Tag Archives: job

Losing it in lockdown

26 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by in Emotions, housework, kids, Life, lockdown, Motherhood, Uncategorized

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I am an Extrovert. With a big E. I enjoy human interactions. One crew mate described me as “a bit touchy freely”. Most say I don’t shut up. I get my emotional energy from these social interventions; they help me to form ideas. The networks of people that I have spent my career building, motivate me and help me see clarity where there is muddy water.

I was off work a bit in February, and then ill at the end of February and the start of March. I went into the office for 2 days for the whole of February, working, but travelling and going to meetings in prisons all over the country.

This means that I have been into the office twice since the beginning of February. By the time I was better in March the world had already started to change. We were being asked to work from home if possible. On 10th March I went to an event in the House of Lords and instead of handshaking we were bumping elbows. It all seemed a bit strange and fun.

Then we were told that we couldn’t go into the office. This was mid March and I’ve been working at home since then. Well not working from home, you see, there is a difference. I’m at home with my children whilst trying to work. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. I’m home schooling my children whilst trying to simultaneously chair video calls. I’m feeding my children whilst simultaneously presenting papers to boards. I am simultaneously referring my children arguing whilst trying to negotiate procurement processes.

I am not just working from home. It is very different.

And I need you to know that I’m finding it hard. The back to back calls/meetings, the lack of adult human company, that’s not a 2 dimensional face on a screen. I miss the hugs, the eye contact rather than us all looking at different points on a screen.

I am losing it in lockdown. I am losing my energy. I am losing the love for my job, I am losing my confidence. I sometimes feel like I’m losing my mind too.

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In 5 years. 

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in Life

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It’s one of those questions that parents ask their children whether they are 3 years old or 25 years old; “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Actually it may start off as as that but gradually, over the years, it might change to be said in a more accusing tone, with the implication that person being asked is somehow whittling away their life. That they should know by now, should be working towards it. 

It’s asked in a different form at job interviews “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” And the expectation is that you will have a plan, a route forward, marked out with incremental markers along the way; earn more; work less hours; get a promotion; run the company. 

I’ve always thought that it was an extremely difficult question to answer. It’s also one full of pit falls. What if I say I want to be running my own business, earning lots of money and yet in reality in 5 years I’m still in the same job that I’ve been in since I left school, because I actually quite like it and it suits my lifestyle. Have I somehow failed at life? 

What if I say I want to get a degree in maths, and I enrol and then halfway through I realise that it’s just not adding up for me? That I’m bored, that I’ve changed my mind, actually I rather fancy doing anything, as long as it doesn’t involve me having to do sums? Am I a drop out? A failure? Or have I just decided that for me failing would be sticking at doing something that I hate, in order to fulfil everyone’s expectations of my answer to a question I answered 2 years ago, in a different time, a different place? 

 The past few months I’ve had more than one reason to look at what I want to do in relation to work, I love my job but sometimes I despair of it. I wonder if I could do something else, but one thing is for sure; if anyone had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer wouldn’t have been the job I do now. Not because I couldn’t imagine doing the job I do now, but because I didn’t even know it existed. Or the job I had before that. Or the one before that. 

Why can we not just see where life takes us? What’s wrong with trying a few career pathways/lifestyles before we find the one that suits us? And why does it have to be one thing? I currently have two jobs, both very different from each other but both I love. They fulfill me in different ways. Neither would I ever have put myself in as a child, nor 5 years ago. We are under pressure from such a young age to plan and know what we are going to be/do when we grow up, but surely that’s just limiting ourselves? Sometimes there’s nothing like waiting to see where life takes us, because inevitably life takes us on the path it chooses, not the route we planned aged 3.