A brighter star than you will shine

Happy birthday to me! It’s all about me today! Yippee! I used to really detest my birthday – a lot of fuss made over getting another year older. But since I’ve passed the ‘dreaded’ 30 mark, they don’t bother me so much any more. I get to eat cake, open presents and act like a princess all day. What can be wrong with that?

So, yay, it’s my birthday. I have already opened my presents from Duncan and Zoe – a Buffy book, Buffy season 5 on DVD, my New Kids ticket and, and this was a huge surprise, apparently it was an impulse buy yesterday, a Wii fit! I’m so excited! Not only are these things like gold dust round here, but now I get to do all kinds of daft sports in the comfort of my own living room. I’ve been doing work out dvds again (I really need to shift some weight) and knackering myself out, but I get so bored of them so easily, so this’ll be fun. Plus I know Duncan will use it as well. Zoe looked miffed that the presents were for me, not her. Apparently, only she gets a birthday, nobody else. Nothing planned for tonight, I really should prepare for tutorial tomorrow though. Oops, should have done that earlier this week but never mind. I am in work today, which sucks a little bit, but I barely have enough holiday for the days I need for tutorial, our actual holiday & to cover the day the nursery closes for staff training.

Work has just sucked recently. Last Monday, we were paid a visit by the HR muppet (who has no personality, no idea how to relate to human beings and no idea about HR related matters. I don’t know why she is employed, to be frank) and the head of subtitling. They very kindly came all the way from London to tell us that our job is being radically changed and if we don’t shape up, we can ship out. Or something. Basically, atm, we subtitle by typing but from the end of June, we shall be subtitling using voice recognition software, and only this, no more typing. So we all have to be retrained and if we can’t pass the tests at the end of training then they will ‘discuss our position going forward’ but as there’ll only be voice rec work, you can imagine what that means. It’s sent the entire office into a flap. The union’s involved and everyone’s a bit, well,… flappy. Some people are worried they won’t be able to do it, others are insulted that the company used the threat of dismissal as some stick to beat us with. I am sitting back and ignoring it all.

Because I have a plan. I’d always planned to leave this year. I was hoping to hang on till September at the earliest, but by Christmas, I’d have been gone. Now, I’m just leaving in June, once the voice rec kicks in and I can no longer type. I’m sorry to go, I’ve never had a job for this long before. But, at the same time, I’m ready to leave. I’m ready to spend some time with my gorgeous little girl and let her have her mum around when she can appreciate it before she grows up and goes off to nursery school proper. Once she’s at nursery &, later, proper school, I can start teaching with the NCT, assuming I’m not in the throes of the newborn stage at that point. I will get pg in the next 12 months, damn it.

So, yes, they can whinge all they want in this office, I am immune to it, because there is an end date in sight. And that is a lovely feeling. It’ll be nice to say goodbye to the nasty yellow walls, the bars on the windows (Oh, yes, I kid you not. I don’t work in a prison or anything, so surely these bars contravene some health & safety rule?!), the rubbish union advice and the endless ‘reality’ shite that passes for ‘music’ TV these days. I will miss the banter, the time to myself and reading on the commute. But, in return, I get to paint, play with playdough, run around in parks, look at fish, play on the beach and watch my daughter grow up.

Seems worth losing the money to me.

Until there is a next time…

xx