You see, having pontificated for months on what to do with my career and volunteered here, pitched a few article ideas as a freelance there (only to be repeatedly told there isn't the budget for commissioning) it's something of a jolt to be faced with the singular need to earn enough money to keep a roof over our heads.
This isn't just because we are part of the 'squeezed middle' and there's a recession on, but because lately I’ve only been half-employed and my husband's just given in his notice after a lifetime of secure employment. He'll be 'between jobs' for the first time since he was 16.
He did so after taking the brave decision that it was the best option because life's too short to be miserable, no matter how much the financial reward. The fact that he went from military employment to civvy street adds to the confusion. At first, we both thought that this was the usual blip that many ex-forces personnel go through. They miss the camaraderie and banter that undoubtedly goes with any uniformed job. They miss the team work rather than the ever-man-for-himself attitude that prevails in many modern multi-nationals. So, I tried to console him and give him some coping strategies, reminding him (unhelpfully) that we'd ended up living in one of the most expensive counties in Britain so he couldn't afford to be picky. He likes to get everything done NOW and can't bear an overflowing inbox or in-tray so I lectured him on prioritising, delegating and urged him to explain to his bosses, because he had the right to do so, why he found the job so incomprehensible.
But then it became clear that there was more to it than that. Here was a capable, clever, energetic, organised individual who has commanded the supply department on a warship being reduced to a wreck because the targets he was supposed to be meeting were simply impossible to achieve. I'm not just saying this because I've got to 'stand by my man'. Here's why: the particular multi-national he worked for had a 'matrix management' style (I've only just discovered what that is) and he assumed this was the forward-thinking, progressive way ahead that had been drawn up because traditional hierarchical structures don't work. Wrong! It means John in Stores, who you line manage, is as likely to work in the same building as you as he is for Burt in Boston or Bracknell. So how you are supposed to improve efficiency in Stores when John says, but I don't work for you?
Add to that the sort of corporate language that the Plain English Campaign deplore and the kind of endless strategy meetings that The Office would create 3 hours of comedy out of and the end result is that not much actually gets done. His predecessor left the company following a breakdown - I'm wondering, now, how much that was work related.
Add to that the sort of corporate language that the Plain English Campaign deplore and the kind of endless strategy meetings that The Office would create 3 hours of comedy out of and the end result is that not much actually gets done. His predecessor left the company following a breakdown - I'm wondering, now, how much that was work related.
But we've both decided that his happiness and health are far more important than his wage packet. We'll work something out even if it means shopping at Lidl and Oxfam. So, tomorrow is his last day in the job from hell and he's been a different man since he gave in his notice. Colleagues have told him they wish they had his courage to acknowledge the difficulties of the place and walk away. He only did so after lining up a job to go to - it turns out there are plenty of opportunties out there - but it's not well paid. And this was only after being rejected by organisations who thought he was overqualified, despite the fact that he said he'd rather work his way up from a lower level.
So he resigned himself (literally) to being a househusband and the pressure was on me to get a decent job. This piece in the Daily Mail made me laugh earlier this month because he spent the summer doing precisely that and complained that he only got an hour to himself all day once he'd done the school run, organised something for dinner, then gone shopping for its ingredients, pretended to clean and tidy, made the next day's packed lunches, figured out who needed to be picked up from what after school club and made himself a coffee. You can imagine my reaction when he said that. He'd been under the illusion that the latter was all I did all day, I think! Now he knows what's what and, I have to say (reluctantly), he fills my shoes quite adequately - now he's done my training course! But the reverse cannot be said for me. There's no way I could earn the salary he was on after three career breaks - one for each baby and another because his job took us abroad. So, what to do?
While he applied for other jobs, I've had my own set of applications and interviews. One of them was my dream job and I was so looking forward to being liberated by the knowledge that the boys' dad would be their childminder this time and that I wouldn't have to face the stress of searching for a professional one.
Grateful that I'd even got through to the interview stage, I waited anxiously for the email address from HR to pop into my inbox. When it did, I almost had to reach for the valium. After psyching myself up to finally open the message, while peeking through my fingers, it was only to discover that they've decided to postpone making a decision until the following week and to thank me for my patience. False alarm....... Then the ACTUAL email came, only to tell me I hadn't been successful.
Never mind, I managed to persuade myself. Plan B (or is that C or D?) was already swinging into action. I invested in a soggy, cold, Welsh weekend of a course being put through my paces to train as a fitness instructor. I'm now taking the sort of classes that I've been attending for the past two years. It's a fabulous contrast to the stagnant, keyboard-bound day job and, nerves aside, I'm really starting to enjoy it. It doesn't pay enough for me not to rejoice at some of the announcements made by Mr Osborne in yesterday's budget but at least it's helping people get a different sort of squeezed middle - and it's great fun.
