My good intentions

There’s something different about HR people: almost as if they have different genome. Sometimes I suspect that they’re like those alien invaders in ‘V’ who tear their human masks off at the end of the day once they’ve commuted back to their hideaway lairs or invisible spaceships.

Don’t get me wrong, the HR people at work are fine. There’s just something not quite normal. But this oddness is always somehow soothed by the fact that they always try so hard to be nice and to be your friend for the HR ant always knows they’ll be an outsider to the worker ants, never quite part of the communal nest.

The HR manager was just such an example when I told her I wanted to withdraw my application: understanding, smiley, sympathetic – and detached, like a nurse caring for a terminally ill patient.

And yes, back at my desk the regrets did start to jiggle about a bit. I was calm by then. The deed was done. Decision make, irrevocably. I’ve never been very good at decisions but at least as I’ve got older I’ve learned to live with them once they’re made.

So all I need to do is kick start this old heap of a career and start writing again. Not exactly the perfect bed fellows. But that’s always been the excuse.

But life isn’t so bad. J is being very supportive, when he can. Admittedly, waiting for an hour in the pub for him because he has to work late at his super-sonic job does only serve to remind me how successful he suddenly is and therefore how unsuccessful I unsuddenly am. But at least things there are well. When I started this blog it was partly to be about him – to make a decision to stay or go. Right now I can’t imagine ‘going’. In fact, despite an ever-burgeoning habit to window shop, I’d say we’re good, perhaps even better than good.

But then again, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and that never bodes well.

I’m afraid to report that since last I wrote this blog the new me has deserted me. He’s run off with a fabulous new job, a fabulously good-looking boyfriend and a fabulous new flat somewhere, well, fabulous. But don’t feel sorry for me: if the truth be told, I think I drove him to it. I pushed him away. He simply got fed up with being neglected and shunned at every turn. So I only have myself to blame really. Mind you, I can’t say that I miss him that much. He was rather too smug for his own good really.

So, here I am, another doom-laden Sunday seeping away, as the February Frustrations boot out the January Blues with the surety that they’ll be back, same time, same place, next year.

It’s not been a great month so far. In fact, apart from some turbulent Februaries in my teens, I’d say it can go down as a record bad February. My ego, if it took on a physical life form, would surely resemble a six-month-old prune that had been left to wither and shrivel itself to death. My confidence, if it ever existed, has suffered a similar fate, nose diving into the remorseless depths of disappointments. Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself. Very.

I had a strange feeling when Colleague E said she was applying for the same external job as me. I can remember the moment distinctly. But not as well as I will ALWAYS REMEMBER the moment when she told me she’d got it and that therefore I hadn’t. It doesn’t seem to matter that I wasn’t bowled over by the job or the people or the place. On being told of this latest little twist of irony, I was, of course, the paragon of good manners and charm. But not, unfortunately, as charming as Colleague E. And therein in lies the problem me thinks.

And then last week came along. The simple explanation goes like this: my boss’ job is up for grabs since she ‘left’ last year. I wondered whether I should apply and procrastinated up until the very last moment and decided in a red wine fuelled moment of uncharacteristic confidence that I would. And so I did. The only problem is that as soon as I applied I knew, as if someone has just injected me with a heavy dose of self-realisation, that I didn’t want it. Not one bit.

This, of course, unleashed an internal army of panic stricken demons rampaging through my veins as if on acid. Why didn’t I want the job? More responsibility, much better pay and a serious kick up the bum for my dilatory career. Was I some kind of weak loser, devoid of ambition and terrified of responsibility? What was wrong with me? You get the picture.

But today, the crusading demons have quietened down letting the wise old brigadiers within sit up, put down their pipes, shake the dust from their slippers and take a look around. And I do feel better. And what’s more, I’ve made a decision. I am going to withdraw my application. This may make me look a little odd and I may well wonder what might have been. But if by some miracle I was to get the job and thereby took it, I think the ‘what might have been’ question would be even worse. I’m not ready to give up on my wilting dreams just yet, not just for an extra 20k - as attractive as that may sound. And I think, at this stage, there is an either and an or.

All I have to do now is…