We've been here a little over 3 weeks and it's just starting to feel like maybe we're not on holidays after all.
The reality of needing to really watch how much we're spending has started to happen and I've already started an eBay account to sell some of my finds that I've been collecting for months to sell on and make my fortune. The reality of it is that the little gem you''re convinced is going to make 500% profit is really a heap of junk and you'll be lucky to make your money back after you've paid postage. But never mind, it makes me feel like I'm trying.
I've also got a couple of job applications on the go. I wanted to potter. I wanted to work behind a bar or clean some holiday cottages and make patchwork quilts for tourists. I'm too lazy. I'm better off doing the job I've trained long and hard for so I've applied to the local authority for social work jobs. I've spent 20 odd years denying that I'm a social worker, I'm even reluctant to give it Proper Capital Letters as a job title because I feel such a fraud. I've never been good at restricting what people need. I truly begrudge applying a budget to people's needs and assessing their situation in a way that costs the least. Maybe it's changed since I did my first couple of jobs a thousand years ago and then decided that I really didn't want to be a social worker - with or without capital letters.
I loved working for Shelter. I enjoyed making sure that people had their housing needs met. I enjoyed training people to make sure that they could also give sound advice to people. I worked in a glorious part of the country and traveled extensively throughout Somerset and Dorset meeting with Citizens Advice Bureaux and helping their volunteers to get their heads around housing law. I remember driving around agricultural Dorset and weeping at the pyres of bloated carcasses of the slaughtered cattle at the height of the foot and mouth disease outbreak and designing some specific training around Agricultural Tenancies to pass on my knowledge to all of those unemployed farm and agricultural workers that the government of the day kept telling us would be devastated and lose their livelihoods. It never happened. The tragedy of the day meant that more farmers killed themselves than found themselves homeless.
Moving back to Wales found me working less in the field of housing and more and more with domestic abuse.
The reality of needing to really watch how much we're spending has started to happen and I've already started an eBay account to sell some of my finds that I've been collecting for months to sell on and make my fortune. The reality of it is that the little gem you''re convinced is going to make 500% profit is really a heap of junk and you'll be lucky to make your money back after you've paid postage. But never mind, it makes me feel like I'm trying.
I've also got a couple of job applications on the go. I wanted to potter. I wanted to work behind a bar or clean some holiday cottages and make patchwork quilts for tourists. I'm too lazy. I'm better off doing the job I've trained long and hard for so I've applied to the local authority for social work jobs. I've spent 20 odd years denying that I'm a social worker, I'm even reluctant to give it Proper Capital Letters as a job title because I feel such a fraud. I've never been good at restricting what people need. I truly begrudge applying a budget to people's needs and assessing their situation in a way that costs the least. Maybe it's changed since I did my first couple of jobs a thousand years ago and then decided that I really didn't want to be a social worker - with or without capital letters.
I loved working for Shelter. I enjoyed making sure that people had their housing needs met. I enjoyed training people to make sure that they could also give sound advice to people. I worked in a glorious part of the country and traveled extensively throughout Somerset and Dorset meeting with Citizens Advice Bureaux and helping their volunteers to get their heads around housing law. I remember driving around agricultural Dorset and weeping at the pyres of bloated carcasses of the slaughtered cattle at the height of the foot and mouth disease outbreak and designing some specific training around Agricultural Tenancies to pass on my knowledge to all of those unemployed farm and agricultural workers that the government of the day kept telling us would be devastated and lose their livelihoods. It never happened. The tragedy of the day meant that more farmers killed themselves than found themselves homeless.
Moving back to Wales found me working less in the field of housing and more and more with domestic abuse.
(crikey, this is turning into a cheerful little read!)
Again, it was fighting for people's rights rather than restricting what they needed that kept me motivated. Of course a lot of the work I did meant that I was using my social work skills (still with little letters). I was also working collaboratively with Social Workers (Capital Letters) to make sure that children were safe and protected because of the desperate situation they were being brought up in. A lot of the time, though, I found myself increasingly frustrated with social work departments who would, it seemed, invest a lot of time and effort into families who would 'do as they were told' and make for a positive report to be written. Those families who were deemed to be difficult or non-co-operative or simply too chaotic to engage with on any real level were just left floundering with more and more little boxes left unticked. I do worry that I might become that kind of Social Worker - restricted with budgets and time and innovation so that the only reward comes from telling your manager what you have been able to achieve rather than point out all the families that have been left wanting. Left needing, in fact.
I used to watch the efforts of foodbank workers and collectors and distributors (me, in a lot of cases) and grow increasingly angry that it was accepted in this day and age that families were so poor that not even their benefits stretched far enough to buy tins of spaghetti hoops and baby wipes. Then I would grow more angry that tins of spaghetti hoops were seen as adequate nutrition and money that could have been spent on half a dozen eggs was spent on a packet of baby wipes, something that is now viewed as an essential motherhood spend. I'm sure I used the corner of a dampened tea-towel on my kids.
So, the thought that I might end up being a Social Worker doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm.
But job opportunities here are limited. There are lots of part-time jobs advertised as you walk around the town. I could work for 18 hours as a customer adviser in Argos or as a bar maid in The Stornoway Sea Angling Club. I cold even offer my services as a van delivery driver for the Co-op but they're all part-time and low paid. I think I'd probably be better off as a part-time well-paid Social Worker.
I have been doing some networking, though. Urgghh!! N E T W O R K I N G - a horrible word - but maybe it's a necessary evil if I need to get my face and name known.
Apart from sticking my nose in where it's clearly not wanted (I'll elaborate shortly) I've also volunteered to do some stewarding at the Hebridean Celtic Music Festival known affectionately as The HebCeltFest. This is a huge music festival held every year in the grounds of Stornoway Castle. We designed our holiday around the festival a few years ago and watched KT Tunstall and Eddi Reader and some other brilliant musicians belting their heart out in a howling gale. I've been to lots of the major festivals in the UK and I think the setting for The HebCeltFest is one of the most stunning I've been to. But that's probably an age thing. You don't go to music festivals for the view - but I stopped going to music festivals because of my bladder. Another advantage of the HebCeltFest is the toilets. Very short queues and the wind keeps the whiff to a minimum! Volunteering at the festival might help me to meet people who know people who need people to work for them.
I thought I'd done that by inveigling myself onto the guest list for a Violence Against Women event at An Lanntair, our local arts venue. I thought it would be a good way to meet people who were in the same line as work that I'm good at. The head of the Community Partnership introduced me to some other people and I offered to assist with an important funding application with a looming deadline. I'm sitting here very frustrated that the deadline is 48 hours away and despite working very hard at writing pages and pages of proposals for them I've had just one email from one person telling me they were unable to open my attachment.
This is another reason why I'm reluctant to be a Social Worker - any innovation or attempt at doing something a bit different is viewed with suspicion by the powers that be because it might show up their shortcomings or give them a bit more work to do.
I tell you what - making patchwork quilts for tourists is growing more and more attractive.
Again, it was fighting for people's rights rather than restricting what they needed that kept me motivated. Of course a lot of the work I did meant that I was using my social work skills (still with little letters). I was also working collaboratively with Social Workers (Capital Letters) to make sure that children were safe and protected because of the desperate situation they were being brought up in. A lot of the time, though, I found myself increasingly frustrated with social work departments who would, it seemed, invest a lot of time and effort into families who would 'do as they were told' and make for a positive report to be written. Those families who were deemed to be difficult or non-co-operative or simply too chaotic to engage with on any real level were just left floundering with more and more little boxes left unticked. I do worry that I might become that kind of Social Worker - restricted with budgets and time and innovation so that the only reward comes from telling your manager what you have been able to achieve rather than point out all the families that have been left wanting. Left needing, in fact.
I used to watch the efforts of foodbank workers and collectors and distributors (me, in a lot of cases) and grow increasingly angry that it was accepted in this day and age that families were so poor that not even their benefits stretched far enough to buy tins of spaghetti hoops and baby wipes. Then I would grow more angry that tins of spaghetti hoops were seen as adequate nutrition and money that could have been spent on half a dozen eggs was spent on a packet of baby wipes, something that is now viewed as an essential motherhood spend. I'm sure I used the corner of a dampened tea-towel on my kids.
So, the thought that I might end up being a Social Worker doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm.
But job opportunities here are limited. There are lots of part-time jobs advertised as you walk around the town. I could work for 18 hours as a customer adviser in Argos or as a bar maid in The Stornoway Sea Angling Club. I cold even offer my services as a van delivery driver for the Co-op but they're all part-time and low paid. I think I'd probably be better off as a part-time well-paid Social Worker.
I have been doing some networking, though. Urgghh!! N E T W O R K I N G - a horrible word - but maybe it's a necessary evil if I need to get my face and name known.
Apart from sticking my nose in where it's clearly not wanted (I'll elaborate shortly) I've also volunteered to do some stewarding at the Hebridean Celtic Music Festival known affectionately as The HebCeltFest. This is a huge music festival held every year in the grounds of Stornoway Castle. We designed our holiday around the festival a few years ago and watched KT Tunstall and Eddi Reader and some other brilliant musicians belting their heart out in a howling gale. I've been to lots of the major festivals in the UK and I think the setting for The HebCeltFest is one of the most stunning I've been to. But that's probably an age thing. You don't go to music festivals for the view - but I stopped going to music festivals because of my bladder. Another advantage of the HebCeltFest is the toilets. Very short queues and the wind keeps the whiff to a minimum! Volunteering at the festival might help me to meet people who know people who need people to work for them.
I thought I'd done that by inveigling myself onto the guest list for a Violence Against Women event at An Lanntair, our local arts venue. I thought it would be a good way to meet people who were in the same line as work that I'm good at. The head of the Community Partnership introduced me to some other people and I offered to assist with an important funding application with a looming deadline. I'm sitting here very frustrated that the deadline is 48 hours away and despite working very hard at writing pages and pages of proposals for them I've had just one email from one person telling me they were unable to open my attachment.
This is another reason why I'm reluctant to be a Social Worker - any innovation or attempt at doing something a bit different is viewed with suspicion by the powers that be because it might show up their shortcomings or give them a bit more work to do.
I tell you what - making patchwork quilts for tourists is growing more and more attractive.
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