Working life has began

Friday, 22nd of July 2022

As I scroll through my articles I realise I haven’t been writing for 2 months now! What can I say? I really needed some time off for Number 1 - myself. Firstly I was struggling with anxiety and depression which I needed to address urgently. Secondly I had to get back to full time employment.

Now that it’s been over a month in new job, I slowly settled in and I’m itching to write again! Let me start with a story of my job hunting and decision making process. I drafter this article a few weeks ago when it was still fresh in my mind. Looking back at it now makes me smile… it’s funny how easily we get stuck in our minds and create a massive problem out of seemingly a small thing. But hey… read for yourself…

Some of you might have read my article titled Tough decisions have to be made. After 2.5 years away from the corporate world I decided or rather was forced by circumstances to return to modern slavery. God only knows how terrified I was of taking this step.

Waking up early in the morning was one of my biggest concerns. Out of 2 job offers I received, in one, the start time was 7am and 6am in the other. Firstly, I spent weeks and weeks unable to decide which one to go for. Both had a good and bad sides to them and creating Pro’s and Con’s list wasn’t helpful either, cause the score was pretty even.

Once I finally decided to take the job closer to home, my start date was moved by couple of weeks, which made me reconsider my decision and I was back in square one, pondering which one to pick again. I kept both jobs open until a very last minute just in case I had a change of mind on the last day. The big disadvantage of the job closer to home was 6am start. I asked HR lady if it could be adjusted to 7am, but the answer I received was that I could change the start time to 7:30, but only if I was to work 5 days a week. Finding 4 days a week job in engineering is like a miracle. I wasn’t planning to let it go for the sake of an hour extra in bed, so I agreed to the initial start time at 6am.

In truth though, I really wanted to have the cake and eat it… From the interview I remembered that both of my potential bosses were quite flexible when we were discussing the start time, so a part of me was surprised that I couldn’t get 7am starts approved by HR. Hence why the second job came back to the table. I tormented myself with indecision for the next 2 weeks. I also set up the alarm in my phone for 5am to get used to at least waking up at such time.

The result of this was miserable. Some days I woke up and looked briefly at the sunrise before I turned to the other side and carried on sleeping. Some days I hit the off button as soon as I could hear the alarm going off, barely even opening my eyes. There were also days when I didn’t even hear the alarm at all. I would check my phone when I finally woke up, thinking that maybe I turned it off the night before by accident or something, but no, the alarm would still be on my screen, indicating that it was ringing and I just slept through it.

That was the worrying part. My anxiety went off the roof, as I imagined losing the newly started job, because I can’t get up in the morning.

2 days before planned start date, I emailed the HR lady again, explained the situation and asked her to reconsider 7am start time. I mentioned that I will be forced to take the other job, as they allowed me later starts and 4 days week. Within an hour I received a reply that both of my bosses didn’t mind the later start and my new working hours will be 7am till 16:15, 4 days a week. Effectively I will also be working 35 instead of initially planned 39 hours!

Now, that’s what you call a SCORE! I was so stressed that they will say NO! In the best case scenario I was expecting her to say I’d have to work till 17:15 to catch up for the hour in the morning, while hoping for the reduction in hours in my dreamy mind. One of the reasons why I left full time employment in engineering was that I wasn’t able to get a job where I could work less hours and have a good work-life balance.

Well, now I have it! My dreamy mind won and a month in I can say I am very satisfied with the decision I’ve made. Working 4 days a week really makes a difference. Working in a somewhat messy environment for a small company with people who love to have a laugh at work makes for an even bigger difference!

In the first 2 weeks I was visiting my friend on Tuesdays as usual and saying how I need to pinch myself multiple times a day to check if I’m not sleeping and dreaming! That weird job I picked seemed too good to be true. Getting there for 7am is still quite challenging, but the best thing is that nobody cares if I turn up 5 of 10 mins later. In fact, my boss looked at me surprised when I said I will stay longer to catch up for it 😅 He almost never stay even 2 minutes past his home time!

What’s more, the short work week makes me rather productive and motivated. Whilst most of the office stuff works 5 days a week, I do my best to put 5 days worth of work in my 4 days. Seeing the difference I make in our little team as well as co-workers appreciating my input also makes me go home feeling a sense of achievement. I really like that feeling. It’s probably the first time that I actually like my job too.

I also created a nice routine. Mondays is allotment and rest. Tuesdays are for my friend Tina, whom I visit straight after work, which is only 10 mins drive from my home. Wednesdays are yoga days, with allotment visits afterwards. Thursdays are back to dancing in my favourite salsa school. Then comes a looong weekend, which I fill with lots of activities or no activities at all 😅

All in all, my life seem to have find its rhythm again. My mind is calmer and my anxiety is all gone. That’s a good place to be. Hopefully now I can slowly go back to writing again.

Until next time 💙