Shocking to awesome in 3, 2, 1....
Well, at least I didn't promise to update frequently.
There has been little that has seemed worth blogging about since I last wrote. Really, almost the whole year, apart from Grand Final Days, has been the sort of year that should be forgotten as soon as possible.
Sure, my kids are awesome, and I will hopefully write some more about that on the other blog soon, but I have bene miserable all year, and anyone who has had the misfortune to spend any time with me has found that experience to be pretty miserable too. I have basically been avoiding nearly everyone I know, for their sake as well as for mine.
Thos eunable to avoid me, like my wife, have not been enjoying this at all.
I was going to say that I can't remember the last time I was so little fun to be around, but I can. It was early 1999. Basically, I reached the point where I figured that I owed the entire City of Geelong an apology for every having lived there and I promptly quit my job and left town. Amazingly, some of the people I knew back then are still willing to speak to me. I don't know why.
This year has been a combination of dramatically bad times, like the week we spent at the Childrens Hospital after Cherub's appendix burst, and the more mundane, but still damaging, grind of turning up five days a week to work for an employer who seems to have a bizarre need to make doing my job as difficult and unpleasant as possible.
It is therefore a very happy thing to be able to record that Cherub is fine and, apart from a scar that he will probably think is cool when he's a bit older, there have been no lasting effects from his crisis of health.
It s also very, very pleasing to be able to record that after five years and none months of intense misery, this week was the week when I finally, finally got to QUIT THE WORST JOB I HAVE EVER HAD.
It is going to take a while for the sense of relief to really sink in, but when I found out that I was going to get a job offer from a much better organisation, I sat down and literally sobbed with relief. Even writing about it a few days after the event is making me tear up, just a little bit.
I had to work pretty hard to keep the gigantic grin off my face while I was giving notice, and to resist the temptation to laugh hysterically when my boss said he was disappointed that we hadn't been able to work through our differences (those differences being that I think I'm good at my job and he had recently taken to trying a new motivational technique known as "frequent threats to terminate my employment").
I will miss everyone I work with, except my boss, but I will not miss the daily soul destroying grind. I will not miss spending every minute of every day wondering when I will next be told that I am stupid and incompetent, or just being yelled at for having an idea that my boss could not understand and which he therefore assumed must be stupid. And I really, really really will not miss having my compentence, loyalty and integrity questioned with depressing frequency.
I still have to survive what will surely be an interesting notice period, but I will be out of there before Christmas and I will have at least three weeks to simply enjoy my life before I start the next job. The sense of relief and joy will not truly kick in until I am out of there for good, but I have noticed the start of a change already.
Most of all, I have started to feel the first faint glimmers of a barely remembered emotion. I think it's called joy. And I seem to recall that I like it.
There has been little that has seemed worth blogging about since I last wrote. Really, almost the whole year, apart from Grand Final Days, has been the sort of year that should be forgotten as soon as possible.
Sure, my kids are awesome, and I will hopefully write some more about that on the other blog soon, but I have bene miserable all year, and anyone who has had the misfortune to spend any time with me has found that experience to be pretty miserable too. I have basically been avoiding nearly everyone I know, for their sake as well as for mine.
Thos eunable to avoid me, like my wife, have not been enjoying this at all.
I was going to say that I can't remember the last time I was so little fun to be around, but I can. It was early 1999. Basically, I reached the point where I figured that I owed the entire City of Geelong an apology for every having lived there and I promptly quit my job and left town. Amazingly, some of the people I knew back then are still willing to speak to me. I don't know why.
This year has been a combination of dramatically bad times, like the week we spent at the Childrens Hospital after Cherub's appendix burst, and the more mundane, but still damaging, grind of turning up five days a week to work for an employer who seems to have a bizarre need to make doing my job as difficult and unpleasant as possible.
It is therefore a very happy thing to be able to record that Cherub is fine and, apart from a scar that he will probably think is cool when he's a bit older, there have been no lasting effects from his crisis of health.
It s also very, very pleasing to be able to record that after five years and none months of intense misery, this week was the week when I finally, finally got to QUIT THE WORST JOB I HAVE EVER HAD.
It is going to take a while for the sense of relief to really sink in, but when I found out that I was going to get a job offer from a much better organisation, I sat down and literally sobbed with relief. Even writing about it a few days after the event is making me tear up, just a little bit.
I had to work pretty hard to keep the gigantic grin off my face while I was giving notice, and to resist the temptation to laugh hysterically when my boss said he was disappointed that we hadn't been able to work through our differences (those differences being that I think I'm good at my job and he had recently taken to trying a new motivational technique known as "frequent threats to terminate my employment").
I will miss everyone I work with, except my boss, but I will not miss the daily soul destroying grind. I will not miss spending every minute of every day wondering when I will next be told that I am stupid and incompetent, or just being yelled at for having an idea that my boss could not understand and which he therefore assumed must be stupid. And I really, really really will not miss having my compentence, loyalty and integrity questioned with depressing frequency.
I still have to survive what will surely be an interesting notice period, but I will be out of there before Christmas and I will have at least three weeks to simply enjoy my life before I start the next job. The sense of relief and joy will not truly kick in until I am out of there for good, but I have noticed the start of a change already.
Most of all, I have started to feel the first faint glimmers of a barely remembered emotion. I think it's called joy. And I seem to recall that I like it.
posted by I'm not Craig at 10:16 PM
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