that was that.

Later that day I met up with my previous manager at the talking shop. Spending time with her again reminded me of how supportive she was as a manager, and underlined how bad things had become for me since she’d left. She was very encouraging of my plans to leave and start my new life and made me feel a lot more positive about everything.

This evening I finally told my mum that I’d quit my job. She was surprisingly okay with it. That’s one thing I don’t have to worry about anymore, though I know she might change her mind if I don’t find a job soon.

Onwards and upwards.

Sorry to leave you in suspense after my last post about my job situation. I actually did resign from my job a month ago, but I’ve struggled to write about it, presumably because I’m feeling so mixed up about it.

I did it at the end of one of my weekly meetings with my manager. She seemed glad on my behalf, but I wasn’t sure if she was just glad to see the back of me. She also asked me not to discuss it with anyone at work as she was planning to implement several big changes in our department and she didn’t want my leaving to distract from those issues.

So no one knew about it for a couple of weeks, until the director mentioned it to one of my colleagues. Then I was able to tell my co-workers, but I only told a couple of the counsellors, the ones that I was friendlier with. So it’s been really strange, having this big secret which has only been shared with a few people at a time at every stage.

About a week ago, my colleague sent around a memo about my leaving, so now everyone knows. Everyday last week I had counsellors telling me how sad they were to hear that I was leaving, and asking about my plans for the future. They’ve all been really sweet, and it was nice to know that my hard work has been appreciated there, even if my relationship with management hasn’t been great.

Although the plan had been to leave by the end of December, I’ve ended up offering to stay until the 3rd week of January as they owe me so much overtime that I’d have to leave tomorrow if I took it all this month. The benefit for me is having another month’s pay, and they get my knowledge and experience for another month. My post has already been advertised on Gumtree, and had 50+ responses before I left there a few hours after the ad went live, so they may even find a replacement before I leave.

I still haven’t told my parents about my decision to leave. My initial reason for delaying was that I wanted to have a clear plan of action before I told them. I still haven’t sorted my plans out, and I know my mum will panic if I tell her this without something else up my sleeve. And then I’ll feel even more anxious with that added pressure. I’ll have to tell her soon though.

I feel like I’ve made the right decision. It feels right to leave, but I’m worried about what I’m going to do next. Should I travel? Should I study? What would I study? Should I look for another job?

The only thing that I’m considering is to carry on with the website stuff, and try to make some money that way. It’s not an easy option, and there are no guarantees (but nothing in life is guaranteed anyway). I guess if things get difficult, I could do some office work/temping, but I’m reluctant to go straight back into that field. I’ve been looking for work online and in the newspapers, but nothing really jumped out at me.

I would like to travel abroad for a few weeks. I’ve been thinking about going to Senegal to have some African drumming lessons with my old teacher, but I’m not sure how safe it would be for me to be out there as a solo female, so more investigation is needed.

Sorry if you were trying to visit during the last week and had problems viewing the blog – I was changing web hosts and messed things up a little.

I’m thinking about quitting my job tomorrow, but I’m not sure of what else I could do to keep afloat. I’ve been thinking of leaving there for over a year and a half, since before my previous manager left, but I’ve carried on there in the hopes of finding another suitable job. Nothing promising has materialised yet, though I’ve been looking at newspapers and websites.

The trouble is that I don’t want to carry on with admin / reception work; I’ve been working in administration for the past 7 years and I just find it really draining, not to mention unfulfilling.

As an introvert too, I think I find my current job particularly difficult because I’m not naturally good at coping with constant interruptions. I also have a high level of sensitivity, so I often absorb the tensions of others around me. Add an workplace fraught with office politics, and you have my nightmare working environment.

Since my predecessor left in January, I’ve taken on a lot of her duties, and it’s basically impossible to do my job in the hours allocated to it. I’ve been juggling a lot of balls in the air, and it’s inevitable that I’ll drop a ball or two from time to time, and then I get it in the neck. They’ve told me that they can’t pay me overtime when I stay late, so either I give up my own time and stay late to complete various tasks that I wasn’t able to complete earlier due to various interruptions and emergencies, or leave the work undone and get criticised later.

Last week I overheard my manager and a colleague of mine having a laugh at my expense; a few months ago my manager also suggested that I should consider leaving, as I seemed unhappy…

In the current economic climate, I know that I should be happy to have a job, even one that I hate. After all, I only work 3 days a week, and the money is pretty good.

However, I exhaust myself so much when I’m at work that I often end up in bed for much of Thursday and Friday recovering. It has even gotten to the point where I tell friends to call me later in the week as I know I won’t have much energy to be social on my workdays. It stresses me out so much that I often don’t sleep properly, worrying about work issues in the middle of the night.

The idea of working part-time was originally to give me time to write and study, but it hasn’t turned out that way. I had to withdraw from a home study photography course a while ago as I couldn’t focus on it adequately.

A few people have suggested taking time off sick due to stress (like my predecessor did), but I’d rather not do that if I can avoid it. I’d rather leave and get on with my life.

The question is, what can I do next? I’ve been trying to make money online, but the money I’ve been making from my main site has decreased since last year and definitely isn’t enough to replace my earnings. I have several plans for new projects, but my energy levels are so low that I don’t focus on any for much time.

Other than that, I guess that I could look into temping. Maybe just a change of scene would be good for me. I’ve also thought about teaching English abroad, but I don’t think I’d enjoy teaching a class of people. I’ve also signed up to freelancer.com to see if I could get some web design / coding work, but it’s early days yet.

In one way, there aren’t many barriers stopping me from taking a chance; I don’t have to support a family, and I don’t have a mortgage or any real commitments. If I took off tomorrow for Alaska I’d only have to promise my mother to call her everyday.

My fear is that I’ll never leave this job if I don’t give myself a kick up the butt. The thought of leaving and jumping into the unknown is scary, but equally scary is the idea of staying where I am for another year. I have some money saved, so I could manage for a few more months without a job.

A while ago I made myself a promise that I’d leave this job by the end of this year. As I’d need to give them 2 months’ notice of my departure, that brings us to tomorrow.