24
Oct
2010
My fab new job
See, if I was more talented with one of these, I wouldn't be in this situation
I got a great new job this week. Three days a week, 10am-4pm, well paid, in a brand new and exciting area. It’s only a few tube stops away, which is handy, and you get as much sick leave as you need in the first few months when your child is bound to come down with every illness in the book after starting at nursery. I’ve got a team of four so it’s good to be managing people again, and there is lots of opportunity for career progression into embarrassingly well paid senior roles. Oh, and because my extended family lives overseas, I will be able to take a month long break next year and all school holidays can be taken as additional unpaid leave.
Oh no, wait.
Are you KIDDING me?
25
Jan
2010
The case of the disappearing career.
I cannot find a picture of a hen with its mouth open. Please use your imagination to imagine a hen. With mouth open. But no teeth.
A good friend asked me today what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. She was talking about my career, rather than whether I was planning on keeping the children. At least, I think she was — my daughter was being particularly irritating today so it would have been a valid question.
So the career. Ah yes. It was a good one. I loved the intellectual stimulation, the office banter, clever people around me (except the dim ones of course) and I loved so many of the teams that I worked with. Until I realised I didn’t really enjoy what I did. And that I was working myself to the bone with ridiculous hours and ungrateful sods demanding clients. And I was basically miserable in my industry. All of which wasn’t really conducive to being a happy mother and wife, let alone a happy worker. So now I find myself in the maternity leave tunnel with no light at the end.
