So What Now?

I didn't get the job.

My boss phoned me on my mobile while I was in the middle of Tescos with the youngest choosing a packed lunch box for her first ever school trip.

"I'm sorry Gappy. No-one wanted you to get the job more than me, but you just didn't give us the answers we were looking for."

A bit like a court case in which previous convictions for the same crime cannot be taken into account lest it prejudice the minds of the jury, my colleagues on the interview panel were not allowed to take into account the skills they know I have, and the good work they know I do. The interview questions were all scored - a point being awarded for various specific key words and phrases used by the interviewee - and I didn't score high enough on some of the questions; not because I don't know the answers, but because I just didn't say them right or go into enough detail.

So someone else will be starting my job after my temporary contract for it ends in two months time, and I will.... well, I'm not entirely sure what I will do. My boss was keen to point out that there was another job coming up soon and that they wanted to make sure to give me feedback from this interview so that I would be able to sail the next one if I wanted to apply for it, but I'm not sure if I do. The job will be in the information centre for one, and I much prefer refuge work. Also it will be five days a week which I just can't see myself being able to manage in the school holidays. On top of all that the working environments created by the two different teams are like night and day - the refuge team being a strong supportive group who take care of each other at work and the community/information centre being something of a snake pit in which nobody trusts each other and everybody goes about subtly undermining everybody else. I don't, in all honesty, really want to work there.

I also feel embarrassed if truth be told. I really appreciate their support in offering to try to make sure I get this next job, it's nice that my boss has specifically said that she knows I'm good and she wants me working for them, but really it's not their responsibility to try to make sure that I am gainfully employed. I feel as if they feel they owe me something because I have volunteered and covered paid posts at short notice for a long time now - but they don't really - it was my choice to do those things. One particularly helpful colleague from the community team said before my interview that she was hoping and praying I got the job because if I didn't it would just be "really awkward for you and everyone else." I refrained from laughing bitterly and saying "Yeah thanks for that," but it's true really. It is all a bit awkward.

Tomorrow night is the slightly belated leaving do of the colleague whose job it was that I had applied for. I want to go - she was a fantastic, dedicated support worker and colleague who taught me a lot - but I know that me having not got the permanent post is going to be a massive elephant in the room. I'm torn really - I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but I also think that if I don't go it will look as though I have simply spat my dummy out, which isn't the case at all. My feeling is that I should probably go and try to hold my head high. I tried my best, I didn't get it, I'm terribly disappointed, but I'll live. It's her night anyway and we should all be concentrating on being there for her.

What do you think? Any and all advice much appreciated.

Jobs For The Girls

Or a quick employment update.

I have recently started paid work again for Women's Aid. One of our family support workers left to work for another Women's Aid group (one that is still a collective as opposed to a hierarchy) so I have been drafted in to cover her hours for three months over the summer. It is actually supposed to be a twenty five hour a week job - I can only do eighteen hours because of my childcare responsibilities and yet they still employed me, so I guess that means they either really rate my work or that they were just plain desperate. Who knows.

Anyway, a more permanent version of the same post has been advertised. I say permanent, it's actually only a one year fixed term in order to allow for an easy fall guy when it comes to the fairly inevitable 're-structuring' that is likely to happen in the nearish future to the refuge team. We've already seen it happen with the community team. But still, I have applied for it. A job for a year is a job for a year. At least if I get it I'll be doing the job I love, gaining valuable experience, and buying myself more time to find something else which hopefully will be permanent.

I e-mailed my application form to my boss yesterday. And today my colleague whom I work extremely closely with for two days a week went to sift through the applications in order to help select for interview. I have to say, it feels a bit weird. I'm essentially applying for my own job, and my colleague is the one who is not only judging my application form but who will be (if I am selected for interview) amongst others on the interviewing panel.

Now I am not guaranteed to get this job, even though I am providing the temporary cover. A lot of experienced people may have applied for it, and the way I'm feeling at the moment it is perfectly possible that I will simply clam up at the interview and forget everything I ever knew about how to effectively support women and children in refuge. I have been told in the past that I interview well, but I'm ridiculously nervous about this whole process. I imagine it's pretty tough for my colleague aswell. We have a good working relationship, but she has to remain completely impartial - not easy I guess. I have so far resisted holding onto her ankles and snivelling, but I'm unsure as to how much longer I can last - I really want this job. It will mean aswell as everything else that I can put the book-keeping on hold and no longer have to deal with Naked Boss - something of a bonus, I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyway, this is just a short post (for me.) I've had an intense day at work and I'm on call tonight so I should get to bed early in case I'm woken in the wee hours. Please keep your collective fingers crossed for me. I'll keep you posted as to how it all goes.

So... Where To Now?

I have been treading the same path for a very long time. There have been some twists and turns, but always the same path going in the same general direction. Suddenly though (for although I have been expecting it, it still comes as a surprise), up in the distance I spy a junction - a cross roads. I hesitate. I feel anticipation, dread and excitement in equal measure. I have no choice but to keep moving forwards. Soon there will be no choice but to set off in a wholly new direction.

The Youngest starts school in September. It will be the first time in almost 12 years that I have not had a little one at home.

My temporary paid post at Womens Aid has come to an end. The world of accountancy seems eerily quiet at the moment and Naked Boss has not contacted me regarding any book-keeping work for weeks. I think perhaps he has decided that he only wants female employees who are prepared to overlook the fact that he is a predatory pest. Well o.k. I can live with that.

I have made a new claim for Income Support and Housing Benefit for now, and am thinking hard about how I am going to support myself and my children when I no longer need to be at home to care for The Youngest, and the majority of my day becomes free. I have all the skills necessary to work in domestic abuse service provision but the funding for Womens Aid in my area is being slashed to ribbons, and there are more likely to be redundancies than new vacancies in the near future, (I will avoid ranting about what a disgrace this is - but suffice to say - vulnerable women and children will suffer as a result.) I have another option which is to spend a year at college gaining an official book-keeping qualification that will enable me to become self-employed and work from home, which would be ideal, but lets just say that the world of accountancy doesn't exactly set me on fire.

A new beginning is what this feels like. A new stage of my life about to be embarked upon. I am aware that this is a well worn path trodden to dust by many mothers, but for me personally it is unknown territory. What I want more than anything is financial independence. To be able to support myself and my family reasonably comfortably by doing something that I find meaningful is my ultimate goal, and I believe, not an unrealistic one.

Of course like many women (and men) who inhabit the blogosphere, the dream would be to earn money from writing, writing anything really - articles for magazines, a blog, even perhaps a book - but I have no idea where to even start along those lines. So for now the focus is on what is genuinely attainable for me, what I can do to get myself earning in the near future, and how I make the transition from 'stay at home most of the time mum' to 'working mum'.

As I approach nearer the crossroads, time seems to accelerate beyond my control. There are no signposts that I can see, simply roads that loom larger and larger and seem to stretch out forever, splintering off in the middle distance into a multitude of different directions. I still have no idea where I'm really going.

Naked Boss. Part 2.

When I first began writing my blog a month or two ago, I wrote a post that introduced (to nobody in particular, because no one was reading it) the whole bucket of riotous fun that is my Naked Boss. If you would like to read that ahem, overview, for want of a better expression, then do feel free to click on the link above. In fact it's probably advisable that you do, considering all the things you are probably thinking (don't try to deny it) as a result of his chosen moniker.

I have since then, begun to stir something of a mutiny amongst his other female employees, of which there are two, both of whom I knew prior to starting the job.

It began with a phone call to one of them - we'll call her M. Naked Boss had been my boss for about three weeks (I work for him just one day a week). I rang her and said, 'Hi M. Um.. I don't know how to put this anything other than bluntly, so I'll just come out with it. Does Naked Boss ever say things to you that make you feel uncomfortable? Does he, um... ever, you know, touch your back or put his arm around you? To which she replied a bit hesitantly, 'Er... yeees'. Now at this point I resisted the urge to shout 'THEN WHY DID'NT YOU WARN ME BEFORE I AGREED TO START WORKING FOR THE CRETINOUS BASTARD?', instead opting for a less screechy, 'And how do you feel about that?'

It turns out that he had been harassing her and another woman who works for him (we'll call her C), for months. Apparently C wasn't massively bothered and managed to shrug it off easily enough with an 'Oh he's just a bit of an old perv' kind of attitude, but M felt immobilized by it and completely unsure of what to do for the best. My frustration with her for neglecting to forewarn me faded as I heard the unhappiness in her voice. She really needed the job she said, she was friends with his wife and just couldn't face creating a scene, or the possible fall-out that might result from it. I could understand how she felt.

However, I love a good scene. The next time I was at work and he saw fit to tell me he 'Could just kiss me because I was getting the hang of everything so quickly', (bless me - might just have an ickle wickle brain floating around in there somewhere after all), I said very calmly that if we were going to have a good working relationship, there was going to be no kissing, no touching, and no making comments about what I was wearing - because it made me feel uncomfortable, o.k.? His response was to put on a 'cute' voice, cock his head to one side, and say, 'O.k. Cool.' To my credit I did not vomit, but studiously continued with my work.

I thought: Great. Well handled that Gappy. You didn't get angry, you didn't threaten to feed his testicles to the sheep, you simply set appropriate boundaries in a composed and assertive manner. Ha! That told him. Your mother would be so proud. Surely you must now deserve a prize of some sort.

That sort of pride tends to come before a fall. A few days later, M came over to my house to drop off some work for me. She looked breathless and elated. 'I spoke to him', she said. 'I told him that from now on there was to be no physical contact whatsoever, and no inappropriate comments either. That if it continued I would leave, I would tell his wife why I was leaving, and that you would back me up'. She clearly felt so much better for having taken control of the situation, and I felt better knowing that I had her support too. It was all starting to feel quite empowering untill she relayed his response back to me.

Do you want to know what he said to her? He said, 'Oh o.k. Well I wasn't expecting that. I know I'm not allowed to comment on Gappys clothes because she spoke to me the other day, and I must say I thought at the time - who is she to be making the rules? But now you've said something aswell, perhaps I can see better where you're both coming from.'

Who am I to be making the rules?

So much for my bloody prize. Perhaps the sheep are looking a bit peckish after all.

A visit to Naked Boss....

Yesterday I drove down to see Naked Boss, after I had dropped Eldest Son at school. He lives in a fairly remote farm house with his wife and two children, at the end of a long and bumpy track cut through the middle of a sheep field, which becomes completely impassable without a four wheel drive as soon as the ground freezes, and is dotted all along with farm gates. The condition of this road is such that it not only knackers your suspension, but could probably also be used as an induction method for the heavily pregnant and desperate. I am not a country girl. I don't like sheep. And farm gate etiquette is still a complete mystery to me, despite having lived here for over five years. I mean do you leave the gate open if you found it open or must you always shut it? And yes, I know that's only two options, but no-one has yet been able to give me a definitive answer. The sheep that reside in Naked Boss' field eye me warily, presumably recognising me to be the deranged woman who curses loudly at farm gates.

Naked Boss' office is essentially a glorified shed in his garden, with two computers and a wood-burning stove. And yesterday as I approached said shed, I saw that mercifully, he had his clothes on.

Perhaps some clarification is necessary here. My boss likes to work naked. I have made it clear that I would prefer him not to when I'm working with him, so far so good, but I live in dread of the possibility of turning up one day and accidentally stumbling upon him, only to be traumatized for life. I suppose if I had any sort of inclination to quiz him on the subject, his line would be that society has a deeply unhealthy attitude to nudity, that it can be non-sexual, and why is everyone so uptight anyway? Which I could possibly accept coming from someone else. But not from a man who tells me he hopes I'm looking this slinky when I come into work next week...

Oh yes. Decades of feminism. An increasingly litigious society. Movement towards more equality in the workplace. It's all passed Naked Boss by.