A Little Self Indulgent Moan

I’ve been wanting to move away from the area I grew up in for quite a while now and it’s really starting to wear me down. I currently work full time, although the pay is very poor, the job itself is entirely reliable and for an unskilled worker, in the current economic climate, that is a fairly big draw. Unfortunately my low pay has left me in a pretty shitty situation where my monthly outgoings are basically equal to my income, meaning that I have no real savings to fall back on. Couple this with the fact that I also have financial responsibilities that require me to pay every month or risk forfeiting my claim to them, potentially losing a lot of money and any chance of ever putting together a deposit on a mortgage. What this means to me is that, in a very real sense, I live pay day to pay day and can’t afford to lose even a single months pay.

As it stands it appears as though I’ve been left with two viable options, continue in my current job and commute to work or find another reliable job in the area that I want to live in. Whilst both of these options look fairly simple on paper they’re not as easy as it seems.

Firstly the area that I want to live in is around 35 miles away from where I work and although this isn’t a vast distance I don’t currently drive, though I am working to change that. It’s taken a couple of years, but I’ve finally managed to adjust my budget enough to afford weekly driving lessons rather than waste my time and money buying them in blocks with, sometimes long periods of time between each block. Essentially this means that, for me currently, commuting isn’t really an option.

Secondly, since the Brexit referendum economic growth in Britain has plateaued somewhat, and in certain cases has even recessed slightly, meaning that less jobs are available, competition for jobs has increased and employers are looking to fill the available jobs more cheaply. As a fairly qualified and extremely experienced employee, whilst not being the most expensive, I would not be particularly cheap to employ. I would require to at least match my current wage, but would ideally be looking to achieve closer to the higher end of the average wage for a person of my level of experience. When combined with the fact that I currently don’t drive, I have a very distinctive style and appearance, and that I have a fairly lengthy notice period in my current job, makes me a somewhat less desirable candidate for most companies.

So where does this leave me? This is a question I find that I’m asking myself ever more frequently and unfortunately the answer doesn’t really change, I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don’t have the money, or support structure, to simply quit my current job and move. Annoyingly if this was an option it has the potential to make me more employable due to no longer having a notice period and being available for an immediate start. I’m basically left with having to rely on either there being someone out there willing to take a chance on employing me or on my own ability to learn and the hope that I pick up the necessary driving skills quickly. Unfortunately I’m not convinced that either of these options are particularly viable, but they’re all I seem to have.

Office Humour

This appeared on the break room notice board approximately 10 minutes after a, somewhat...ok... extremely, passive aggressive email was sent to all staff regarding the 150 forks that have mysteriously vanished in the last 6 months.

Why I Won't Work Late

Some people say I'm lucky because I have the type of job where I rarely stay late and I hardly ever have to bring work, physically at least, home with me. Unfortunately for me lucky isn't exactly how I'd describe my working situation.

The reason I rarely stay late isn't because the company I work for is a compassionate employer that values their employees and wants them to have a good work/life balance. The reason I rarely stay late is because the company I work for refuse to pay their employees overtime and don't show any appreciation, or even really acknowledge, when their staff go above and beyond for them.

The reason I don't physically bring work home with me isn't because my workload is manageable and my quarterly KPI's (key performance indicators) are generally achievable within normal working hours. The reason I don't bring work home with me is because, even though my KPI's are already quite difficult to achieve, when I do meet my targets, rather than rewarding me, they assume it means that my KPI values must be too low and adjust them to make them harder to meet for the next quarter.

The is also another, much bigger reason as to why I neither stay late nor bring work home with me and that is my wage. Although I am paid above minimum wage, my hourly rate is so low that, taking into account that the company refuse to pay overtime, it makes absolutely no sense for me to give up my own time for nobody but the companies benefit.

Simply put the company I work for doesn’t make it worth my while, in any way, shape or form, to work beyond my contracted hours.

Personal Goals Vs Earning A Living: The Working Persons Dilemma

I’m getting old, I’m already considerably older than my parents were when they bought their first house and had their first child, neither of which I’m anywhere close to attaining and both of which are things I would like to have at some point. As I become increasingly aware of my own mortality, and my body clock slowly winding down, I’m starting to want certain things from my life and from my career. To a certain degree a good number of the things are my own to achieve and will only be achieved through my personal hard work and perseverance, however, some of these are reliant on my finances and my finances are directly linked to my job and, therefore, my employer.

I have worked for my current employer for the last 8 years of my life and during that time, whilst I may not have always been a model employee (in part due to my general disregard for authority), I have been one of the most hard working, consistently performing and reliable employees in the company, a fact that is often noted by my direct superiors. Unfortunately this hasn’t seemed to make much of a difference when it’s come to career progression or getting pay rises. When I first joined the company I initially made some forward momentum, but this plateaued fairly quickly and I ended up at a dead end. Since then I have taken several lateral moves within the company, to attempt to regain some forward momentum, only to end up with a greater workload at the same salary and to discover yet another dead end.

For the last 3 years I have been working in the same role, operating under the assurance from middle/upper management that I will be getting my own team to manage and that accompanying this will be further training opportunities, a higher pay bracket and greater potential for career advancement, something that would give me the financial stability and additional income that I need to start achieving some of my goals. Seeing as none of this has materialised, and is showing no sign of doing so any time soon, has left me with a little bit of a dilemma. Do I take the secure route and persevere with my current employer, in my current role, continuing to put my goals on hold and hoping that their promises come to fruition? Or do I throw caution to the wind, risk losing it all and gaining the potential of becoming unemployed by handing in my notice and trying to find a new, better paid job?

Week Off

After an awesome week off going back to the depressing reality of working long hours at, what can be, a very demanding job for an undeniably low wage seems absolutely surreal, I almost can’t believe that I’m doing it to myself.

Sometimes I spend so much time stuck in my own head, trying to make my own world work, that I forget to look around me. I spend so much of my time being introspective and self critical that so much beauty passes me by completely unnoticed.

It’s been a long week…

It feels like it should be Friday… you get back from work… you take a shower… you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, it’s depressing… you’re feeling low… you’re feeling fat and ugly… you skip dinner… you go straight for the whisky… a couple of glasses in you break out your pipe and have a smoke… it’s several hours, two thirds of a bottle and a couple of pipes later… you’re just starting to feel buzzed… IT’S ONLY TUESDAY! IT’S TWO A.M.! YOU HAVE TO BE UP FOR WORK IN FOUR HOURS!… your buzz disintegrates… your week now feels about ten days longer… you suddenly realise you’ve just drank and smoked the whisky and tobacco you were saving for Friday night… your week now feels about another ten days longer… you realise it’s not payday for another eight days (28 if you count those extra days)… FUCK! SHIT! PISS!

One Of Those Days...

So it’s been one of those days today, I feel like I’ve been struggling all day and have absolutely nothing to show for it. Work is really starting to drag me down again, promises of things getting better keep being made, but nothing ever changes. I feel like I’m being completely ignored and I’m not the only one. We lost another member of staff today, that’s the fourth one this week and management don’t seem to want to do a thing to stop it. Management don’t seem to want to do anything but pat each other on the back about how hard they’re working and how well they’re coping, whilst their teams fall apart around them. We’re coming up to our busiest time of year, if we lose anyone else we’ll be absolutely fucked.