Whinging and Complaining in Diary

So it’s been about a month since my last entry so I thought I would just let you know that I’m still alive. Hello.

I’m not enjoying my job at all. I started to realise this a few weeks ago and thought it was because I’m new and still learning things, but I’m enjoying it less and less as time goes by. People keep asking me why I haven’t done certain things that I didn’t even know I was supposed to be doing, or having a go at me for doing things wrong when they haven’t been explained to me properly. I’ve even been picked up on things that my predecessor has done wrong. Now I don’t like pointing fingers and passing the blame, but it happened a few times and it was getting on my nerves. So when my line manager asked why I had done something in a certain way, I told him that it was Hollie who had done it and he replied “As far as I’m concerned, Hollie doesn’t exist anymore, her work is now your responsibility.” And yesterday, someone else was quite annoyed that a spreadsheet and report from February was all messed up. I said that I wasn’t even there in February so I had nothing to do with it but again, it was apparently my fault. Am I supposed to check ALL THE WORK that my predecessor has EVER DONE to find any mistakes that she might have made? I’m still learning the job myself so, even if I do make mistakes, please cut me a bit of slack.

Every day I’m learning about more and more things that are my responsibility and I have no idea how I’m going to have time to do them all. Especially as we’re apparently really quiet at the moment and it’s going to start getting really busy soon; I’m already struggling with the workload. I’ve been working from home, working through lunch, coming in early, just to keep up. And yet when I asked my line manager if I could leave early one day for a hospital appointment, he went crazy and tried to suggest I take half a day off as annual leave! He eventually said he would “Let it slide this time” but next time I need to book it off as annual leave. So all the unpaid overtime I’ve done counts for nothing.

Another thing that isn’t helping; I’ve worked in admin for almost 10 years now and, up until now, admin is admin, it doesn’t matter what the industry is. I worked in building maintenance, which I know nothing about, for six years and I worked in concert touring and stage lighting for three years, but the admin work wasn’t really that much different. Now I’m working in civil engineering and apparently I’m supposed to know a bit about the industry. To be frank, I couldn’t give a crap about civil engineering, I couldn’t be less interested in it. But as I said, I didn’t think this would matter. Apparently it does.

Urgh, I’ve been so stupid. I gave up my job at PRG and now I realise how easy and fun it was compared to this one, I want it back. I’ve even looked on their website a few times to see if it comes up! Because my colleague Amy was studying to be a HR Officer when I left, and our HR Officer was thinking of retiring, so I’m fully expecting Amy to take over which means the admin job will come free again. I can’t believe I’m looking for my old job back, when I couldn’t wait to leave it less than a year ago :-(

The problem is, I have no idea what I want to do. 33 years old and I’m still scrabbling about in the dark, trying to think of a job I would enjoy. I studied Media Production at University but found it too difficult to get into, now it’s 15 years later and technology has moved on so much and I have no recent experience, it would be impossible for me to beat all the 18 year olds with their modern technology knowledge. I thought I would love being a dog walker, but I was wrong about that. Now I don’t know what to try. I’ve found a job with the police that I wouldn’t mind applying for, audio typing and copy typing interviews and statements, which would be quite interesting. But it’s lower paid than this job again, and I’ve already taken two pay cuts the last two times I changed jobs.

I’m stuck in limbo and haven’t got a clue which direction to go next :o(

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Oh and the other thing is I managed to go and break my arm. Yeah.

I went to a skate park one night, which I’ve never been to before. At first, I was scared of even the small ramps, but I soon built up my confidence and was going down bigger and bigger ramps, up and down the half pipe and dropping into a small bowl. I was getting cocky by this point and dropped into a bigger bowl. I managed it once, but the second time I tried it, I bailed massively. Landed hard on my bum, winded myself, felt a huge jarring all up my back, landed on my right hand very hard and thought I was going to vomit right there in the middle of the bowl in front of everyone. The latter of all this was my biggest concern, I have a very large problem with vomit. Thankfully I didn’t, but I was still embarrassed with everyone staring at me lying there moaning in agony.

A few people who worked there helped me take off my skates and pads but then there was the problem of getting out of the bowl. It is literally a big bowl, with no steps or anything, so the only way out is up the steep slippery sides. Naturally you’re supposed to skate up the side, but I had to have one man at the top, pulling my one good arm, while another man stood behind me and pushed me while I walked up the side. Very dignified…

I drove home in agony (no choice, I was 11 miles away and don’t know anyone who could drive and pick me up, I didn’t want to leave my car there either.) and put on a splint that I still had from last time I knackered my arm when ice skating. sigh. My back was in agony for ages afterwards and even now I find it hard to find a comfortable position to sit in.

I tried to ignore my wrist pain, convinced it was just sprained, but after a few days it was all swollen up and bruised so, after a lot of nagging from a lot of people, I went to A&E. I was very impressed that I was in and out in under an hour as I’ve heard horror stories of people waiting up to nine hours to be seen. Luckily it was a Saturday morning so very quiet.

I had an x-ray and had it confirmed that I have a transverse fracture of the radius, which is the larger of the two arm bones, right at the end by my wrist. It was very interesting to see my x-ray, it isn’t often you get to see inside your own body, but I couldn’t see the fracture when it was pointed out to me.

They sent me for an appointment at the fracture clinic, which is the one my boss didn’t want to let me go to, and they applied a cast from my hand up to just below my elbow. I have to wear it for four weeks and have three left to go.

They come in different colours now! Obviously I went for purple and the nice lady even sprinkled some glitter on it for me. Good to know where your National Insurance contributions are going, folks.

For two weeks now I’ve been doing everything with my left hand alone. Getting dressed, washing my hair, applying make up, doing the washing up and other housework. It’s all very difficult and time consuming when you can only use your non-dominant hand. Yeah, pity me, I’ve never broken a bone before and I hate it. At least I might end up ambi-dextrous by the time it’s all over.

The worst thing for me, though, is not being able to go skating. It feels like it’s been months since I last pulled on a pair of skates. I feel like an outsider. I went to watch one scrim that I could have been involved in, and the local paper were there taking photos. In today’s paper, they have FOUR whole pages dedicated to my lovely Wolfies. It’s great to see them in there and I’m really proud of them but I wanted to get my face in as well. The photographer was even shooing away those of us who didn’t have our skating kit on as we were spoiling the photos…

Anyway, there was a brilliant write up and photo set, I can’t find it online but here’s a JPG of one of the four whole pages they gave us.

To add to my crappy job and broken arm, I’ve also got the worst cold in the world, so yay.

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I can’t just write bad things though, last weekend was lovely. I got to spend three whole days with my family. I always love going up and actually wish I could move back up there to be with them but Jay never would in a million years. I saw my mam, dad, sister, her three young ‘uns and my grandparents. I even saw two of my school friends and I’d completely given up on seeing any of them ever again. It’ll probably be the last time I see them, though, as they’re both pregnant and they all disappear off the radar once they’ve popped out a sprog. It’s especially exciting for Karen, apparently she’s been trying to get pregnant for seven years and they were on their last try for IVF and then were going to give up and adopt, and it worked. So it’s a really special baby for them.

On Easter Saturday, we took my two nieces to the fun day at the local brewery. Sounds strange having a kids’ fun day at a brewery but it’s very canny. They send the kids off on treasure hunts, face painting and magic shows, while they sell beer to the adults in the bar. Fresh from the brewery, couldn’t be any better. And I even got to try a brand new one that hadn’t even been released yet, very nice it was too.

Eleanor and Isabel. I’ve only just noticed Eleanor’s separated her Smarties into colours on the table there. A girl after my own heart; I always do this with tins of Quality Street at Christmas ;o)

Dad enjoying his pint of Jennings in his first week of retirement.

Mam, Sonja and me. We’d just been talking about ghosts and apparently the pub is haunted so I was pretending to put my arm around one. You can see my cast here but it just looks like I’ve got a tiny arm!

That took far too long to type so I’m going to go and feel sorry for myself.

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Last updated April 11, 2015