It’s Friday night. I’m home alone having drank a bottle and a half of wine. I’ve just watched United win a hard-fought game against Everton in the FA Cup. I’ve had a very productive day and have ticked off multiple items from my newly-downloaded ‘to-do list’ app. I’m happy and have plans for some online work. Handy being as, as of two days ago, I am unemployed.
As I mentioned in my last post I had no job booked in for Wednesday. Due to this I spent the day doing jobs around the house, waiting in for a parcel while Penny and Rosie were out, and then spending time with Rosie while Penny ran errands. I went an hour or so without looking at my phone but when I did I noticed I had two missed calls and three messages from my area manager.
The messages first told (not asked) me to go to a job to check the electrics and the second was the address. The third message was sent roughly twenty minutes after saying “don’t worry about it, sent someone else” I replied politely that I didn’t have my phone on me but I wouldn’t be able to go anyway as I have my daughter with me. On reflection maybe this was naive of me. My manager never replied.
At roughly 6pm that night I got a call from my manager’s manager who introduced himself before telling me they’re letting me go and I haven’t passed my probation. A discussion followed where he told me I chose full time childcare of my daughter over going to a job that I’m paid to and I told him that I was told on day one with the company that if there is no work booked on the night before then the day is ours. He told me I’ve had previous days where nothing was booked and I was unable to attend a job booked in on the day because I have my child with me. I told him this is correct but I’ve never been told it’s a problem. I also told him I’m not ‘on-call’ and if I was not only would I be on more money but if I was I would obviously keep that day empty and be available at any point. His response was that we could argue about this all night but the decision has been made.
I’m slightly annoyed that I received no warning, was told from day one this is fine and other employees are doing the same thing and have not been dismissed but ultimately it’s no skin off my nose. I’m lucky that I’ve been fairly sensible with my money but also I’ve always kept my options open looking in to other jobs and discussing returning to my old job with my old boss. My old job is pretty much lined up for me, I’m just waiting on confirmation so we’ll see how that goes. In all honesty I would prefer a week or so between jobs so these online ideas I have I can work on a little.
You may ask why I haven’t started these new online endeavours just yet and my response (or excuse depending on how you look at it) is twofold; there has still been a hangover from Christmas and New Years in our home so I’ve been busy tidying and sorting the home, secondly I’m classing myself as fully immersed in the research and development phase – consuming information, making notes and writing up plans.
In other news I’ve finished my book (Cell by Stephen King), I’m closing in on 800 days of Spanish lessons and as well as my productive day today I actually went out for a small walk. They may be small activities but they are positive habits being built. The difficulty is maintaining it, especially when I’m back in work.
My plans for the weekend include a few small errands, a little more tidying and sorting the house, obviously spending time with my family and applying for jobs but I plan to be productive in terms of creating my online business as my priority. Again, we’ll see how that goes but even before I got the sack from my job I was saying I need to treat this like a full-time job and put the effort and time in.
It’s up to me now to get any reasons or excuses out of the way and put the work in. Unfortunately this may mean I will be writing less but I do aim to keep up some kind of regularity and consistency with posting blog updates. I have written 51 blog updates in the three years and four months this site has been up. In the first week of this year I have two posts and have meant to post on at least three other days but haven’t been able to. It may be early days and the wine may have me feeling overly-ambitious but I’m thinking I can post fifty updates this year.
My primary goal, as I have mentioned multiple times across the site, is to be working fully for myself and online by the end of the year. If I’m not quite there by then I won’t be too hard on myself, I know it’s not going to be easy. I just hope to be at least somewhere along the road with a plan in place that I’m regularly working toward. Another goal is to actually finish a story and publish or post it somewhere (hopefully receiving feedback) but I recognise this has to come secondary at best. Third, at best, on my priorities (but also the easiest in my view) is to post fifty updates on this blog; only 48 updates to go.