old job, new job, old job
yes, yes I know. I’ve not blogged in quite some time and you’ve all probably forgotten who the hell I am. Heck even I’ve forgotten who the hell I was.
So let the obligatory prodigal blogger round up of recent notable events commence:
I have a new job. I jacked in the old job, made them poo their pants (and well they might) because while everyone knew I did something extremely important, extremely complex and in large volumes that could make or break the company’s finances (so risky to leave it up to one person, I told em so), no one was quite sure how I did it. I was nice enough to give them more notice than I needed to, because the Schadenfreude of seeing them struggle lost to my enormous sense of conscientiousness. I do have an axe to grind with them over how they treated me but I’m a pushover at heart.
The new job is a bit of a shock compared to the old. Partly because I enjoy it - the people are friendly (mostly, more of that in another blog entry), the atmosphere is lively but not excessively, my work is more varied than in my previous job and people don’t leave you to get on with a task that is patently too much for one person. Extra help gets drafted in and people roll up their sleeves and help you out when needed. I nearly had tears in my eyes when word was put round the office next door that I was struggling to finish a big job on time and three people pitched in to help. That never happened at my old place. People were so put upon that no one had the time to help you and management were generally speaking incapable of being any help because they know approximately zero about how you do what you do (I speak not just of my own experience, the three colleagues I shared an office with all were in the same boat).
Regular breaks at this new place are actively encouraged. We have a common room where comfy sofas and newspapers, magazines, biscuits etc invite you to bask in a room that lets in vast amounts of warming, bright sunshine (there are windows at each end so you get sunlight am-pm with the exception of noon) and you can sit and relax for ten minutes and no one thinks you a slacker for spending time away from your desk.
The other big shock is going from being the über-competent person, the one everyone would ring up to ask because ‘Heather will know’ (and generally I did) to being the most clueless person in the room. The jargon is one thing but some terms mean entirely different things in different contexts and I’m not yet so in the know that I can tell which we must be talking about at the moment.
I also generally answer the phone and fail to ask all the necessary bits of information when taking a message and find myself asking really stupid questions instead. But my esteemed colleagues are taking this in their stride and seem quite happy to answer my dumbest of questions.
This cluelessness, while frustrating, will pass in time and I’ll feel competent once more but for now it’s hard to have any kind of self-esteem when people talk right past you because they figure you won’t know anyway (and sometimes, I actually DO)
So that’s the new job.
My old job continues to haunt me. After I’d left, they contacted me and asked whether I’d come in and help them with the month end stuff. I agreed to give up a whole day to do it with them and travel to Worthing for a paltry sum of money. (pathetically paltry but I’ve never been very assertive)
I enjoyed the day of feeling competent again, but even a team of five people didn’t get it done in a day so how they expected me to achieve this every month I’ll never know. Maybe now they’ll appreciate how much I did. Heck now even *I* appreciate what I did.
That was to be the last of it. Or so I thought. They’ve contacted me since then and asked whether I could do this again. Two days this time. Apparently the last month end stuff they sent off came back with 80 errors and this means the recipients (who they sub-contract to) started banging the table. I remember the pressure of this myself, having been hauled across the coals for errors in my work before, but at least I got the errors down to 7. Just me, on my own and acting very much removed from where the paperwork (that needed checking and be error free) was generated. I never had errors as high as 80.
Schadenfreude? why certainly.
But this time, I was determined not to do it. I ahd an email NO in draft as I wanted to finally cut loose but then one day I picked up the phone at my new job and who was it but my old boss (how the hell did she get the number?!) and of course, I failed to say no. I tried to get out of it by saying I might not be best person to help - I’ve been away from things a while, I am not the god of this computer software and certainly am not under the impression that I did things in the best, most efficient way. I had been doing what I could under difficult circumstances and other ways might be worth exploring- but they said they were desperate. They needed me to at least trouble-shoot and any help would be appreciated.
So I said yes, beat myself up for being a pushover and then (after much cajoling from The Sous Chef, previously known as Gorgeous Landlord) emailed them to demand twice as much as the paltry sum I had received last time. Either I was going to walk away with some money or they’d find someone else. Win/Win.
Today they’ve emailed and said no thanks. They would get someone else in. HURRAH! because not only have I studies to get on with, I don’t need or want to help them, I owe them nothing.
SO that’s the new job situation at the moment.
and for my next blog entry: Understanding your parents are just regular people and thereby developing the freedom to dislike them.
