Yesterday I had my work leaving do. 'Leaving' in the sense of I-will-be-leaving-soon-but-not-quite-yet, as Christmas parties have rather got in the way of the big final never-coming-back send off. But what it lacked in tearful farewells it made up for in (hard [that's American for con-alcohol]) cider.
It was fun. I somehow managed to get tipsy-but-not-drunk-enough-to-have-a-hangover, which left me free to laugh at the antics of my colleagues, and to be acutely aware of quite how much Sian was making me zigzag as we walked 'home' arm in arm.
Leaving TimeBank. It's been a long process of detachment - I've known since February that I would be leaving once the visa came through and since October that I'd be leaving in December. And yet I'm not sure the reality will quite hit me until after Christmas when everyone's back at work and I'm sleeping til 10am every day and spending my time curled up in front of fires reading War and Peace (aka Grazia).
TimeBank was my first proper job. Sian likes to tell me that they hired me because they liked my hair (I was doing my best Heidi impression that day, with a plait [braid] wrapped around my head). She's said it a few too many times for me to think she's joking and that I was really hired on the basis of my clear talent. Whoever knew a plait could be so fortuitous.
Since then, I hope I've proved myself to be talented in more than hair engineering. I've worked with all sorts - from refugees to Sony employees, been to countless volunteer recruitment fairs, cleared more scrub than I'd like to remember, spent far too much time in Sunderland, seen the inside of a Manchester Casualty and somewhere along the line someone was silly enough to put 'manager' within my job title (partnership manager mind you - not quite the power trip I'd like, but still - it allows scope for exaggeration).
In many ways I've grown up at TimeBank - it gave me my first paycheck, which led to my first rent payment (I'd been a poor student, sponging off my parents and Jeremy up til then). I've grown in confidence, shed my fear of the telephone (more or less. I still occasionally make important calls elsewhere so that no one's there to hear my stumble over my words and sound like a total muppet) and have a passing understanding of budget management (by 'passing' I mean I befriended with someone on the finance team who pretends my stupid questions are perfectly reasonable).
The whole place is teeming with history (and mice). My desk is buried in memories and in-jokes (actually it's mostly buried in paper and tupperware and the odd coffee cup growing mould). There's my blue-tack mouse (made one day in a boring meeting and then I didn't have the heart to squish him) and my two pottery mice (made in an 'away day'- we thought they might guard against the real mice. They didn't.) and the post-it reminder of the refugee mentee whose no.1 goal in the UK was to catch a fish, and whose action plan consisted of 'go fishing'.
I'm entrenched. Literally.
And now I'm leaving. I doubt I'll ever again be lucky enough to work with my closest friends. I'm certain I'll never work anywhere again that lets me compress my working week into 4 days. The term 'My Friday' is a thing of the past and will be eliminated from my personal dictionary- I may hold a mourning ceremony next friday to mark the last one's passing.
Ugh and I have to get a new job. One without Fridays (or with them, but in a bad way) and friends and (hopefully) mice. I have to start the whole application process all over again. Granted I'm going to have a significant break from it all, but on Jeremy's notarised I-promise-not-to-let-Hannah-become-a-drain-on-society form (one of our many essential documents for the visa interview...which, by the way, has finally been scheduled for the 15th January), it specifies that he intends to "furnish room and board until Ms Stratton gains employment - a period expected to be 3-6 months". So it's not really that long before I'm no longer readily furnished with room and board, and I'm not looking forward to trying to convince people to employ me again.
Critically, I now have more than 'waitress' and 'shop assistant' on my CV, which will hopefully make the transition into my next job a little easier than last time (although rest assured I'll be plaiting my hair, just in case). Meanwhile, I'm going to spend the next week appreciating TimeBank and the friends and familiarity I have there. And maybe spend a few days exhuming my desk ready for the next sucker.
No comments:
Post a Comment