Extra Hours: CONFIRMED!!

Manager at Royal Mail this morning came over to me as I was scanning my parcels and had with him a rather solemn looking bloke, but that was the bloke I’m going out with tomorrow when I start my collections for the very first time. It’s 5 hours a day, Monday to Friday – 2:30 to 7:30. So I’ll miss the rush hour! So that’s 5×5, 25, added to my 10 hours (contracted) on Sundays – 35 hours a week. Normal working week!

It is the next morning, and I woke up very rested. I keep waking up early – paranoid that my phone alarm will fail to go off.

Anyway, I just got back from the village green where I sat on a bench for a while playing Jurassic World Alive. Sadly although the sun has been in and out it was still too chilly without a coat. But on my way back I felt like running around like a small child. I felt that much lighter in myself. Managing to get a job with Royal Mail and them giving me more hours after my asking them makes me feel like I’m not a massive failure after all – if I can do that after 16 years in the same dead end job. I’m not saying I am ambitious, but care work is literally a dead end job even if you ARE ambitious to any extent. You’re either a care worker or a manager. That’s it. There is no ladder. It bemused me why the company tried to make out that there was.

I try not to gloat but I think about my colleague who’s been there the same length of time as I have, who is still there, and becoming more bitter about life by the week. Yes you can have a crap time of things after a resident dying, but we were ALL sad about that – we don’t end up being so fucking obnoxious. And she’s stuck there, and I’ve managed to pull my finger out and break free of my own inertia and I’m finally out, and I feel so light……and I know I keep repeating that but this is quite alien to me.

I finally feel I might have found my place. Simple work, for simple people like me, and I get to drive a hell of a lot, and I LOVE driving, and I get to do it on my own – which feels like an adventure every week. You can keep your well paid complex jobs for complex people. I’m built to chill and play computer games. Oh and expose all the utter bullshit going around on Twitter and the like.