Just Nicky

It’s a just step to the left… January 20, 2006

The way I’ve been feeling recently at work reminded me very much of the way I felt when I first returned from maternity leave. Extraneous. Confused. Alone. And I started to wonder if my mood was perhaps heading the way it was when I first went back to work. This was not a pleasant thought.

These sorts of thoughts were bothering me a bit last night (and probably accounted in part for my lack of sleep), so I just popped into the beyondblue website and ran through their checklists for depression. The consensus is that, yes I am suffering some distress, but not in a major way. That’s both comforting and worrying.

It’s comforting in that in matches a bit with how I think I’m feeling - unhappy, but not completely dropping my bundle - and suggests that things are not too bad. It’s worrying in that the advice still suggests seeing my doctor. I don’t want to see my doctor, unless I’m at death’s door. So I suppose my end result is to be alert, but not alarmed.

I’m in a situation I don’t like: Exiting, but not fast enough. Doing work I don’t enjoy. In somewhat of an administrative wilderness because I’m no longer part of the structure of the group I’m working in. And I don’t deal well with being in situations I don’t like and being unable to remove myself from them. I need to remember this when I get annoyed with myself for being unhappy. And I also need to remember that only I have about 4 more weeks of this to endure. Watch me forget in the next 10 hours…

No show January 19, 2006

I couldn’t face work today.

Any story I might have been telling myself & others about not being stressed about work is made a lie by my rigid neck and shoulders, knotted stomach and red eyes.

I’m really not good at doing stuff I don’t want to do.

Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to the extra month. There’s not much point in trying to change it now as the process of getting retrenched takes at least 3 or 4 weeks, so I just have to ride it out.

Now what was I going to say… January 18, 2006

I headed to the page to type a blog entry about half an hour ago. Then the phone rang…

Now I’m back and I have no idea what I was going to post…

Two Things January 16, 2006

There are 2 things which have made an impression on me in the last few days:

This is appalling. I don’t have any other words for it.

This had quite a different effect:

Until you stop seeing the sex, and start seeing human beings trying to figure it out, just like you, we’ll never move forward. This is the burden of the conservatives. The progressives are mostly there. This is the civil rights burden of our time. It’s not a rejection of God. It’s not a rejection of religion. It’s a rejection of hate, prejudice and ignorance. It’s a rejection of the most evil part of any organized group, Jesus or otherwise

Thanks for all the fish January 13, 2006

Yvette & I went to lunch with Robert (aka my favourite colleague) at Taxi today as it’s his last day at the monolith. I can name Yvette & Robert now because they are almost no longer employees of the monolith. Yvette finishes up on Tuesday and Rob finishes in early Feb, but will be on leave from today.

Firstly, the lunch was splendid. Highly recommended in the fine dining stakes. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a swish restaurant (having trouble remembering ‘ever’ being to a swish restaurant, so it must have quite a while) and it was a lovely, lovely experience.

Secondly, it was lovely to sit with 2 people I’ve worked with for most of the last 5 years and talk about all sorts of stuff. It’s people like Robert & Yvette that I will miss when I make my exit. I won’t miss the monolith itself at all (well … maybe some of the perks …), and there are few of the people I will really miss. These two are at the top of the list.

We were joking about farewell emails - there’s been a few going around lately. Robert reckons his will just say ‘thanks for all the fish’. I really hope it does.

Last (wo)man standing January 12, 2006

My favourite colleague received his retrenchment paperwork on Tuesday. His finish date is the end of January. He goes on leave tomorrow and is going to Africa for a month, so tomorrow will effectively be his last day. 4 years (I think) of working together on and off will be over. It all seems so sudden. He’s probably the only person at the monolith I will really miss. We already had an expensive lunch planned for tomorrow, just in case. Now it will be for real.

I gather that there are 2 waves of retrenchments in the next few weeks. A group of people will finish on the 17th of this month and another group on the 31st. Because I’m (supposedly) staying until the end of February, I will be the last to leave.

If I knew where the switches were I’d turn off the lights on my way out.

Zoom, zoom, zoom

This morning I was pottering around at about 8am, taking my time about getting ready for work, when I remembered that the big red car was going in for a service and I wasn’t going to have time to drop it off in Sth Melbourne and get the tram into work with sufficient time to prepare for my 10am meeting.

Mark, bless his cotton socks, got Foozley out of bed, dressed and into the little red car with his breakfast (toast) in a brown paper bag by 8.30 and was able to follow me to Sth Melbourne and then drop me at work a smidge after 9am.

I’ve sent out the spreadsheet I needed to send the attendees at my meeting and now I have time to blog. Just need to think of something to blog about…

Cops on Segways January 11, 2006

It’s police v VicRoads in battle over two wheels

The vision of cops beetling about the cbd on Segways just makes me want to laugh.

It’s all Gob’s fault.

Lists, lists

Knowing what I now know I need to make some lists.

A list of the pre-retrenchment work type things (work that needs to get done in the next 6 weeks).

A list of the retrenchment type things (superannuation, financial advice, etc.).

A list of the post-retrenchment type things (car, etc.)

A list of the future employment type things (resume, interview clothes, etc.).

A list of the between jobs type things (gardening, sleeping in, etc).

It’s actually quite exciting.

The days are numbered

I’ve just spoken to my boss.

He has asked for my end date to be the end of Feb because I’m working on a Big Important project that goes live in early March.

It’s not as soon as I would have liked or expected and it means that Mark & I won’t get a chance to go away before he goes back to uni, but I can live with it.

It will add an extra month to my payout, which won’t be a huge amount, but it will be something. And I can put the Big Important project on my resume, which should impress some people.

Once I have confirmation that HR are OK with the requested date I’ll start contacting agencies and getting a sense of the ebb and flow of positions. That will help me decide exactly how long I want to have off before jumping back into the ratrace.

I really do feel better about almost everything when I have a timeline to work with.