Goodbye Bloater, Hello Boater.

triple_choc_chip

Hi Mr B, belated Happy New Year and well done on making it through the longest month of the year from a salary point of view.

Have you considered using YNAB? I haven't used it myself but have noticed how many are raving about it on these forums. I believe you can do a free trial and also buy it through a cash back site. (This is turning into a sales pitch!) I just think it would make a change from your usual spreadsheets and maybe enthuse you for 2015?

MrBloater

With Joy Division, Mogwai and Bark Psychosis on the playlist, those of you with a leftfield musical inclination will realise that this is not going to be a particularly upbeat post.

Mrs B moves in the same circles as the boss of my 95% certain new place and on Friday told me that said boss was moaning about interference from her new big boss. I put two and two together and surmised that she was alluding to the fact I may not get the new job.

I then had a meeting with one of the big cheeses at my place yesterday who mentioned that they were surprised I had said I was going seeing as they had not had a reference request from my 95% certain new place. I put two and two together and then couldn't hardly breath for the next thirty minutes whilst my fingers and arms went numb. I was taken to hospital, blood pressure taken and reassured by a doctor that it was just a stress reaction. I went back to work and carried on as usual.

Upon getting home Mrs B told me I should contact the new place just to put my mind at rest. This I did, and in the evening received an email saying it was unlikely they would be able to offer me a place due to internal restructures and suchlike. I guess the prescience and the earlier hospitalization worked as I had no emotion left to give. I knew this was coming.

I'm not in a nightmare position - as things stand I stay on at my current place and keep on looking, but to be 95% of the way to my dream job (which incidentally would be most people's nightmare job) is a little frustrating and all day today I've been struggling to keep my breath as there's a giant knot of woe strangling me from the inside.

On the 'plus' side, the online summer job (Job 1a) that I've done for the last two years offered me another contract today. Am somewhat surprised seeing as last year I missed their targets (and started hearing voices in my head) during it, but hey ho - better luck this time round. This'll give me another £500 to use in July.

On the real plus side, I haven't turned to drink to get over my disappointment. I've turned to MSE. And Tizer.

in_need_of_direction

Tizer's good. So sorry to hear your news but at least you aren't completely desperate for a move. Also, if changes are to be made, maybe it's all for the best as you may have ended up in a job that wasn't the one you applied for.

Igamogam

So frustrating Mr B..........but it will be for a reason.

gallygirl

You may well have had a lucky escape Mr B - you know how poisonous office politics can be. Count your blessings and drink some Irn Bru - better for you than Tizer .

MrBloater

And so the twists and turns continue. It was last Friday before I finally got to speak to the boss of the dream job that had been plucked from my grasp, and it turns out the internal restructure is resulting in a vacancy, but at a more senior level, and she hoped I would apply for it. In the meantime, my current boss told me she had put my name forward as a similar organisation in a neighbouring borough are also looking for folk like me who enjoy dealing with the more challenging end of the spectrum. So nothing is definite, no contracts signed but I do appear to be ending the month with two fairly firm possibilities. I need to get the work situation sorted so I can start chipping down on the weight and debt both of which are staying resolutely consistent.

Igamogam

Staying the same is good in the land of weight and debt:) Fingers crossed dream job turns into a reality . ...... looking good so far.

MrBloater

And so a typically atypical weekend ends in much the way it started - Potential Future Boss#1 has emailed again to check that I got the first email about WhatWasMyDreamJob (that was swiped from me, then reappeared on the horizon with extra cherries on top) and telling me how I would be perfect for it. Then Current Boss emails me and copies in Potential Future Boss#2 exhorting that we get together to see if MaybeThisIsMyDreamJob can happen. And all the time I'm starting to think that maybe CurrentJob isn't as bad as I'd let it become recently. Whatever the outcome, it's nice to be wanted.

MrBloater

Couldn't face posting on here for the last few weeks as it's just been bonkers - not funny bonkers but real Evil Clown Walking Dead sort of bonkers. The twists and turns of the job situation carried on twisting and turning me inside out - have completely taken my eye off the ball on debt and weight - cos 'thankfully' in the middle of it all one of my CC's decided to randomly raise my limit by a grand which has got gratefully hoovered up - spending to keep the darkness at bay.

But anyway, here is the long story in short.
- Job that was 95% mine, then taken away, then readvertised at a higher level got whittled down to 2 candidates - yours truly and a mate of the new big boss. Unsurprisingly I didn't get it.
- One of my psychosis-inducing June jobs got pulled on the same day I didn't get the above.
- The job I was in was just getting more and more untenable and miserable.
- And the job that my boss suggested I went for at a neighbouring establishment all went very quiet because I told them I could not commit to anything until the outcome of the interview at the 95%certain school.

And so on and so on. Pounds gained in weight, pounds drained from cards, and hours lost with sleepless nights.

But finally got the call offering me a 4 week secondment at the neighbouring establishment, and I'm 1 week into it. And I'm absolutely loving it. Really loving it. Not just the kind of brave face loving it, but realising that I'm now in the kind of place that suits me. Two days into it, my line manager asks me if I'll commit to the end of the academic year here, three days into it, the big cheese tells me what plans she has for me in September. And while I'm not going to count any unhatched chickens, and will keep them in a variety of baskets, it's all looking better again. So it's time to fire up the spreadsheet and look at the damage done. And hope that it doesn't send me back down the slope.

Igamogam

Sounds like you have landed on your feet...hopefully not on a pair of skis to send you off down that slope!