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Showing posts with the label downsizing

Four years after leaving my job

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Four years ago today I put my notice in and left my big job.  Below is the blog I wrote in February 2009 when I had just done it.  It was fascinating to me to read it again so here it is: why I did it and what I thought at the time.  And at the bottom are my thoughts on what has happened to my life since then. February 14th 2009.  I have done it now. I have put my notice in. I have no job to go to and no immediate plans to find one. What kind of idiot puts their notice in during a recession? I am surrounded by people at work worrying about redundancy and I know some people who have already been made redundant and who are coping with the knocked sideways shock of it all. I feel almost guilty for walking away from a job in these circumstances but I am doing so, and it is not even a job I hate. Work has been a huge part of my life for the last twenty years or so. When my first marriage failed I had to earn some money so I was pushed back into the world of work ...

Moving out of the city

In November we hit four years of living here. I think we can now safely say that we are not going to get cold feet and run away back to street lights and cinemas and delis. I think we are going to stay put. A friend asked me the other day what we felt about moving out of the city and whether we felt we had made the right move. I could tell she didn't quite get it. People come up here and some say "You are living my dream" while others are too polite to say so but go away clearly thinking we are nuts. I am in list making mode today having been making Christmas lists as an alternative to actually doing something so here are Things I miss about the city: living round the corner from a really good delicatessen. the view from Waterloo Bridge. slipping out for a curry. that sense of being at the heart of things. and some things I don't miss: dirt, rubbish blowing the streets. crowds, especially on rush hour tubes, where you end up crushed up against somebody's armpit. n...

Six months in...

It is six months since I walked away from my job and twenty years' worth of being focussed hugely on the twin gods of work and children. While we were in France last week I was asked a couple of times about how things are going and whether I miss my job. I have been carefully not thinking about it much for the last few months. I promised myself six months off, no strings, and I have found before that when you make a big change you need to live it for a while to acclimatise. Too much worrying and analysing and wondering if you made the right decision gets in the way of adjusting to your new job, your marriage, your new house or town or whatever. It is best just to leave it alone and let it happen for a bit. So from time to time I have had to come up with something to say when people have asked me how it was going but I haven't done any real thinking or stocktaking. I've just said how busy I am, how nice it is not to get on the train every week and how good it is to have time...