pothole

Today, for the first time in a long while, I thought seriously about my options at work. I'm not an irrational person, but I am emotional and I take a lot of things quite seriously. The last time I thought maybe it was time for me to move on to perhaps another job, I was unhappy with the person I had to work for. In my eyes he was totally inept at management and only entertaining at best as a colleague. An attention-seeker and a failure at blagging - his only redeeming feature in my eyes was that he was more astute than he looked. It's hard to work for someone who you cannot respect.

Today, I felt it again. The little voice in my head saying, "are you sure you want to be here? you can do better than this. there are other opportunities waiting for you."
In the space of 2 minutes, this can happen. I have been criticised for taking too long to respond to a question. But my defense is that it's because I try and think about the consequences of my answers. It doesn't take a lot to knock the balance of a positive or negative outcome to any response you might give to even the most simple of questions. It's all a question of delivery. Location, wording, timing. It all matters. In maybe a minute or less you can fuck up so badly that everything goes wrong.

My point is this: when my manager gave me a piece of news today, it irreversibly changed the way I felt about my job, about the management, about my worth. When he intended this or not (I doubt it) I felt demotivated and undervalued. I felt reduced to an employee number in a very short space of time. I began to question my loyalty, felt somewhat bitter, angry and also upset. It's strange isn't it?

Some hours (and a fair few cocktails) later, I feel somewhat more rational. I have two days off work. I can think about how much it all means to me. I can think about my plan of action. I have an hour session in a floatation tank tomorrow. That's plenty of time to think about what I want to do. I will never stop being an emotional person. I will never be able to be ruthless in the workplace. But at least I can be rational and try and do what I believe to be the right thing in my own way.

Choices again. It always seems to be all about making choices. If only I could turn to page 281 to find out the outcome.