123 Days

It's been 123 days since I was made redundant, four whole months! Four months which at times seemed to drag by but looking back have gone faster than you can say 123.

Things I've learned since being made redundant

Negative

1. You take your stress out in those closest to you

2. It can be pretty shitty sometimes, especially as all your friends work and aren't around for a bit of craic

3. You beat yourself up over it even though its not your fault

Positive

1. You appreciate people around you a lot more especially when they do little things to cheer you up

2. You'll be surprised how little money you actually need to live a happy, healthy life

3. You get the opportunity to do the things you really enjoy doing

Do not do this when you've been made redundant

1. Tell your boss to fuck off - you might need a reference, but it's ok to call her a cunt as a cunt is a beautiful thing!

2. Spend what money you have, start budgeting immediately

3. Take any job that comes along, you might end up extremely unhappy

You might want to do this though

1. Get yourself a dog - best thing I ever did, she's great

2. Make lists to keep yourself busy, if you don't make a list you'll end up doing nothing

3. Enjoy yourself and do things that you love

Redundancy Label

If you are here following the Irish Times student profile click on the redundancy label below in ordrer to read all the blogs regarding my redundancy.

Busy being unemployed!

Who said being unemployed was a doss! I've been fairly proactive in keeping myself busy this past few months but it was busy at my speed. This past two weeks I just haven't stopped. I've got that feeling that there just aren't enough hours in the day. I normally only get that feeling when I'm working (and getting paid for it).

What's keeping me busy? Everything. Maxie (the dog) still needs her walks. I've seen a job that I'm applying for - it's a long shot but god loves a tryer. I've really got into my book (the one i'm writing not the one I'm reading, though I would recommend it

The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune) I'm in the zone, it's just a nuisance that there are about 30 other things in the zone. I'm still car booting it at the weekends. I've assignments to do. I've put myself forward to join a board of an NGO. I feel I should be blogging after the huge spike in traffic yesterday. Oh yeah and I'm building a website! House needs cleaned. Dinners need made and the car needs serviced.

I'm thinking of advertising a for a PA and giving the lucky applicant a days dole! Wonder what social welfare would think about that........

Bed, Breakfast, and Blogging.

It's Saturday morning, it's 10am and I feel that I've slept in until after noon. I've had the best nights sleep I've had in months and to top it off I was presented with breakfast in bed. Bliss!

Not having a job to get up and go to each day means that your weekends are no long your weekends. Mondays can be as fun as Saturdays and Tuesdays as lazy as Sundays and any day when you have to get up early can feel like a Monday. This is the first Saturday since I was made redundant that it has actually felt like a Saturday.

This week I decided that I was going to instigate a new regime, up by 8.30am read emails, check facebook, read the papers and have breakfast by 9.30am. Come 9.30am I refer to the list and see what can be accomplished and this week has been my busiest yet.

The job front looks particularly bleak, there are very few jobs being advertised that I would actually be interested in. I've almost completed all my assignments from summer school and I'm almost finished my new website for my new business. So with that in mind, I've decided it's time to get into the zone and finish my book.

As I type from under the covers of my duvet, I'm cherishing the fact that on this fine Saturday morning that it actually feels like a Saturday morning. Lets hope that tomorrow it truly is a lazy Sunday that way I'll have had my first proper weekend in three months.

Get on yer bike! The Redundancy Cycle

I've been having really nice dreams this past few nights and have even woken up laughing. I feel a distinct change in the air, something is happening to me and I don't know what. My three week headache is gone and I've a new air of optimism about me. I started to wonder is there a redundancy cycle similar to the cycle of grief. I googled, there's not! Though looking at the grief cycle it pretty much is the redundancy cycle.

The 1st Stage: Shock and Denial, yep I was there. I was shocked and I denied. I was shocked at losing my job, not the fact that it happened, as the CEO ignored us for the best part of 6 weeks before hand (guilty conscience maybe?) Denial, I spent my last salary as if the next one was coming and didn't really thinking about being a little more frugal. Total Denial!

2nd Stage: Anger & Anxiety. Yep I was definitely there. Anger I was so fucking angry and when I think about how angry I was then, I'm getting angry now. Oh and the Anxiety, I'd say it manifested itself in the resulting three week headache I've just got rid off. I keep popping back to the 2nd stage every now and then though!

3rd Stage: Depression & Detachment, I don't think I was depressed but I was a little down. I placed so much faith in one person and felt let down. My energy levels have fallen and I fell a little overwhelmed at the prospect of not having a job since I was about 12 years old. So I've definitely reached this stage.

4th Stage: Dialogue and Bargaining, Telling my story, I did tell. I got fed up of people blaming the current economic climate for our redundancies. I made a conscience decision to tell the truth about what happened. I told other people in the sector, I told family, I told friends. I also got a lot of support from my fellow colleagues, we met had coffee and chatted about the situation. As for struggling to understand what happened. I didn't struggle, it's been very clear to me.

5th Stage: Acceptance, I think I'm there - Not sure what my new plan is but I'm working on it.

I've hit each of these stages but not all in the exact order, in fact I keep jumping back a few stages and then fast forward to the last one again. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I definitely believe that my psyche is changing, laughing in my dreams, that hasn't happened in months.

If you've just been made redundant, get on yer bike and pedal as fast as you can out of the redundancy cycle and let those laughing dreams come.

Social Capital in the Captial City!

Living in Belfast I felt rich, rich in the fact that I had social capital in abundance. I'd worked in the NGO / voluntary sector for the best part of 16 years and built up a huge network of contacts, friends, acquittance's with whom I could lean on for favours. This was extremely beneficial when I needed help setting up a new project, getting introduced to influential people and to earn a few extra pounds. It was easy to pick up facilitation work, IT training, and other bits and pieces, very easy. There was a time I was turning work down and passing it on to other people in my network. I felt secure, confident and valued in my social group of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. My social capital was probably worth more than my salary. In fact if I had of lost my job in Belfast I think I could have earned more working for myself than getting a paid salary.

The excitement of moving to Dublin meant that when I was weighing up all the pro's and con's I undervalued my social capital. I remember giving it a glancing thought but I certainly didn't sit down and think it through! What doors could I go knocking on asking if they'd any work? Who could I let know that I was available for, well, whatever work that came along? The answer was no-one, nada, not a single person! It wasn't until redundancy came that I realised I'd very little social capital in the Capital city.

Social Capital, how much have you got? How would you use yours? How can you get some more?

You Know Who You Are.....Sneer By Franc

Full of empty promises, dripping of ego.

Led us on a merry dance, for how long

we do not know,

Was it recent or more long term?

You've caused us all a degree of harm.

Warning signs, along they came

I should've realised, it was just a game,

You compared yourself, to Tony Blair

but you were just, propping up your lair

Mirrored yourself with Bertie Ahern

your public image, your only concern

Bertie and Tony they moved on

You missed the boat

no chance to gloat.

Manipulation, your greatest skill.

You killed an organisation,

not to mention good will.

Belief in you was once so great

and for a short time after

you filled me with hate.

Your motivation appears misplaced

you were only concerned with all the grace

You didn't keep up, the pace of change

Soon you will find egg on your face.

If your mother was dead

She'd be spinning in her grave

Her hard work destroyed

by one misplaced

Oh, but she is living

and soon they will stop giving

She will not believe all your waste.

An OPEN book, you were not

Ducking and diving was your plot

Pathetic ethics is your script

Your values stink and were full of shit

A reputation in tatters

is all that you'll reep

from the harvest you sowed

which was oh so cheap

Your fate is yet all unknown

The only thing you gave me,

is the fact I have grown.

One day you'll read this and feel the shame

That you were caught playing a foolish game.

Your actions, implications they will have

not just for you, but the sector we serve

Tested my virtues, in which I trust

Threw us to the dole queues with such a thrust

Temperance and Prudence, you did not show

I only hope you learn to grow

Fortitude and Justice, I do believe

will one day stop the grief I feel

You know who you are

I cannot forgive

Time is a healer and

forgive I will.

Stirring a man's blood and my 20 year plan....

"Make no small plans....for they have not the power to stir a man's blood" Niccolo Machiavelli 1514

What have you done lately to plan for the future? Do we shape our future or is it destiny, or both? Having recently been made redundant I'm kinda thinking - what's next? I already thought i was sorted when I took my new job last year and chatted to the CEO about staying for 3-5 years. Destiny and the CEO's 'bury your head in the sand syndrome' has interrupted that plan. So what's next for me? Do I make a plan or leave it to destiny?

I've always thought that you've got to have some sort of plan. Looking back on my childhood and teenage years I seemed to have my next goal I wanted to achieve in mind, get to go on that trip to Belgium, prove my maths teacher wrong, get a full time job, etc etc but could they have come my way even if I hadn't have focused on them? Now, don't get me wrong, I was never the one to sit down and write a mission statement or have a dedicated life plan, but I always had a sketchy outline of what should be next in my head.

After attending a lecture last week on Management it made me think about life and how it's shaped. Should me make plans and focus on our future, our relationships, career, our motivation and our legacy? What impression to we want to leave behind when we're gone? I currently have a 20 year plan in my head and know exactly where I'd like to be in all those areas of life that are important to me. So it brought me some solace when I heard the quote attributed to Machiavelli in 1514, my plans are big, ambitious and they do 'stir my blood'.

So fuck redundancy, bring it on and lets hope I stir a few other peoples blood along the way. Here's to 2029!

What happens when you don't make a list!

I didn't make a list and I got sucked into the vortex of the 42" Celtic Tiger Plasma. After my customary cup of tea, and two rounds of toast I turned on the TV to be greeted with "I'm raising a child I don't know if I'm the father" run of the mill Jeremy Kyle! I ignored the detail of this segment, logging onto the net to catch up with the mornings papers when my ears picked up.

"after the break we have my mums a 62 year old pensioner who can't stop sleeping around."

Well just the title of the segment had me in stitches, Maxie my golden lab pup was looking at me as if I wasn't wise! I can't believe the emotions that flowed through me as I watched it. " I thought 'how disgusting, then I felt sorry for her, then I thought 'fair fucks to her' then I got the shock of my life when her daughter shouted "but she's not even using condoms." The lady in question went on to explain that she'd been married for over 25 years and that she never got any bedroom action. Now that the husband is dead, she is she's loving sex, so much so that the snooker table of her local was the latest place she let someone park his cue! (corny but I couldn't resist) What a spark for life she had - lets just hope people don't keep judging her and that she's invested in some protection.

Then i made another cup of tea and flicked over to This Morning they had a segment "Dunk the Hunks" they were testing men's swimwear by dunking chippendale strippers into a bath of water to see if their speedos stayed on! Just a little eye candy for the mid-morning cup of tea.

and before I knew it there were the Loose Women chatting about everything from Michael Jackson to dressing up in sexy underwear, by the time it was over it was 2.30pm and I was still in my boxers!

p.s. make a list!

Redundancy came & I made a list!

Redundancy came knocking 7 weeks ago and it's not as bad as you might think. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be working and earning a living than spending my days chasing my dole payment and traipsing all over Dublin like a tourist on a 48 hour visit trying to squeeze in all the sights from O' Connell Street to Dun Laoghire to Dundrum, just to get rent allowance. ( I think I'll save those rantings for another day ). However when I'm not chasing my social welfare payments I'm doing all those things that I never had time to do in the past. What I do most nights is create a list of things to do - it reduces the temptation of turning on the telly and getting sucked into Jeremy Kyle and the twosome over on ITV's This Morning Phil and Fern.

Items that have appeared on the list to date

• Contact the bank (let them know that my credit card payments are being reduced)
• Cancel gym membership - can't believe there are no public gyms in this city.
• Train the dog to sit, lie down, roll over, chase her tail, get up, get down and only eat treats when i tell her too
• Bake Cakes - and by god have I baked. Upside down pineapple cake, Guiness Choclate cake, Blueberry muffins, and pavlova. I'm thinking I'll bake a carrot cake next.
• Cook the majority of the meals - my partner works from home so for the past year or so I had dinner cooked for me most nights, now it was time to pay back the favour
• Have dinner partys - sitting in is the new going out! I'm having great fun trying new recepies on our friends and it's cheap.
• Shop at LIDL - it's so much cheaper.
• Re-upholster kitchen dining chairs - I couldn't believe how easy it was
• Go to the beach - been going every other day - it's great I'd recommend it
• Get back to writing hence the blog (i'm not in the right frame of mind to continue with my book)
• Laugh (at my revenge), everytime I get the feeling of having been made a fool of by my previous, unethical boss. *note to self* send her some cake and maybe even a link to this blog!

So redundancy hasn't been too bad apart from losing some financial freedoms. I'm really happy. I no longer work in a stressed environment where you didn't know if the boss was lying to you or being manipulative and all those things that were at the bottom of the list are now at the top.