Nine to five

It’s my last day at work today for 6 whole months! 🙂 It feels quite surreal actually, it definitely hasn’t sunk in yet. It kind of feels like I’m about to go on holiday and I think it might start to sink in a couple of weeks or when the baby arrives. It makes the whole birth seem a heck of a lot closer now, which is leading some strange dreams about looking after babies. I’m not so freaked about giving birth any more, I’ve kind of accepted that it’s something I have to do, it’s a means to an end. I am worried that I might not get the birth I want, which I know is a possibility, and I am worried about coping afterwards, particularly about getting pnd, which apparently I’d more susceptible to because I’ve had depression in the past. But it’s not something I can do anything about right now so I guess there’s no point in dwelling on it.

Duncan seems to be in denial at the moment, like the following 6 months is gonna be some kind of holiday filled with reading, sleeping and watching DVDs as opposed to 3/4 weeks like that and then a lot of time looking after a small helpless baby. He also seems to be in denial about the whole birth, the way his eyes widen when I watch the Baby Channel to try and get him to see what labour’s gonna be like for me, I’m a bit concerned he may flake on me at some point. Hopefully he won’t although I know he hates to see me in pain, but again, it’s just something we have to wait and see about.

To celebrate my last day, I thought I’d do a nice little list – things I will and won’t miss about work. Then, later on, when I’m dreading going back or wishing I was going back sooner, I can refer to it. First, things I won’t miss:

• The commute – it’s only 30 minutes, which is nice in the morning cos I can go to work with Duncan and the train is empty. But it sucks coming home and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been elbowed out the way by kids and pensioners. Apparently being nine months pregnant makes no difference to my right to a seat, it just makes me fair game for the fight to get one.
• The office politics – I can’t be bothered with this at the best of times and I can’t be bothered to try and keep up with who is not speaking to who this week.
• Crap from London – The amount of times the company line is trotted out in this place as an answer to our points about crap pay, horrible working conditions and general office unrest is disturbing. I don’t care if the live department’s work has increased as well, so has ours and we’re losing staff all the time without them being replaced. My fingers will be glad of the six months rest. I might even have regained full and painfree use of them by the time I return.
• Trisha – Need I say more? The woman is awful and I detest subtitling the chavs that appear on her show day in and day out. I will not miss typing "All shout" during moments when I can’t be bothered to attempt to translate what they are all screaming at each other. Surely no-one watches this programme, let alone deaf people?

Things I will miss:

• My friends – Graeme and Rivka make me laugh on a regular basis and cry with laughter at least once a week. I’ll miss our sordid lunchtime chats and meaningless office gossip as well as our 30 minute tea breaks.
• Seeing programmes before anyone else – I quite like this, especially when it’s a programme we tend to watch. It’s fun to go home and wind Duncan up about what’s going to happen in 24/CSI/whatever in 3 weeks time. He hates it when I do this.
• The one perk of my job – Once a month, the company pays for a sandwich for everyone from a local deli. This is the only perk of my job.

I think that’s it for now, I may come back and add more as the day progresses and I’m reminded of more things, they’ll probably all be things I won’t miss though. Which is strange when, really, I like my job. I like what I do a lot, I’m just underpaid and underappreciated in it. I sometimes think if I could do the job from home, I’d be perfectly happy. It is part of who I am these days and I do worry that once I give birth, my identity will start to be eroded, going from perfect-circle, wife, subtitler, friend, sister, daughter, etc to perfect-circle, mother of… But that’s an exploration for another entry.

Until there is a next time…

xx