Confessions of a reserve list jockey

Say Goodbye

2009-11-01T19:10:00.004Z

I know I have said goodbye before, but this time I actually mean it. It's not a "Oh its November! time to say I am quitting" fetish going on.

Two months ago, despite taking a lot of care and attention to anonymity, someone who did not like what I write on my blog managed to find out who I was. Not only content was the person content to do this, they also decided to contact my manager and complain directly to them. I believe the words "unprofessional" and "reflect badly on the organisation" were used. My manager then had the momentous task of wading through hundreds of blog entries.

To her credit my manager did not immediately go ballistic and take disciplinary action. Instead we had a informal chat that included why I had started my blog, whether it was something that I wanted to continue and whether there could be other ways to fulfil that aspiration. She then talked me through various other cases of what has happened in high profile cases in the press where bloggers were uncovered and how their careers had been affected. As she has high hopes for my development in the organisation, she did not want something that I either had said already or would say in the future to impact either on myself or on the charity. Though I felt my blog was always about free speech and making observations (initially about psychology and then about life outside it), I could see her logic. Also I realise that I have not been as kind as I could have been, but then again it would have been a fairly insincere blog if it was about me being happy and sunny the whole time after my billionth rejection letter. Although she liked the blog itself (thanks boss!), my manager suggest I write a final post, and then sign off but leave the blog up as an account of this part of my life.

So with that in mind, plus other things, I am saying farewell. If there was an overriding message I would say that "Life goes on despite your plans not working out exactly" or "Plan B can be pretty sweet." I wish all my regular readers well in wherever they end up, the blogroll writers on the side to get what they set out to do.

Bye

Secret

2009-10-15T21:14:00.002+01:00

Service is going to be interrrupted as my regular uploader can no longer keep putting my posts up as often as I would like. With all this secrecy I am starting to sympathise how Batman must feel. I am going to have to find a way around that, but its winter anyway and everyone is going to be too busy doing christmas shopping and having Halloween fun to bother checking in with RLJ in any case.

To be honest, its fairly pedal to the metal at work as we are having to do extra work of two people to cover our recent lay offs. Boo. On the plus side we have been given a new coffee machine.

Yeah. Exactly.

Frozen

2009-10-06T23:23:00.003+01:00

In the news today the main story has been about freezing pay in the public sector. As someone who works in the private or third sector NGO, I have to say "Welcome to 2009". As discussed in earlier posts we have lost Priya, as well as a few other of our accountancy bods and there were lots of mutterings that this would never have happened in the public sector.

I am not the sort of person who would make anyone else suffer just because I am, but from my experience in the NHS there were so many non-essential jobs (including my old job, Olga's and hunky Nick's if I am being hones) that were quite paperwork heavy and target oriented that it was hard to justify when the clinical service had a 6 month + waiting list. At least we were paid peanuts, there are loads of middle management types and what-the-hell-do-you-do? officers who just floated getting paid relatively lots. And they are salary freezes, not sackings, so they are not too hard done by. Yet, from the last few facebook postings you I read this morning I would have thought various assistants, trainees and other NHS staff were being selected by lottery and thrown into the hospital furnace.

Calm down dear, nothing has even happened yet.

Falling

2009-10-02T16:15:00.002+01:00

Psyclick thread commentary + rant alert

A few weeks back a rather harassed IAPT worker started a thread about some of the difficulties she had faced at work. The remnants can be found here:

http://forum.psyclick.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=14285

Due to the lack of help available she reached out for assistance, only to be told by some of the oldies "no can do, go seek supervision" (in varying degrees of politeness), the absence of which was presumably the reason she posted in the first place. Can see this part from both sides, but I am slightly siding with the underdog original poster.

Then people started talking about confidentiality and if she was not careful she could be busted. I am quite a confidentiality freak (get other people to upload stuff for me, multiple anonymous email boxes, proxy servers and anonymising like there is no tommorow) so I would take this as excellent advice and probably take stuff down at that point. The original poster (OP) refuses, and then the thread goes all quiet.

Soon after the poster doesn't just remove the info, but deletes everything on the entire post. Now it may be a late reconsideration of advice, but in my experience of other forums, this is a bad thing. Its the internet version of having the secret police kick down your door, bundle you into a van and you wake up in a bare jail cell tied to a chair. Not good. Then some other posters make some speculative posts about, and then it all goes silent.

So what? Well, if you actually think about it someone tried to get help, and was effectively silenced because someone who didn't like it found out- possibly someone who wasn't helping the OP in the first place? Of course it could be that the situation was resolved, but seeing as the poster didn't just say "Situation resolved, thanks for everything guys" and then never posted again, I am not sure if this is the case. Regardless, it left me feeling quite uncomfortable and uneasy. No one mentioned anything, no one stuck up at this point and said this reflects badly on the OPs management not the OP.

Or maybe people didn't notice. Its application time and everyone is concentrating on other things. Or maybe they were too British and sensitive to address it? It left me feeling quite sad regardless.

Cleaning out my closet

2009-09-24T18:11:00.003+01:00

I have been spring cleaning again, and found a huge stack of paperwork from my last assistant's job. Unfortunately some of it was data that I was supposed to input, that I thought I had done, but clearly never did.

I think the audit, data entry cum number crunching aspect of my last job was by far the worst thing. I had to go around all the clinicians in the area and collect their stats (appointment times, patients seen, diagnosis and a whole bunch of other nonsence). The psychologists, nurses and medics hated it and took great delight in shooting the messanger by making me wait extra long times to deliver this info. Then I had to spend afternoons at a strech entering this onto some massive pre 1990 database that was designed by Satan himself in the middle of a blinding hangover. I used to dread the last friday of the month as everyone would procrastinate and leave me to enter all the stats before the managers deadline.

I am not sure what these numbers did, or meant to anyone. None of them were ever used, and I think they went to some upper guy who pushed paper or crunched more numbers. Every once in a while we would get some meaningless feedback, like we were in the bottom 3 of the services within the trust, or we had worked at 76% effiency, but without knowing any context this was meaningless. Someone would have to be bottom in any comparison, regardless of being good or bad. 76% compared to what? What does 100% look like, what would 10% look like.

Didn't matter, we just got yelled at if the numbers werent put into the machine, so thats what I did. When they talk of NHS cuts in the future, they could save a huge pile of money and cut the people that push meaningless targets and deal with the numbers that make little sense to anyone. That and the utterly stupid, but no doubt expensive, David Brent style management workshops we had to attend where we all had to judge ourselves on the Myer Briggs (utterly non valid) and try to discern our personality by looking at shapes on a PowerPoint overhead.

So, this bundle of paperwork was missed. And nothing happened. The world didnt end, operations were not cancelled and old ladies did not die the street. Hmm. Perhaps there is a lesson there.

She's like the wind

2009-09-21T19:23:00.002+01:00

It feels odd now Priya has left, sort of how the Beatles must have felt when John Lennon was assassinated. If the Beatles were a bunch of girls who spent most of their time in an office talking crap. I am used to the old psychology way of people coming and going like tumbleweed blowing in the wind, but there was something comfortingly permanent about our cosy little office, and now its just odd.

With just the two of us there, Jane and me lapse into these long silences, which is wierd because Priya herself didnt actually say that much, except the odd sarky zinger. What I realise she did do was play the jury and final word in pointless debates such as would you rather live without tea or dettol (Dettol obviously) or if you were in the position to shag Colin Farrell but you had to turn down Brad Pitt to do so, would you hate yourself (no). At the end of each of these little conundrums Priya would put in the final word, like Jerry Springer. Without her it feels like there is no Umpire to appeal to. For example, Patrick Swayze's death was talked about at indecent length today. No, actually Dirty Dancing was talked about at indecent length today, but it just wasn't the same.

Bye Bye Priya. Wherever you are there will always be a cup of Gold Blend and your favourite radio station on preset "2" here for you.

We can work it out

2009-09-16T21:51:00.003+01:00

Did anyone see that programme "Dispatches: Middle class and Jobless" the other night? Okay it was quite grim, but it was a fairly accurate portrayal of what I went through around this time last year (Christ, was it only was only a year ago I was like this? I feel like I have been in this job since the Battle of Hastings).

Yeah, the old feelings of sending off a million CVs and not hearing from anyone. Thats not confined just to psychology people, its pretty much any graduate job in a recession. Which it still clearly is. Its those scenes of packing up belongings in student flats and having to move home that really hit home for me. Pour moi, nothing said failure like turning up to your mum and dads house with a cardboard box and a suitcase and saying "I hope you kept my old room ready".

Crap for everyone, but at least I didn't have a Channel 4 documentary crew following me around. I obviously paid more attention to the recent graduate stories, because the executive types the show followed made very little impression on me other than saying in order to be an executive manager you have to being overweight, unshaven and male. I felt the new grads were slightly mocked because the build up was about them getting graduate level manager/marketing jobs, but really they ended up either working door to door or for Domino's Pizza. It was a bit like watching a less funny version of The Office.

I am gassing on about this here, because I really could not talk about this at work because tommorow is Priya's last day of working her notice, and even I am not that insensitive. However, she seems quite happy about things, she has come to terms she is going and has been talking non-stop about starting her MSc. I will miss her tonnes and tonnes, especially her sarky comments and cutting wit. We are having a leaving party for her on Friday, and we are sloping off early around lunchtime. Probably not the best thing to be doing considering recent job issues, but you have to make exceptions for this kind of thing.

Besides scary boss lady is on leave, placing yours truly in charge, and if her royal highness declares it half day, so it shall be.

Here comes the sun

2009-09-14T18:25:00.002+01:00

I had such a good day today.

I was just awake a second before the alarm clock rang, my bus arrived just on time, as did the train. I got to work and my inbox was empty, and there was a fresh container of Gold Blend (I got to open the gold foil seal which is my favourite bit).

This meeting I was dreading got pushed back because the person was sick. Go impetigo (not even sure what that is)! I had a hilarious conversation with Jane and she got BBC iPlayer running so we even watched some stuff during lunchtime. Everything generally ran like clockwork and I was out the door at 5pm and went to see the ducks on the pond next to my office and have a lovely take away for dinner.

This must be what life is like on Prozac. Why cant every day be like today? Reading it, its not a huge amount to ask. Apart from the bit when God, or whatever, made the person sick. Would it kill anyone or do lasting damage if my life could resemble the above three paragraphs every day? Perhaps it will, and from now on I will be the lady that walks around with a smile on my face and sings to the birds.

Commenting on other peoples blog comments is very 2003. But I am going to anyway.

2009-09-07T17:54:00.001+01:00

I quite like the cosy little psych blog collective that is growing down the sidebar. It makes me feel less alone part of a mini community. One of the the things I am never quite sure of is how people are going to take something I wrote, as I have recieved everything from Pizza Hut coupons to deathwishes, but thats all part of the fun, and sometimes things can take a life of their own. This especially applies to the comments section, which is by far the most fun part of any blog. To be slated by your own comments is a bit like someone coming into your house and calling you "a slut", which is unusual.

The delightful Desperately Seeking Psychology doesnt seem to have that problem. She made several interesting observations about her views on the various forums and their inhabitants. As she is absolutely entitled to. She then had a change of mind. However, her commentators seem to have taken this opportunity to vent their collective spleen, and a mini tsunami in a teacup sprung up. Leaving individual personality attacks to one side, there was an interesting comment about how psychology attracts a certain type of person whether its competitive, ego massaging, reassurance seeking or just after their own validation. At the very least it attracts people that like to be anonymous. It is something I have often wondered here and would by dying to read any real research done on it. To be honest, its probably one of the things that drove me out of that particular line of work (that and the small fact I never got on a course, but we won't mention that will we).

I am not sure where its going, but something tells me I am going to watch how it develops.

There it is

2009-09-05T12:35:00.003+01:00

I went to a concert last night. Music was good, nice crowd and a really good vibe all around. However, it was populated by this strange race of people known as "scenesters". With their overstyled hair, large sunglasses and their almost cliched "wacky" sense of dress they hung around mainly taking photos of themselves. Rather than watching the band, which is what I thought most people did at concerts.

Now its alright in itself. There is always something like this around, whether its Duran Duran fans or Kate Bush wannabes in my childhood, to grunge riotgrrls in my adolescence. For all I know there were probably Mozart groupies who twatted around in giant wigs and posed on massive pianos. Its not new. Saying that, what I did not like is how arrogant these arseholes are, in the way they slagged me and my "older" friends off in front of us. Coming from someone who is known for her own weapons grade bitchiness, I at least do it when people are out of earshot, (or from the comfort on an anonymous internet blog).

Since when has it been acceptable to say "That is a shit dress!" to a strangers face, completely unprovoked as they did to my friend, Coral? And then go on to laugh and jeer at everyone around them, like they were from some mystical planet of cool that the rest of us would never reach.

If it was a movie, I would have turned around and said something like "You may have 4000 facebook friends, but clearly you have 4 in reality", but you don't you just sit there quite stunned, and not sure what to do. My gran would probably say in her day they would get a clip around the ear, but in dear grans day she probably would not have to be worried if the person clipped would pull out a knife.

Tiny Dancer

2009-09-02T21:50:00.003+01:00

A friend emailed me in a huge flurry of panic and told me the new clinical training application forms are out. The mature part of me thought I should say "Thats very interesting" and carry on with what I was doing. Nothing to do with me anymore, surely.

Did I do that? Did I bollocks. Curiosity didn't just kill the cat, it stuffed its corpse, propped it up in the front window with a big sign saying LOOK WHAT I JUST DID. My first reaction was "whu!?" 100 word limits and tiny weeny boxes. Did the selection people suddenly lose the ability to read long paragraphs? Or are they expecting application forms to be like personal ads in the newspaper. You know "Young, sexy grad seeks long term career for good fun and maybe a bit more. If you like me call me on PO Box 98".

My second reaction was. "Bloody hell. I am glad I am not doing that!". Also the price of the application has gone up (hasn't it? It wasnt this expensive before was it? Or am I going potty?). Needless to say that the frenzy among my friends has started up again, and I am not missing the heartache and obsessive checking-rechecking. Hmm, just when I thought I had broken my ClinPsy habit it looks like I may get sucked back in.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2009-08-30T21:49:00.004+01:00

Its the long weekend, but not for me. I have rather foolishly elected to volunteer tommorow to go in because there are Americans visiting, and they are too inconsiderate to have Bank Holidays over there.

People have been talking about this Americans visiting for quite some time now, in hushed whispers. Why? I don't really know, but the way people have been discussing them its like they are going to solve global warming. Part of me thinks I should be equally overawed and fawning, but I probably missed the meeting where we were told why we should be so arse-licky. By the way everyone has been going on about it last week, you would think they shoot bolts of lightning out of their eyes. Perhaps they will.

Its been quite tedious at work if I am being honest. Once I found out I was staying the thrill of staying in employment soon wore off, and now I am actively envying Priya who has decided to go back to uni to hide out from the recession. She has decided to do a really interesting looking Masters course, which I wouldnt mind doing (MSc Cognitive Neuroscience). I was half thinking of following her, but then realise how much crap I had to get through to get this job, and the drastic reduction in income would mean I would be a fool to leave.

Plus part of me thinks that if I left this job, I would not be able to get another one that pays as well again. Crap! Imposter syndrome is clearly following me from my old line of work. Still I will get brownie points for coming in tommorow, and I will wangle another day off in the next few months. The rest of you please think of me when you are enjoying your Bank Holiday.

Self esteem

2009-08-26T21:36:00.004+01:00

Flashback

Gather round the village wise woman, as I take you back to the long lost days of the mid 2000s. When I was working at my last job as an assistant, I had my face on a photoboard of the staff team, in the waiting room. Nothing odd you may think, but the photograph made me look a lot like Myra Hindley the moors murderer. On a bad hair day. I would go so far to say that photograph is probably why many people that I was told to meet usually gave the feedback "it didn't go as badly as I thought it would". Yes, because they probably thought looking at the photograph they would be ending the session in body parts in a wheelie bin outside the surgery.

This photograph was the second worst thing about my job. The first was by far members of the public who thought because you worked as a public servant they could treat you like rubbish. Most people were lovely and a genuine pleasure to work with. Not everyone though. I wasn't expecting people to get on their knees but perhaps the odd thank you would have been nice. What I wasn't really expecting were the random threats and abusive comments that were pretty much par for the course. I remember in particular one irate gentleman who called me a "stuck up bitch with a stick up my arse" in an inpenetrable accent. Now I know I am not the most self aware of people, but surely I didn't deserve this for simply telling him that as he had missed 45 minutes of a 1 hour meeting the best I could do would be to arrange his appointment for next week.

My trainee friends always used to tell me about having sympathy for the vulnerable, those neglected by society and those who often had far worse problems than I could possibly imagine. That may be the case, but I have heard stories of other support in various jobs getting what I got on a regular basis or worse. Being attacked, racial abuse, sexually innapropriately propositioned, are stories that I have heard about but were often swept under the carpet, or just seen as part of the job. Perhaps its a macho thing?

Its stuff I wouldnt even think about taking today, but I reckon plenty still do.

Name of the game

2009-08-24T10:58:00.000+01:00

Problem.

The name of this blog is rapidly becoming rapidly inaccurate, and my nom de plume with it. I am clearly no longer a reservelist jockey, and the more I am away from the scene, I have less and less to "confess" about it. Also I feel like I am in danger of becoming defined by something I was doing in my past, sort of the way that tattoos that professed love for an ex (Peter and Jordan forever together) can date mercilessly, or hotmail addresses can be rapidly made inaccurate or shameful via the process of time (that means you RickyMartinfan4eva@hotmail.com).

I don't mind being referred to as RLJ as coincidentally, despite not being my actual initials those letters actually do follow in that sequence across my name, (if you include my embarassing middle name that no one knows). However, I don't want to be defined by the title in the way some unfortunates become famous for one thing. Like that Bobbitt guy, who is only known for having his knob cut off. For all we know he may have cured blindness since then, but we will always only know him for his unfortunate penis related mishap.

So what is a girl to do? Start afresh? Stay as things are? Rename the blog?
(Laziness will probably prevail.)

Same old song and dance

2009-08-20T18:23:00.002+01:00

Its A-level results day. That in the media this is portrayed by:

Cute blonde girls, jumping up and down hugging each other (because we all know boys and ugly girls dont do a-levels)

People complaining that its all so much easier now and standards have dropped. No, wait we are all much harder working now and teachers are better. Lets just have a fistfight.

People opening their results and saying "Oh I got 4 A's". I guess that everyone who got less probably didn't give their approval to have their results televised across the nation.

Tut tutting about too many theatre or media studies students and not enough engineers. In fact if everyone actually followed this advice the Engineers market would become saturated and no one would hire them. Its because they are relatively scarce they are well paid.

Added to these old chestnuts there has been a couple of new developments:

Its the end of the world because there are more applicants than places. There are apparently 1304 applicants per every place. Even at the Universitity of Nowhere to study Choreography and Russian studies.

Its completely pointless to even go to uni, because you will get billions of pounds in debt and there are no jobs for you. Ever. (Because this is the first recession in history and its not like these things are cyclical or anything).

I love reading the comments on newssites about A-levels. Clearly because you got a grade D in maths in 1972, instead of getting over it you can talk about grade deflation, and youngster's not being able to read and write properly. Maybe not, but they can use the internet, MSWord and are in a prime position to take over your job.

Survivor

2009-08-17T18:42:00.003+01:00

Oh boy, was today awkard.

Priya is having to serve out her notice of 1 month. Thats okay. The fact that she is serving it out next to me and Jane (the survivors of the eviction) meant things were a little strained all day. Priya was trying to keep it together, and we were trying to be sensitive as possible. This superhuman effort still resulted in the following slippages across the course of the day:

1. Jane mentioning having to organise the team party that will be happening in October.
2. Me inadvertantly complaining I have to write up my personal development plan for next year.
3. Me redirecting a client to her regarding a meeting that will take place two days after she is scheduled to leave.
4. Jane mentioning she had " a wicked weekend" this morning. This was a case of mouth engaged while brain was not in gear.

Priya took these with the minimum of resentment, but the atmosphere was stifling. Like a huge fart that everyone was too polite to talk about, we talked about almost everything else apart from the events of last week. I don't think I can take another 30 days of this.

We've got to get out of this place.

2009-08-14T17:53:00.002+01:00

Its Friday, I am still at my job, but it clearly is not over until the fat lady sings. (Note: Fat lady not me). Feeling a bit better, but I was quite shocked. I had no idea financially things were looking so bad, especially when everyone around me is talking about economic recovery and job creation.

One of the hardest things this week was finding out that Priya has to go. Apparently things have not been great with her and my boss for a long time, and if I am being honest I will admit I probably did pick up on this but did not really want to see it. I know that turning up later than your boss, and being quite sarky is not the best way to be earning a promotion, but I always saw that as her character and that her positives more than made up for it. The chief clearly thought differently, and now my trio of musketeers is down one.

Its funny how we can fool ourselves. I clearly thought that things were better than they were, and I can't blame myself for not knowing that. However, looking back I can tell that when things were getting tough I automatically started doing more in order to justify my job and making myself "indespensible". In hindsight, it's probably what kept me on longer than I should have been when I was on fixed term contacts as an assistant psychologist, so it was automatic for me. Longer days, more evidence you are working, even volunteering for taking minutes and doing little things like that probably helped me keep my job (or made me appear like a massive suck up depending on which way you look at it).

As I said I am a bit shocked, especially after not being around for a bit. Its like the movie I was watching before I left was "Little women" and I have come back and its switched to "Friday 13th" and we are all being picked off one by one.

Love spreads

2009-08-11T09:53:00.003+01:00

I am back at work and it's been a nightmare. Obviously while I have been away, work has accumulated at a rate similar to rabbits mating. Rabbits that have been single for a long time, then suddenly meet at a nightclub, drink too much and then have the weekend off to do nothing but reproduce. Swine flu did not help and my heart lurches every time I come across an urgent email I should have taken care of but whose deadline expired several weeks ago.

Screw this guilt. Priya and Jane have been a big help on my return, but I also noticed that both are guilty of doing that thing where you pass on work to someone else when you could have done it yourself. This is a crappy thing to do at the best of times, but doubly so when the victim is laid up in bed drowning in mucus. At least if I had left the job, I wouldn't have it to come back to.

Oh, and despite the cheery reports on the news, the recession is really kicking in for charities. Amazingly enough, people are not wanting to be as generous as usual. This is bad news for the group we advocate for, but we are seriously looking at job cuts even in my office. Ouch.

Big meeting tommorrow to find out who stays and who goes. I won't lie, I am a bit scared, but apart from my recent absence, my track record is practically perfect. Still, you never know. I mean, we all thought that blonde girl would get hired as "The Apprentice" this year, but she still got fired in the end.

Kings and Queens

2009-08-06T18:23:00.003+01:00

I am still ill. My motivation to do anything ebbs and flows like the tide. If the tide was heavily drawn to being out most of the time. So instead of getting stuck into the tsunami that is happening at work, I am just sitting here without even the energy to regret the past. Its now gone past being a giggle to sit in bed watching GMTV when I should be working, its now just boring. Which brings me to one of Auntie RLJ's stories of "when I was an assistant psychologist (this was all fields, and you could leave your front door open...)".

If you ask most APs what they will all too happily tell you is all about the interesting clinical work they have done, all the assessment tools they have used, and how much experience they have gained. What they are less likely to tell you is that there is often a lot of administration. Even less likely are the ones that will tell you "I spent the last 3 months entering numbers into a spreadsheet".

Audits suck. The consultants palm them off to the principals, who hand them over to the newly qualifieds, who palm them off to dearest YOU. The only thing that sucks more than audits is being in the bottom of the foodchain. If you thought your spreadsheet entering days had long gone when you did you handed in your last research methods project, think again. Audits are natures way of saying " Better not forget how to use SPSS!". The audit project I was on was in primary care, was about 8 months overdue and several peoples jobs were on the line. Yet, they very kindly waited until I was in post, until week 2 of my employment to give them their due, before opening a huge cupboard of paper and asking me to put it onto a virgin white spreadsheet. The spreadsheet that was empty.

...and people fight for this job?

So, CD in CD Rom tray and headphones in, I spent approxmiately 1/100th of my life upto that point typing in 1s and 0s into neverending columns. Sometimes I would forget to save and the ancient 486 used in the service (this was in the early 2000s) would creak to a halt, ruining an entire afternoons work. Needless to say I didn't make that mistake more than twice.

I think it was their way of seeing if I could hack it, and then allowing me to graduate onto real work. Although I am not sure how typing numbers into columns in anyway prepared me to do anything remotely client oriented.

Now, when I am not blowing impressive amounts of snot and phlegm onto my bedsheets, I instruct other people to enter numbers. Usually temps or the odd internship/work experience girl, but I still have immense sympathy for them. Not so much that I would do it again myself though.

Guess who is ill

2009-08-04T19:44:00.002+01:00

Swineflu.

Its the first time a tabloid scare has personally had an impact on my life. Fairly crappy but not the face melting ebola virus style illness that The Sun is making out. Its just a lot of feeling weak, lying in bed and drinking lemsip. However, its the first time in ages I have been arsed to get out of bed and switch on my computer.

Boring isnt the word.

PS Please note, its not the same for everyone. Perhaps I have the Diet-Swineful instead of the full fat version.

PPS I am very glad that it decided to strike after my hols. It would have been a complete arse to have wasted my precious holiday time in bed reading Bella.

Crash boom bang

2009-07-29T19:15:00.004+01:00

As you could have probably predicted some bright spark had the idea that we hire these el cheapo Spanish mopeds and drive them around the rocky, scrabbly dustpaths around the locale of the villa.

It could have been a nice experience. Perhaps if we had the necessary helments and basic training. It would have also helped had we all been sober, but no. About 6 of us lived out our Evel Knievel fantasies for about 45 minutes before Caroline smacked into a foot high wall, went arse over tit and had to be taken off to Spanish A+E. Saphire and Sarah who were both relatively undrunk went to accompany the poor Caroline, whose leg was turning a funny colour that is normally associated with bubble bath rather than sunburnt, peeling flesh.

I just looked up from my book, shook my head and went back to reading it (Lovely Bones - Bit creepy though). The rest of us milled around guiltily looking like naughty schoolchildren until Caro came back with leg in plaster several hours later, and we all signed it with rude things.

It will be an interesting explanation when she gets back to work this week.

Suckerpunch

2009-07-28T19:20:00.000+01:00

Sarah also informed me that Spiny had gotten a place on clinical training at a very prestigious London based course. To be honest, I would have probably known if I wasn't weaning myself off my Facebook addiction. Sarah told me this piece of information almost from the door of our en-suite toilet, so she could close it and hide behind it if I exploded. Instead, I took this with a shrug of "fair enough".

You know it would probably have bothered me last year, but the longer I spend out of "the CP game", the more perspective I have about it. Its not the answer to anyone's prayers, and its not the secret of life. I am happy with what I am doing, and now I can look back on that era of my life like most old men look back on the 1950s and their time in National Service. With amusement of an activity that hundreds of people shared once and can identify with, but happy they no longer have to be doing it. It's simply not my problem to worry about anymore, any more than it is to worry about how that one girl in Camden Road Nursery school monopolised the sandpit and the water wheel. It no longer feels that relevant to me. Not compared to the likes of the unholy trinity.

In that funny way life often switches things, the normally calm Sarah however was fuelled with rage instead of me. This was by far the oddest thing on holiday. Its as if God had switched our script books and she got my lines and I was reading hers. "I don't fucking believe it! Their selection process must be total shit if they reject us, and take her!" she stormed. I kept reading my Grazia and replied "Really, if is that bad and they take people like her over us, why the hell keep going after it? You will end up on Jeremy Kyle if you are not careful".

Sarah fumed and came up with "Thats shit! You are just able to say that because your job pays you more than hers, if it didn't you would be pissed off just like me". This was quite a low blow, I thought and quite embarassing in its own way. As one of my qualified CP friends pointed out, that it would take him 6 years or so after training to get onto what I am currently on, so maybe this did have some element of truth to it. But i didn't think it was just that, but I couldn't really say what I felt was the issue. Sarah is starting her Counselling Psychology doctorate and unfortunately the recession has not been kind to her fiance Tom. So she will be starting an expensive course without any real financial fallback, especially as its harder to borrow money right now. Their wedding has been put back too, which really doesn't help. Spiny's good fortune probably feels like rubbing it in.

Obviously I didn't share this insight with her (only you dear readers), because I didn't feel like losing a friend on holiday. This does suck for Sarah, but then again no-one is putting a knife to her throat and forcing her to any of the above, least of all Spiny. As my mum would probably say "Life isn't fair -now eat your broccoli" and bad things happen to good people and vice versa.

Rio

2009-07-27T18:34:00.002+01:00

We stayed in a villa called Rio, even though it was no where near the real Rio de Janerio, a whole group of us. We were all friends, or friends of friends from university, and there must have been a dozen or so of us. Sarah was there (without boring Tom) and we ended up sharing a room, getting inappropriately drunk and talking until 4am every night for two weeks.

Observation. Its hard to see what your friends become quite often. What you predict so often goes completely off from what actually happens. One of our friends who was a hotshot economics graduate who could barely say a word that wasn't management-speak now runs a surfshop in Devon. Not the city whizz kid we all anticipated. Likewise, our friend Keira was the biggest political activist, feminist rebel dedicated to smashing the system and fighting the patriarchy has now settled down and is the mother of two adorable (but thankfully absent children). She now reads the Bodens catalogue rather than The Communist Manifesto.

We all had those conversations after the union closed where we wondered what would become of us, and we all thought we would become actors, musicians, writers and running the country. Instead we just became ordinary people, the sort your mum and dad know. Accountants. Conveyers. The man who manages a surf shop in Devon. Its nice in its own way, but not at all what we thought.

There was also this one girl, who I didn't know quite that well but who had shared a house with someone else at the Villa. Saphire was a psychology graduate from the same course 2 years below me and Sarah. Having this degree meant Saphire was of the opinion she knew everything there was to know about psychology. Not a conversation would go by without her "psychological insights", be the conversation about men, the Spanish nation or Big Brother. What's more her psychology degree somehow gave her insight into economics, history, philosophy, politics and advanced medicine. Impressive, and made me wish I had graduated two years later, because all I seemed to learn is a bit of research methods and Piaget.

Don't get me wrong, Saphire was a sweet girl, but clearly someone had taken her to one side as a child and said "Darling, you must remember that when people have a conversation, you must tell them everything you know about the subject, in a very authoritative manner. That way you will make friends". Needless to say there was a lot of facial gesticulation and eye rolling in that typical British way, but we weren't actively rude or did anything like try to hide from her (only blog-bitch about her in retrospect- again a terribly British way to do things).

Saphire left after the first week. Frankly, I am not sure what her occupation was (not able to get a word in edgeways), but I think a think tank somewhere could have collapsed without her.

Away

2009-07-26T19:14:00.003+01:00

Its been a magical two weeks away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Its been interesting to say the least. I am not normally one of those people that go on and on about their holidays and me writing about it is probably the same as me showing you my holiday snaps.

...But there was some interesting things that happened which I will no doubt be informing you of over the next few days. Some of it funny, some of it scary, some of it sad, but all sort of linked in, in a wierd strange kind of way. A bit like Gosford Park (only with middle class graduates rather than jaded aristos, oh, and no murder, but you get my idea).

Alas, its now the last Sunday of my hols, and I have the same horrid back to school feeling I always used to get when I was growing up. Except its not quite as bad, as I dont have a nagging feeling I have forgotten my Chemistry GCSE coursework. However, its the same Sunday teatime /antiques roadshow/Highway/Songs of Praise sinking in the stomach sensation that will probably never go. In fact I will probably be experiencing in the old peoples home knowing me.

In fact its a bit crappier, because my house hasnt been lived in, there is no food in the fridge and I was surrounded by people all last fortnight and now I am all alone. As soon as it will go dark, (and that will be soon) I will start wondering about serial killers, rapists and monsters that may be lurking in the vicinity. Its at moments like this I think "God I wish I had a boyfriend. Preferably one that is 6'2''. And a Boxer. With a gun."

Leaving on a jet plane

2009-07-10T16:46:00.002+01:00

I am at Gatwick and have just put a £2 coin (shiny) into one of these metal keyboarded internet/phone points at the South Terminal. This blog will end when the money runs out.

After a massive hullabaloo at work I managed to snag a well deserved last minute holiday so I am off for a little rest and recouperation while all hell breaks loose at the office. These things happen, but I am going to Spain, where I reckon they don't have the internet, clean water or toilet paper. I will bring back a stuffed donkey, cheap booze, a sombrero, and possibly a peeling lobster red tan if all goes well. I would also like..too late

Workin 9 to 5

2009-07-06T19:40:00.000+01:00

I read this thread and it struck a chord.

http://www.clinpsy.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5827

Although not having quite as many applicants as that, we still get our fair share of job applications we have to wade through, and I am reliably informed they hit a peak around now. Most of the entry level jobs we offer are not just appealing for psychology graduates, but we get lots of sociology, politics and English lit graduates as well. So we get a range of people applying. Jane (English), Priya (Biology + Masters Biomedical Science) and I have all been through the same rigmorole and now we have seen things both sides of the fence.

It hits me that so many of my posts and other peoples blogs/forums (see the toolbar on the right and the followers below) are about the whole job application cycle that its almost like we can't stop talking about it. Even those of us who are through it complain about it. Its like the elderly who go on about the war, we complain about the nightmare interview or the 50 applications we sent only to end up working at Safeway. In my opinion it's something that everyone goes through, so it appeals to many, and we can all empathise. Its in the news too, with the recession figures and job cuts and all that stuff so its pretty much on most younger people's mind.

Its also the last of the topics that I can say "honestly, you just don't understand" about to my parents. For them getting an education was a passport to a glamourous career. Even if you didn't there was plenty of other work around. Or you could just get married and do something small part time. So when Mum or Dad reads the Telegraph or Mail and says that these youngsters are just lazy and all want to be pop stars or footballers. Unlike the teenage crushes on stupid boys, and stupider ideas about what I should do with my hair, my parents honestly really don't understand what its like right now.

Actually does anyone read this that isnt interested in jobs and careers in some way? I reckon not.

Tears of a clown

2009-07-03T23:05:00.002+01:00

Yep. Part of me just knew Andy Murray wouldn't get through to the final. An even bigger part of me knows that he would have probably lost to Federer if he did.

Now thats out of the way can newspapers please stop talking about Murray-mania and get back to the normal business of celebrity deaths and hating rich people?

Thanks.

Takin back my love

2009-06-30T20:24:00.003+01:00

Today I would like to talk about a very embarrassing issue, that we are all guilty about, yet none of us would readily admit to. University snobbery. Yes, don't lie we have all done it to some degree.

This tends to cut in two ways. First of all people resentfully look upwards to those institutions that are ranked above theirs and claim "Oh, the only sort of people who go there are all boffins who work all the time, and have no social life" or "Oh you have to be rich/privately educated/the son of a duke to go there". They then look at those institutions below them and think they are not 'real' universities, and you must be a bit thick to end up there. That leaves you feeling all smug and happy. Apart from if you go to Oxbridge then presumably you look down on everyone else. Or if you go to whatever uni is at the bottom and even then I am not sure what you do at that point.

Obviously no one, apart from the most blindly arrogant, would admit this in polite society. Yep, we will all play the Oh its great that access is widened card in public. Some of us will even work out some complicated mathematical formula that takes into account the fact that although my uni is ranked lower, my psychology department is ranked higher (but only in the Times, not the Guardian) and combined with the fact that both of ours requires higher A-levels grades than hers to get into, means we all end up happy.

All well and good. That's until the whole fragile system comes crashing down when someone unwittingly makes a comment that is taken the wrong way by someone with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. I am not sure what temperature blood freezes at, but its brought on by the high pitched shriek "AND WHATS WRONG WITH GOING TO AN EX POLY!!!".

Do you see what I see?

2009-06-29T19:47:00.002+01:00

In the office with Priya and Jane on a Monday morning. We do that thing. You know. The the thing everyone does. When they go through the job listings and think

Yeah! I could do that job. Easy.
Hmm, I wonder what it would be like to live in Wolverhampton/Sheffield/the Isle of Skye
Thats the money? I could buy an Audi with that. (Hmm, I wonder if those bastards upstairs are underpaying me).
or
Thats the money? Only that? How can anyone live on that? (Thank god I am on more).
I wonder what it would be like to be an _______________?

I call it 'employment porn'.

Except Jane really is thinking of leaving (long story, not enough time. Lets just say it involved crying). So she is really looking for work. Its quite tough for us because we are not like garage mechanics so can easily explain what exactly it is that we do. Its a bit managementy, adminy, officey, salesy and all sorts. So an optimist would say we are capable of doing anything. A pessimist would say we are qualified to do nothing. I think the truth is somewhere in between.

So in addition to questions like "Here what about this one?", Jane asked me to look at her CV. Now, having done the whole 100 job apps a day thing myself, I know a thing or two about giving feedback. Rule number 1 is never say anything to the effect of "Why did you write it like that? That's shit!"or you don't think shift supervisor at KFC is really credible evidence of leadership. Rule number 2 is never say anything that may be taken the wrong way like commenting on whether those were the A level grades you expected, . Rule 3. say something vague like you never knew they were into bird watching and how nice it is. That way you can look like you have been helpful and dont end up losing a friend.

For those of you writing CVs, there are the rules that you have to equally follow.
1) When asking for advice, don't get pissy if someone gives you any that doesn't correspond to the rose tinted vision of your own achievements.
2) Make sure everything is proof-read. And not MS Word Spellchecked. Believe me, you didn't have take modules in Orgasmic Chemistry.
3) Don't write your entire life story. Its not War and Peace. Two sides of A4 and then everyone gets bored. Even if on side 3 you mention that Nelson Mandela looks up to you as a role model, they are not going to read that far, they end on your Duke of Edinburgh award (1998) and thats just tough.

Woulda coulda shoulda

2009-06-26T19:44:00.000+01:00

Ahem. As I am writing this at home on Friday afternoon, don't have a tent, camping stove or tickets to Glastonbury it may be safe to assume a certain commentator was right and neither I nor he are going.

As usual I left things until too late, way too late. I shan't lie. Procrastination is a bit of a problem for me and things generally get left until the last minute or beyond. In fact I dread to think of the fortune I have paid in library fines, video club late fees, last minute delivery charges and late check outs. Clearly things are unfair and I am puzzled why the world does not allow a special reservation for deadlines because they know I am going to be late in advance. I think thats fair warning for them to anticipate it.

Not only do I leave things until the last minute, quite often things are not planned at all. Hence offers to have people over for dinner can be blighted by complete lack of preparation. I mean how am I supposed to know that chicken takes a long time to defrost? They don't tell you that in Resarch methods II! Or what about the simple things like restaurants keeping a table in reserve for me, because what kind of person makes a reservation days in advance? I may not even be hungry on Friday night or in the mood for Thai food.

The answer "Whatever" to the question "what do you feel like doing?", sounds quite laid back and going with the flow, at least in theory. On the downside it guarantees that you end up watching Fun with Dick and Jane, when you wanted to watch Casino Royale at the cinema, or you end up walking aimlessly instead of going to that art gallery. Funnily enough this never happens at work, where next months activities are recorded in anal, minute details. I reason that I prepare and plan so much at work, I deserver not to do it in my private life, am I correct?

So "Whatever" in this instance means that I am not hunkered down in a rapidly drying tent listening to Bruce Springsteen. It means a DVD and bottle of white on my own as everyone else has made plans for today.

Who do you think you are?

2009-06-24T19:36:00.002+01:00

While staying with my parents, I was quickly updated regarding the status of almost all of my mothers friends, their children and various peers from my primary school days. A lot of this I now already know thanks to facebook. This is superceded when one of my mum's friends visits and I get double the dose of updates about people who I only know vaguely and care for even less.

However, this one friend of my mother (Carol) also has a daughter graduating this year from a respectable red brick university (henceforth referred to as Daphne). Psychology. What else? She was visiting this weekend and I bumped into her across the kitchen table. Daphne was looking for work to help her become a psychologist and had been offered a fairly useful experience as a paid research assistant at the university she was studying at. However, she had turned this down without a second though, as it had only paid her 16 thou a year and that was clearly not enough seeing as "she had a degree and everything". Carol spouted on how scandalous this was, that her daughter had studied so hard and was being offered almost nothing in her eyes. Carol had then gone onto say she would expect Daphne to be on at least 25k-30k a year as this was, in her eyes, an average graduate starting salary.

Mum took this as a cue and launched into my own long drawn out story (most of which you probably know if you have been reading this blog for any significant time). I just sat there cringing, while mum let loose about the rollercoaster that I had been through. In my almost teenage level of selfishness I had completely been oblivious to the impact my constant sob stories and requests for money had on mum. Carol seemed to turn white, then almost brushed off the story saying she was sure Daphne would find something high paying and suitable soon and then went off on some other tangent. The clear signal was "It was not to be talked about".

Carol then tried to get me to offer Daphne a job ("see if I could pull a few strings"). Because I so frequently offer totally unexperienced students, who haven't even graduated yet, 30 thousand pounds a year on the recommendations of their mother. If there was an award for most clumsy counterproductive networking attempt 2009 I think this would win it hands down.

A view to a kill

2009-06-22T18:49:00.000+01:00

I went to visit my mother on the weekend. Such visits are have the predictability as the beginning of a Bond film. You know the gunbarrel scene, the naked dancing girls during the titles, Bond smarming up to M, then seeing Q for his exploding briefcase and so on. Instead I have:

- The bit where I think "My god its much smaller than I remember".
- Mum clucking and hugging, "Gosh,you are not eating enough/ Have you found a nice boy yet"
- My favourite meal (Spag bol) is being cooked especially for me.
- Everything stops while mum watches Corrie.
- The part where Mum sits at the kitchen table and regales me with whats been happening with whom and what. This bit is generally like the bit where the Bond villain explains his entire plan, only not with fancy 3d graphics and laser satelites, but with phrases like "hysterectomy", "got a good job in a bank".
- The bit where I cram into my tiny childhood bed. No sexy superspy for me- I have a non-perishable hot water bottle instead for a bedmate.
- and it goes on from there.

Like a Bond film, highly enjoyable once in a while, but probably would get irritating if its the only thing you were exposed to. This probably happens to everyone and I will be sad if it ever stopped. But the mischievious part of me wonders what would happen if I was to ever change the order of things. You know, like demand lasagne instead of spag bol, or decided to take her out during Corrie. It would just be wrong and the everything would probably explode (again like the end of a Bond film). Actually maybe that would be quite fun...

Summer loving

2009-06-20T16:27:00.000+01:00

Continuing the theme of my wasted summers of youth, I used to work as a deliverygirl- (and I do mean that it was in my youth, and it was not last year or anything). I worked at this Chinese takeaway, lets call it" Sam Wong's", which was really the only vaguely ethnic eating option in the dreary provincial town I grew up in. My job that long hot golden summer was, on the surface, to deliver congealing, over-MSGed cartons of Chow Mein and sweet and sour pork to the hungry masses by scooter.

Needless to say, my work was not made easier by the bloody Spice Girls who were at the start of their metoric rise and who dominated my walkman's radio. But, all things considering, they were the least of my worries. The assorted wierdos, social malcontents and oddballs that comprise of the chinese food eating general public were easily above Bunton et al. Those creepy men that would invite me in despite the fact they were clearly naked underneath their dressing gowns. The yapping dogs that would try to take a chunk of my leg along with the egg friend noodles.

Especially unamusing was the lengthy, needless waits as the hapless diner would suddenly remember they had ordered food and would be expected to pay, and "would you mind waiting while I search my entire house for money, you know to pay you with?". Instead of replying, "Yes, I do mind. How about, you know, actually anticipating I will need money and have it ready for me? If you are that dim, do you think you may need me to show you how to chew the food as well?" I just smiled sweetly and told them to take all the time they wanted. After all, my underappreciated arse would only be too happy to get yelled at in Mandarin by Mrs Wong, who seemed to know only two words in English "Fuck" and "money".

The job paid minium wage, and not the comfortable fiver and change an hour nowadays, but the early hourly minimum wage that would not even get you the Sunday Times (and that included tips). For eight long weeks, while my friends had barbeques, snogged boys and watched Bruce Willis films, I learned to hate the rain with a passion and cheated death on the road so many times, I figure I must be on his urgent-shortlist by now.

What struck me most was the casual racism. Although I harboured no particular love for the Wong clan during that summer, I did take offence at the delightful language used liberally by our customers. "The chinkee is here" often heralded my arrival, as did jokes about hiding the dog in case I would cook it. That was not as bad as the arseholes who would mimic and exaggerate Sam's fairly faint Chinese accent (he was living in England since the 60s) "Ah so, Tooo flied whice" some drunken tosser would spout, as I grimaced while silently trying to communicate with Sam that the majority of White Britons were generally a friendly bunch of people and that we weren't all like this tosser.

Fast forward back to tonight, and I am ordering Chinese food. If you are too remember to:
- Have your money ready
- Put a light on so they know which house to come to
- Dress decently.
- Tip the delivery person (odds are they are paid less than you)
- Thank god, or whoever, you are not standing on a strangers doorstep handing food over in the rainy twilight.

Wild again

2009-06-16T22:02:00.002+01:00

There has been an ominous sounding tab in the editor of my blog called "Monetise". First I thought it may be something about appreciating the artist Monet. But alas no. It is inviting me to plaster advertisements all over my blog to get money.

It's scary to me to a) sell out, b) be expected to shill for various products that I have no control over. For example, there could be an ad by the BNP or an arms company and I would be oblivious until after the fact. Unlikely but you get the idea.

Blogging is basically a diary, and I bet Anne Frank never sat in her little attic thinking "If only I could advertise Pepsi so future generations can read my heart rendering tale and be reminded that if they are thirsty they can always drink fizzy brown sugary water". Its intrusive. Is nothing sacred? I anticipate the following:

-Condoms with adverts printed on them.
-Nappies that reveal "CheekyBingo.com" when your infant soils them.
-Adverts printed on the side of coffins (He lived til 90, smoked 2 packs of Benson and Hedges a day He only died because he was hit by a bus).

Okay, I don't have to do it. But part of me is SO curious what ads would crop up that is targeted for my readers? I anticipate most of you are female, in your late teens to early 30s and have psychology degrees or are getting them. SPSS text books? getanewboyfriend.com? Bacardi? Topshop? (Even though I frequent the more aspirational Kew myself).

Or what if I am wrong and most of my readership is pervy old men who have a penchant for middle class psychology graduates and are just hanging around on the off chance that I may disclose what colour knickers I am wearing. If I ended up advertising the Daily Star or Bigjugs.com wouldn't that be infinitely worse?

7

2009-06-15T21:45:00.000+01:00

Seven Random Facts Tag

The perpetually lovely Sonia at "For you, a thousand times over!" tagged me to do this 7 random facts thing. I am not sure if I, being an ancient relic of a less cool age, have got this right, but here goes.

1) I am uber paranoid about my security. This is why everything I post is emailed to and uploaded by a very kind well wisher (regarding IP addresses and the like). Its also why my posts usually are posted at a different time from when they are written.

2) Despite not wanting any, I am ace with kids. No really. Baby's ALWAYS smile at me on seeing me, and small children never do that 'I am shy so I am going to hug my mummy' thing when I am around.

3) I was the best shot in the Officer Training Corps at university. I was a demon with my SA80 (fine, my L98 if you want to be pedantic) and made all the boys look terrible.

4) Vimto. Addicted.

5) I was an extra in a bar scene in Coyote Ugly.

6) I am in love with a boy, who loves me, but not in "that" way.

7) This tag thread is not accurately titled. It should be called 6 random facts and 1 lie.
(NB. Number 7 is not a lie).

Could it be any harder

2009-06-12T23:11:00.003+01:00

Just got back with a night out avec Justine.

I would like to say that she has wised up, pulled her socks up and is happily trotting along towards whatever destination it is she has set her heart on. Okay, too much to expect. But you would forgive me if you thought she would be the same sweet, happy albeit guilelessly dappy girl she has always been. Right?

Guess again.

Our catch up was at this coffee shop/bar/restaurant in London. I go there occasionally and the place never really changes, full of trendy design students (okay, okay, cute hunky design students), cycle couriers and a few gay guys that have strayed too far from Soho. Justine has a new gig, a research assistant no less, under a lecturer in a well known university in central London. It is quite an impressive project she is working on by the sounds of things, and it looks like things are finally going her way.

Except she is completely miserable and looks like a ghost of her former self. Forget about the Andrex puppy affection she normally met me with, she could barely raise a smile when she saw me. We trade some gossip about who is doing what and how her family is before coming to the heart of the matter. Justine has had resounding bad luck on the clinical psychology application front this year. Fine, She is not the only one.

However, the two other RAs in her department seem to take delight in treating Justine as a whipping post for their frustrations. Although Justine is technically the junior most RA, the two others seem to spend half their time ripping her to shreds about her numerous shortcomings, leaving her out of the loop, and making her look bad in front of the project lead. Any enthusiasm Justine had for the job has now gone, her work is criticised on a daily basis and its an effort of will just to make it through the day.

I am quite scared about her state of mind at the moment. She looks like she has just been released from Abu Ghraib, and she was changing from the deeply hopeless ("I will never get anywhere will I?"), to the worrying ("I will keep applying [for clinical training] until I am 50"), to the morbid ("No one will ever know I existed, will they")*. I wasn't really sure what to do. It was like watching Les Dennis go to pieces talking to the chickens on Celebrity Big Brother. Only worse as it was a friend. I realise she can be seen as a target and I have documented, perhaps wrongly, many of her lesser moments*, but still she doesn't deserve this.

On the train back, I was almost shaking and crying with anger. How fucking dare those two publicly assassinate Justine! Its out and out bullying, and to someone who would never dream of fighting back. I just want to walk into their department and slap them both before taking them to a tribunal and getting them fired. Yeah, we all put up with politics, but this sort of thing surely is more like borstal than a university?

I will see her again in a few days to see how she is. Already suggested she goes to the counselling service. In the meantime, I have just got to do something.

*Obviously have changed what she has said, but kept the tone. I am not a total heartless bitch.

Another Brick in the wall

2009-06-11T19:30:00.002+01:00

When headlines scream upto 40,000 graduates will be jobless, you can't help but think the following:

- Polly Curtis must have a PhD in how to demoralise exam taking finalists, what with her perfect timing around and job application frenzy that happens at uni around this time every year. This sort of article is just the thing to have rattling around in your head come that tricky final exam. Where before we used to have to put up with anxious students loitering outside examination halls gibbering "Oh do you think they will have Piaget on this paper? I hope they do..." we can now enjoy the same people going on about "Oh do you think you will be able to find a job. 40 thousand grads unemployed!".

-She must also be simultanously working on her MBA project in irritating anyone who has to work come graduation. You know. To survive. Apparently The classic UK student response to a recession is 'I'm off to Thailand'." The classic response from me to anyone who would say that is "Fuck off".

- At least Lorraine Kelly, Jeremy Kyle and other daytime TV presenters will be happier with a bigger audience.

- What happens when next years hopeful grads come out of the grinder into work and have to compete with the above 40,000 graduates? If things haven't picked up economically there will be 80,000, and so on and so on every year until the whole of the British population eventually is made up of unemployed graduates.

Maybe not.

-Admit it. You did think "I wonder how many of those are psychology students?" Didn't you?

Controversy

2009-06-08T22:25:00.000+01:00

As the hazy days of summer approach I think about the future a lot. While my current job is great, I realise that I am fairly high up the greasy pole here and there is not much further for me to go. If I was to go much higher I would end up as a talking head on BBC Breakfast looking stern and talking about my charity's cause whilst trying not to strangle Kate Silverton when she gives an insincere, but concerned glance over Bill Turnbull's shoulder. Or I would be rent-a-quoted in magazines like Grazia.

I am disinclined to do this (Certain shades of limelight can wreck a girls complexion you know darling). I fear I would start doing less actual liaising "work" with real people and do more pointless paperwork and meetings about strategic visions and mission statements with suits. Not that this isn't important, but its not for me. What I would like is to get a position like a mental health version of "The Apprentice" but without having to put up with the sarky put downs of Alan Sugar or the unceasing judgement of the public. Unfortunately they don't advertise such jobs in the Guardian so its back to plain old NETWORKING for me.

Networking. The word used to strike fear into my heart. Out of uni it was "ooh, you should network", which I translated as "You should fake an insincere liking for those that may further your career". I didn't see this as something I wanted to do, although it didn't stop many of my peers faking an interest in some consultant's dog photos. I took it as being phony, and not being judged on my merits. If I wasn't going to get a job on what I could offer, there was no way I should get one on my ability to suck up.

Things change. Once I actually had skills, a position and something to offer it felt different. Now, networking is actually about meeting people that I can legitimately help , and who can help me in return. I don't fake anything, but it feels more like a fair trade. Hustling for sure, but the good honest graft of a salesman, rather the giggling pseudo-laughter of a toady. This seems more equal and my conscience can handle it.

So glad we made it

2009-06-06T12:02:00.000+01:00

Its funny to think that I have been blogging for over a year now. I thought I would have gradually got sick of it by the 20th post or thereabouts. In that time there have been highs and lows. Joyful euphoric rushes and soulcrushing dark nights of the soul. I guess that earns me the right to look back and "reflect" (as we psychology grads are so often asked to do).

Good things

I have gone from extremely unstable, lowly paid employment with no room to go up, to a solid job with decent money and a massive amount of autonomy. In terms of where I live, I went from sharing a grotty crumbling house in a dodgy neighbourhood to having my own place (and am currently in a position where I can think about buying on my own, although I do hate people that go on and on about property so this is the first and last time I am going to mention it). Although I miss the constant company, its a fair trade for being able to keep my shit lying around and not having to wash up Sarah's breakfast cereal bowl. Or finding the last bit of cheese nicked when I was relying on it for tonight's supper.

Its been achievable, and part of me thinks I am crazy for not doing it sooner.

As for the blog, I am happy to have been able to meet and find out about a variety of people through writing this. I particularly feel good when people say "Oh, you nailed that just right". Would have probably changed a thing or two but that was always going to be the way.

Bad things

The worst thing is having to keep everything in your head and the constant responsibility for running my own house. Also the increased responsibility at work is great, but it comes with the added pressure if I mess up I can't go to someone like my ex supervisor and give it to them to sort out. Its like leaving home again for the first time in many ways.

I still sometimes think about leaving the clinical psychology path, its not as raw as it was last year, but I do wonder if I may have got on this year, or next, or after that (and so on into infinity). Its not really regret anymore but more like one of those idle fantasies like what would have happened if you never met your best mate, or if your mum and dad had been different. I am glad that there is a large mental health element to my job, which is important to me, but when I do sometimes get an email from a psychologist or hang out with friends who are still in the game I do wonder "That could have been me" or "Would I have done it like that?".

Being long term single can suck. Really suck. Its not the babies issue, or anything like wanting a rich husband, or even that I mind being alone. Its more like the fact that your world starts to shrink when everyone else starts getting hooked up, so you start feeling like you are excluded from this members only club, or a doubles only sport. Cynical old me thinks that things will pick up once the mid life crisis/ divorce olympics start (I am guessing mid 30s to early 40s). Until then putting up with intrusive questions, well meaning friends trying to hook you up with losers and paying single supplements on mini-breaks. There are worse things. Like being in a loveless relationship, with someone you have long since lost any respect for, and are struggling on a daily basis to stop hating even more.

Bad things regarding the blog. It can sometimes feel like you have to top the last entry you made, which is a competitive cycle with myself that really has to stop. The flack from a few weeks ago didn't really upset me that much, but it made people around me cluck around like mother hens (I appreciate the support guys). I do sometimes wonder if this blog fuels my inner bitch, but I guess if it does, it's better in cyberspace than impacting on my workplace, social circle or strangers on the street. While the blog can be therapeutic it can also feel like a compulsion in itself.

I will definitely have to watch that.

Blowin in the wind

2009-06-04T18:14:00.003+01:00

Been a horrid, horrid week. In complete contrast to lovely weather.

The only way I have got through is by the impending immersion of myself in Big Brother which starts tonight! Yes!. I shall no doubt reflect on my harrowing experience and tell you all of my secret inner torment and other News of the world style nonsense.

Or I shall completely neglect this and talk about more reality TV.

[PS. Last nights line up completely reminded me of my last clinical course interview, right down the the other applicants. Kate, especially seems to have stepped out of a DClinPsy interview waiting room. The scary flashback warning alert has been cranked up to level 5.]

Sing for the moment

2009-06-01T18:43:00.003+01:00

Yes. Like everyone else in England, I watched Britain's got Talent on Saturday when I should have been out clubbing/ meeting friends/ having sex/getting drunk/living it large. Instead I sat at home with a takeaway (not Domino's in case you were wondering, sod their adverts) and watched a grandfather dance with his jailbait daughter and Susan Boyle in a losing battle to fight off a nervous breakdown as the results were read out.

Enough has been written about the contestants so I am not going into all of that here (apart from the fact that the fact that the News of the World constantly referring Ms Boyle by her virginity, is creepy whichever way you slice it). What I will talk about is how cheesily Saturday night light entertainment of 1970-early 80s the whole thing is, and surely this sort of thing should have ended when Paul Daniels, Little and Large and Jim Davidson decided to call it quits. Except back then it was actually about singing, dancing or juggling. Today its about backstories and how you managed to pull yourself up from living in a shoebox with your 32 brothers and sisters and learned Opera by watching it in the windows of Curry's. Which means a more apt title would be "Britain's got Social Issues" or the more snappy "Britain's got Pity".

Which comes back to the question of why we still watch something that should have been mothballed when I was still in nappies. Possibly something around needing to feel that "anything is possible if you put your mind to it". Or that we need real life Cinderellas as long as they remain compliant, happy and smiling and not in danger of doing anything remotely human like show insecurity, prejudice or swear at journalists.

Still, for me the winner of BGT was the set designer. That individual was truly talented.

Don't tell me

2009-05-29T20:35:00.002+01:00

You may imagine that I am the hotheaded, impatient kind that turns over the adverts as soon as they come on. You would be right. But sometimes you just can't avoid them. Normally I will tolerate them, in the same way you may tolerate a small screaming child on a short bus journey, but sometimes they get under your skin in the worst possible way.

The current object of my hatred is the volvic challenge advert.

I really hate everything about this advert. Obviously the happy shopper sub-Jamie Oliver hero, but the shitty music, the cheeky chappy editing, the misleading small print, and 6 layers of volcanic rock all hit the "irritate RLJ" button like a 500lb sledgehammer. I even hate his stinky tramp haircut.

By far the worst part is when he talks about having a "cheeky Volvic". What the fuck is cheeky about drinking crap tasting mineral water? Is he talking about the cheekiness of paying for something that comes out of a tap? Or the the airmiles it clocks up? Thats not cheeky, thats known in this neck of the woods as stupid or thoughtless. Ooh. An entire litre and a half! Someone call Guiness book of records quick!

Who would watch that and think "What a guy. I really need to get some volvic." Rather my reaction is "I now want to go the the volvic bottling facility and piss in the vat". Gah!

Other adverts that have annoyed are the Jamie Oliver Sainsbury ones with his ethnically diverse friends having breakfast while Top Loader plays in the background, the one where the girl hands out coke bottles in the street to stangers, and the air freshner one where the kid says"I want to do a Poo at Pauls house" (for the last one I would recommend mum looking up the number for CAMHS is in the yellow pages).

Summer of 69

2009-05-28T19:17:00.000+01:00

Big talk today at work.

You see the recession is biting, many of our contributors and donors are not as generous as they were in the boom time which means there is less money coming in. We have to tighten our belts, streamline our operations, lose dead weight and all sorts of other bullshit managementese phrases that I never want to hear again.

Our boss is currently on leave due to being half term or something (its always bloody half term, no wonder children are criticised for failing standards, they seem to be on holiday all the time) so we had this external auditor/consultant who came in to give us a pep talk combined with a death sentence. Dressed in a cheat Top Man suit with stale coffee breath and 20 year old acne scars he managed to whizz through an incomprehensible power-point presentation, patronise half of us ("Well girls, let me explain to you in a way you can understand...") and demoralise the rest in the space of a single afternoon. With superpowers like that Wolverine had better watch out, because this guy may steal his spot in the X-men.

One question was asked immediately by Graham, a greying, kindly uncle sort of fella who looks like he belongs in B&Q on the weekend which alluded to how much the external consultant was getting paid and was this effective use of money in a difficult time. Everyone smirked and Priya almost burst out laughing and had to leave the room. Mr Auditor got snippy and replied that that was not the point, and that he was not taking it seriously.

That said everyone seemed quite uneasy once the pillock left. Everyone except me, thanks to my previous experience of shaky working practices and constantly looking at the dole queue every September. This time I have a warning and its in black and white, rather than a decision made behind my back and only told to me after it has become fact in my absence. Thinking about it, I don't think its going to be mass redundancies, because we do pretty much pull our own weight, but some of the perks may be cut (buying my own starbucks on meeting days! Noooooo!) and a couple of near retirees may be going but thats all I reckon will happen*.

*I hope I am right.

Someday We'll Be Together

2009-05-26T19:58:00.000+01:00

Coming back from a lovely weekend break catching up with Charlotte and Sarah.

Sarah is unnaturally hyperactive as she has been accepted onto a counselling psychology doctorate course, plus she is getting married before she starts that. This is good news and I genuinely am happy for her that one of us got something similar to what we set out to do as freshers. What I was slightly more concerned about is that she has become a one woman crusade against clinical psychology. So inspersed with pearls of wisdom about why counselling psychology is more holistic, more forward thinking and less oppressive there were other comments about how the "clinicals" were over-rated and up themselves.

Some of this can only be expected. I remember my bitterness when I decided to quit the hoop jumping, but I quickly realised when I let go its just a job. A good one, but one among many. For Sarah its really swung the other way. Its like watching a previously chaste Catholic schoolgirl that suddenly discovers sex and starts seducing delivery men and plumbers. I quietly listened and nodded appropriately, and was about to say something when Charlotte interrupts with "I haven't come 150 miles to listen to you two talk about psychology. I had enough of that shit while living with you". Which shuts us both up and we enjoy talking about the last few months, and isn't it scandalous that MPs get away with so much (a topic of conversation I haven't been able to get away from in the last fortnight).

Charlotte looks radiant. I don't know what it is but she has really got a glow about her and she has lost some of the attention grabbing hysterics that I am used to. Gone is the surly, lank haired, woman-teen cocoon of uncertaintly and this butterfly of togetherness and confidence has replaced her. She has a gallery show she is preparing for with some of her friends from Liverpool and St Martins Art school, and she sounds like she has a plan. Typical, just as she gets livable, I stop living with her.

The two of us make solid plan to meet up again soon. It's a change from coming home from work and dreading seeing her sprawled across the sofa watching Hollyoaks.

What I go to school for

2009-05-21T19:02:00.003+01:00

I woke up in a panic, heart filled with dread and my stomach squeezed in knots.

Its 6:30 am. I glance out the summery May morning and all is tranquil and peaceful. There is no reason to be fearful. Everything at work is going well, have a great weekend lined up and there is no letter on my door trying to collect a bill or telling me I am pregnant.

I ponder what I may be worried about and it bugs me through breakfast, the way to work, and throughout the morning. Memos and calenders tell me that all systems are go and to chill. There is a nagging sense in the back of my mind that I really should have done something that I havent yet. Have I forgotten someones birthday?

The answer hits me while I read the paper over coffee.

What I realise my brain is trying to tell me, is that I have neglected to do enough exam revision. Seriously. Its May, my internal annual clock knows there is ALWAYS an exam around this time. Instead of having a good day, surely I should be crammed in some dungeon with a pile of text books making spider diagrams and charts about the endocrine system or the themes of Wuthering Heights.

Yes, I was guilt tripping for not preparing for A-level exams that had taken place a decade ago. Twisted beyond belief, no? But still all over the country boys and girls are cracking open highlighters and pointlessly writing acres and acres of tedious notes they will never read again, while wistfully looking out the window and wishing they could go out. Mothers gingerly bringing cups of tea, while dads tell them "Shouldn't you be studying?" when they catch you on a 20 minute breather watching the end of Coronation Street.

Then what I already should have known for a long time hits me. No exams ever again.

Suddenly my day gets a lot better.

Mad about the boy

2009-05-19T20:45:00.002+01:00

On the phone. Late night.

"Come to Glastonbury with me Spatch. Go on, it will be fun!"
"What? Spend two hundred quid to spend the weekend in an open air refugee camp, shitting in a bin bag and standing a mile away from whatever capricious Radio 1 DJs happen to say is flavour of the week? Could we do something slightly more fun? Perhaps volunteer for experimental rectal surgery?"
"There will be tonnes of polite, middle class girls with names like Charlotte, Natalie and Sophie. Who are likely to be quite uninhibited."
"Do you think a two person tent will do or shall we have a three person? We will need a camping stove, a backpack..."

Men. So easy to manipulate.

Fun lovin criminals

2009-05-17T21:55:00.002+01:00

I used to have the sneaking suspicion that Criminal Record Bureau checks are really a stealth tax for people that want to help out. It can't really cost 33 quid or whatever it now is to look up a name on a database ? Okay, so there is probably more to it than that. However, I really don't think its as foolproof as everyone makes out. I would hazard a guess that people that really wanted to get around the CRB checks probably have heard of identity theft, and a few details later, bingo, they suddenly become John Q Smith and go about their naughtiness unchallenged.

What it does do is irritate people that may want to otherwise work with vulnerable groups. Like Healthcare assistants, APs etc (who often can't really spare the money), but also people like scoutleaders, volunteers at SCOPE or people that garden for the elderly. Because all that motivation, drive and good will can shrink and go elsewhere while you hang around waiting to check that you don't do unspeakable things to grandma.

Obviously there should be some level of checking. I don't want the likes of Idi Amin cleared to be working with Asian refugees. However, I do resent the red tape, the slowness and the needless running around. I could theoretically get a bank loan for £ 100000 to start a business and hire people in a quarter of the time it takes me to get cleared to help paint a school. That can't be right?

It also contributing to many projects stumbling in the early stages, where they need manpower the most. "Oh, we are just getting CRB clearance" has become the bane of many a manager who would otherwise just use caution and common sense. It also has a nasty guilty before being proven innocent edge to the proceedings and CRB doesnt eliminate risk of something happening afterwards.

I understand why it needs to happen, but does it have to be done so badly in the first place?

My doorbell

2009-05-14T18:41:00.003+01:00

Flashback.

Before the days of power, fame money and mass criticism, I too was once adored. Unfortunately it was the kind of adoration I could have done without.

Let this be a lesson for you.

It was the first month after I had my second assistant psychology job when I was doing a piece of work at a community drop in centre. I was there for 14 exciting days, doing bits of questionnaire delivering, getting feedback and under the feet of the millions of Occupational therapists that seemed to crawl out the woodwork. Dudley, was a regular visitor, a seemingly harmless enough dishevelled man in a parka that sat drinking nasty sludgy "Maxpax" vending machine coffee. I would nod and smile and engage him in general chit chat, like I did with the rest of the regulars.

Only Dudley got a little, uh, over attatched. I first noticed this when he started following me down the small sandwich shop on the corner. I naively thought he just lived down that particular road, but then he would pop back up in the clinic later and then talk to me all about Sandwiches. Clearly, I liked sandwiches and as he too liked sandwiches he thought it would no doubt impress me with this bread-snack related commonality.

"I noticed you went down the Sandwich shop"
"Um, Yes. Yes I did."
"What did you have"
"Tuna Mayo"
"Oh" his faced darkened. "I dont like that"
What could I say, I shrugged.
"Ham. Thats what I like".
"I really have to go. See you later".

The others thought it was either funny or harmless. Me, less so. He started leaving little gifts. 99p pot plants are the ones I remember. Again, not really sure what to do. It was when he started asking me where I lived and what bus I took home, is when I started to become really alarmed so told my supervisor. With frightening speed she "had a word" and things stopped.

Presumably you were expecting him to be ringing my doorbell and tracking down my parents, but it was nothing like that. It wasn't dramatic or anything, and nothing really happened, for which I am thankful. It was just un-nerving and I feel a bit well guilty really for even drawing attention to it, but then I read that story the other day about that German bloke who got infatuated with this girl on the internet and think it could have been a lot nastier. Must happen to assistants a lot though, and nurses, support workers and the like. I am suprised we never really had any training about it.

Stop, children whats that sound?

2009-05-12T22:25:00.003+01:00

Completely innappropriate humour alert, especially considering we work for a charity.

"The N.S.P.C.C had a charity ball where well known musicians had to donate an item for an auction. Eric Clapton donated a guitar, Elton John donated a piano, and Gary Glitter gave the kids a fiddle."

This joke has been bandied around the building and even now its a gift that keeps on giving. Especially if delivered in a po-faced voice as if its a bit of legit work related news. Its genius lies in the way the recipient takes it at face value before you see them stop and think "wait a second!".

However, it does make me think that settings like this (and mental health), give rise to the darkest, sickest humour out there. Its understandable I guess at some level, just to let off steam and disarm the darker elements of what we do. I am incredibly lucky to work in a place where it is seen as just that, but I have had friends who have been bollocked for saying similar things by hatchet faced killjoys who are looking for offence.

Still, probably won't be saying it to my boss though.

Take me away

2009-05-11T19:02:00.003+01:00

I don't own a telly.

I usually use the net, or if I have to watch anything use iplayer or some plug in to watch a particular episode or I buy DVDs. As you can probably imagine I don't have a TV licence for the simple reason I don't need one (and the additional reason I quite like my money being mine rather than the TV licensing people's).

That does not stop them sending quite threatening letters to my address warning me of fines, jail terms and destitution. If I actually paid attention to their warning letters with their scary red text blazing across the top, I would probably be fearing some kind of deportation to a TV licence avoiders penal colony island somewhere.

Part of me thinks maybe if I call them and tell them I dont have a TV they will stop. But then I think hang on, surely the onus is on them to find out if I have a TV or not?. I mean no one else sends threatening random bills out when there is nothing to pay for, why the hell should I do their work for them?

And the other part of me thinks just let them come. What are they going to do? Are they going to kick my door down? Without a warrant? How come with all their threats of sophisticated vans, detectors and army of fascist jackbooted licence collectors they still address me as "The occupier" and don't mention my name? If they come, they come. Its going to be a smaller scale repeat of looking for WMDs in Iraq.

Still I don't like the threatening, bullying tone of the letters. They seem scaremongering and the sort of thing that loansharks would do rather than a branch of government.

Vertigo

2009-05-06T18:51:00.006+01:00

We get work experience kids coming to work for us. We usually have an intern or two hanging around the place. They get to sit around, observe us do our work and we let them do a few tasks so they get some sense of contributing. I hope they generally have a good time. We go out of our way in fact to make sure they have a positive experience (as they will hopefully spread the word about our work).

I quite like having them around and always wondered how they saw us. I found out today when I overheard one in the toilet on her mobile:

"... yeah mum. Its like going really well. My manager seems to know everything. No, she is friendly and stuff but I am just scared in case I mess up and she gets angry at me..."

I initially thought she meant the general manager (my boss) but then quickly realised that she has never met her, and has nothing to do with her. In fact the girl was talking about me! She was assigned to me and I was giving her jobs to do, so duh, that made me "her manager" in her eyes.

Aw bless.

Then it made me feel suddenly ancient, and its weird to think she is scared of me. I really dont see myself like that. Still, if she hasnt worked before, I am the nearest thing she has to a first boss and its probably understandable. I wonder what I would have been like in her work experience position. Sweet and adorable and eager to learn from my all knowing manager I would like to think, but knowing me I would probably be complaining all the time that I was missing Neighbours.

Patience

2009-05-05T20:40:00.002+01:00

I arrive at work this morning to a deserted office. The place as silent as a tomb. This isn't good and I half expect to be jumped by a serial killer in a hockey mask. Then I notice the red flashing light on the answerphone.

"Hi, this is Jane, I don't think I will come in this morning as I may have swine flu...".

Hmm. Call me callous, but I don't think that the others have been struck down by the pandemic, but more likely that the frightening quantities of alcohol we consumed on our "bank holiday bender". Trust me, the only thing mexican we came into contact with was a bottle Jose Cuerva. (I saw we, but I really mean they, as I was the designated driver).

That explains Jane, Priya and half a dozen of the others, but what about the "sensible mums" and the few men that populated the office? Someone had phoned around and said "best not risk it" so the management sent an email around not to come in. Just to be on the safe side.

Ordinarily I would welcome an extended bank holiday but a) I had already come in, b) I actually had a deadline to reach, so it felt like I was working on the Mary Celeste all day. Part of me suspects that (admittedly a wicked and overcynical part of me) suspects that they would jump at any reason to take a day off. They probably shut the place down when Princess Diana died to allow the staff "to cope with their grief".

No no no

2009-05-03T09:45:00.003+01:00

Worryingly I have started to take bank holiday weekends as a natural entitlement. This acclimatisation was quick even for me considering this is really the first time I have had them in any real way. I have now started to see them as a natural birthright that I am entitled to, like air and sunlight, and have forgotten all about the NHS shift workers, the holiday employees and other non 9-5er waifs and strays in the neverending labour machine. I even found myself complaining at drinks on Friday evening that a single Monday wasn't enough and we should be back to work on Thursday.

Truly, how soon we forget. I half expect the old RLJ to jump in a time machine, forward herself here and then slap me for being so damn ungrateful.

Little Lies

2009-04-30T18:04:00.003+01:00

The saga continues.

We contacted the main guy in the unholy trinity to raise our objections to the way that our funding has been squandered. The man (lets call him Alan) rants and rails at our fairly simple request to actually do what they said they would do in their initial proposal. He calls us dinosaurs and tells us we are afraid of embracing new methods. For a good 50 minutes.

Not true. We just want to embrace methods that a) actually work and b) have actually been started. This is quite similar to the kind of reaction that a few alternative and complementary therapy practitioners have given us ("We don't really have any evidence or evaluation of our work, but don't worry about that. We all know science is just some kind of conspiracy to keep the masses down."). He then tells us his trendy new way will work, but we have to give him more time and more money...

Now you can see where we are going with this. I reckon we should basically chalk this down to experience, say we made a bad call on this one and walk away. Hell, none of us are perfect. Sure it sucks that the money should have gone to a better project, but we can't have known it defintely was a waste beforehand. However, there is some recent red-tape around applying for additional funding, and we have to give this guy a hearing.

I fear this one is going to run and run.

Anyway, hopefully my case of angry bitch-itis will be soothed by the upcoming bank holiday. Another one! Already! I feel so spoiled even though everyone else seems to take it for granted. I feel like a poor heroine in a Roald Dahl story who was bought up by nasty step aunts and kept in the cellar, but is now able to have chocolate whenever she wants thanks to a magic pigeon she befriended.

Joker and the Thief

2009-04-29T23:29:00.004+01:00

It must be anger week at RLJ, but this time it is something actually quite important. Apologies for the vagueness, but anonymity prevails etc etc. Hopefully you still get the gist.

The charity that I spend my days at frequently receives funding requests from various projects, enterprises and initiatives to help the vulnerable and often silenced groups we advocate on the behalf of. The majority of these are very worthy causes, and really do help people who need it often at a grass roots, local level. The schemes or initiatives are usually well thought out, make an active difference and the funding we provide have a visible impact. Although, I feel all of us could do more times are tough, and its genuinely moving to see people give their spare time, resources and effort to help. Its not a hot or "en vogue" cause, so we don't often get on the media or have huge numbers of celebrities that plug us, but we do have benefactors, regular donors and our fundraising drives normally do quite well. Evidently well intentioned people are giving money that is donated in the spirit of doing some good.

Which is why its equally heartbreaking and blood boiling when some squalid little chancer "plays the system".

I had my doubts about scheme X when the proposal first landed on my desk. It seemed to be spearheaded by a trio (who I will refer to as the unholy trinity) who were advocating this "radical new approach" to dealing with a certain mental disorder and they had shown that this had worked amazingly with a range of other conditions ranging from Autism to ADHD.

Great, if it worked right?

I first smelt a rat when I tried to read the evaluation reports, published studies and associated material and got very little other than press releases and the odd article in a local village newspaper. I asked for more details and was amazed to find: a) most of the material was blatant self publicity, b) most of it seemed to almost function as an advert or feeder-referral service for costly "additional workshops/ sessions" that were run by (you guessed it) the unholy trinity making the proposal.

I passed on my comments and concluded that there were better ways for us to allocate funds. However, clearly the unholy trinity had friends in high, high places and lo and behold we end up giving them some money. At this point, I was happy to concede that I may be wrong, I am quite new to this game, that the funds may end up doing some good and I was being my usual cynical, arsey self.

We normally request a report regarding whatever we commission after a given time period. The report basically fills us in on whats been happening, any initial results or are there any hiccups that may need smoothing out. Its part operational, but also part courtesy as well. Lets just say we didn't get a report from the unholy trinity. Several later requests were also met with deafening silence.

So last week we get to the end of my rag, and along with my arsekicking boss we start making vaguely scary noises. Over the next few days they reluctantly send us stuff that may as well be in code. From what we gather they have spent the money on

- glossy looking adverts that promise the earth.
- Three away day "fact finding" trips.
- Half hearted gatherings where little is said, and even less is done.
- Miscellaneous expenses.

It kills me that we have been party to this criminal wastage. I may not understand the higher politics but I can't help but think of all of our supporters who shake tins in supermarkets or spend their Saturdays raising awareness to have opportunistic scum like the unholy trinity take advantage of them (and us).

It doesn't undo the good work the charity does 99% of the time, but I am not suprised with the suspicion that does spring up around organisations using their money properly.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

2009-04-28T23:16:00.005+01:00

Trust my luck. On the day I have the largest post collection in some time, my boss keeps me back at work late. It seems that my last post has pissed people off. Fair enough, in retrospect it was quite ranty even for my standards. So you may be expecting at this point I say sorry, climb down and say I never wished to offend anyone.

Right readers?

The comments were interesting and I guess since people took the trouble to post, the least I can do is reply.

Anonymous 1 points out:

Also, at the risk of sounding bitchy myself, i'd just like to point out that some of the things you criticise members of clinpsy and psyclick for you're guilty of yourself.
Exhibit A: This blog.....evidence of self obsession
Exhibit B: Comments you've made about Spiny with regards to her getting married and getting invited to a course interview.

I quite agree. Guilty on all charges. In my defence I would say its hard to have a blog without having a degree of self obsession, because a blog is basically saying to the internet "I AM VERY INTERESTING AND YOU SHOULD READ ABOUT ME". Unless your blog is about traffic and weather reporting or something very factual.

Pretty much most of your blog entries are rather bitchy....and at one point you were pursing clincial psychology, does that mean clients should fear being referred to you in a professional capacity?

Quite true. I left the field for a combination of factors, but one of them was the notion my true personality didn't really fit with the "nice and happy" mentality of therapy. Kudos to those of you that can, but lets be honest it never really was me and maybe my clients would have suffered. For all the heartache and complaints, maybe its a sign that the filtering system of interviews actually works? It may be why I never made the final cut off the reservelist.

Mind you, if I was to be charged as guilty I certainly wouldn't be sent down alone.

Sonia: Don't worry. The world of psychology isn't like this all the time.

The everlovin Spatch says (in pink because I know he will hate it):

I really wonder if this is more a about reaction about people getting together and backbiting/ bringing down the efforts of others? Or could it be something about the inevitable "bitchiness" that comes with a such a competitive field and the inherent "us vs them" dynamics that can be seen throughout psychology? Or maybe feeling the need to defend friends or those you have an affinity for?

Bloody hell sweetie. This sounds like you ripped this from a systemic therapy text book. I am quite tempted to write that you are wrong and a cigar is just a cigar in this case, but you know what? In your own way you are right. I don't like people ganging up on others, especially when they are trying to create something positive & dont answer back, and their critics have nothing to contribute apart from spite.

And of course I am going to defend my friends, you should know that more than anyone dahling.

Anonymous 2 wrote:

Just to echo some previous comments, your personal criticisms about specific members of psyclick are very harsh and unwarranted... In my opinion (and seemingly that of others) you display exactly the same characteristics you have criticised others of.

Harsh, possibly. Unwarranted? hmm. They still appear moany, bitchy and backstabbing
At this point I would like to note that the critcisms made tend to focus on my actions and I can be accused of hypocrisy and being a megabitch myself (again quite rightly in all probability) . This being true still does not take away from the bitchy and mean spirited nature of the others I pointed out. By criticising me I am I right in assuming you condone their hateful behaviour in denigrating clinpsy? Or is it a case of them being allowed to behave in one way, but myself having to behave in another?

Psychologists are not perfect, but everyone has to accept that people will sometimes hold you accountable for your words. And if you combine with others to have a bitchfest, you have to take the chance that people will do the same to you.

As I have here.

I could easily have deleted the negative comments or blanked it out but I take the comments in the "food for thought" spirit.

And finally.

Anonymous 3 said:

Oh for goodness sake, let the girl express herself in the way she wants to in her own blog!

Mwah and big hugs.
Whoever you are, you are a star.

Right. Now hopefully thats all done and dusted, business as usual on the morrow.

Two Tribes

2009-04-27T18:17:00.003+01:00

Topical post alert. Apologies if you have never heard of either clinpsy or psyclick.

I always thought the rivalry between clinpsy and psyclick was similar to two bald men fighting over a comb. Fairly needless and beneath the dignity of both. Some prefer one or the other, most probably check out both and don't say very much. If I am being honest both are not as good as they used to be (probably because I dont post as much as I used to in bygone years. Don't need to), but I don't say either is surplus to requirements because there should be several sites that appeal to all sorts.

You may prefer the well organised, professional ClinPsy or you may see them as smug and patriarchal. Or you could love psyclick for its anarchic, free spirited nature, or see it as spam filled, over angsty and become sick of the same questions being asked again and again. Your view.

Live and let live y'all. I liked them both because of their community more than anything else. I have friends on both boards. Then I came across this post which made me re-think things:

http://forum.psyclick.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=11709&start=0

Yeah, you may think people are having a moan and are entitled to it. I see it differently. Towards the end of the thread two things seem to happen -

Firstly, the main posters have made up their own clique. In all likelihood they are as equally as tyranical about the status quo, intimidating and self obsessed as the people they supposedly criticise. They often proclaim themselves to be anti THE SYSTEM, and unorthodox, and on the fringes, but they are equally as self congratulatory and territorial as Russ, Miriam et al ever were. They too are in the process of forming their own in-group that will dominate, and eventually supress those they disagree with (that is if the spam doesnt drown them out).

Secondly it gets malicious. Bear in mind these are supposed to be clinical psychologists one day, yet they seem to delight in pouring scorn on the efforts of others. Fine, they may not agree with their opposition but when the opposition is not even there to defend themselves it becomes the mean spirited and spiteful aspect of clinical psychology that was one of the key reasons why I left that field in the first place.

The comments are worrying for a group of people that are suppsosed to be empathic and good natured. I would honestly fear if I was referred to any of them as a patient and would really hope I or anyone I care about never meet them in a professional capacity. They are a disgrace to any branch of psychology and should be no were near vulnerable people.

I wouldn't be suprised if my arch nemesis Spiny was one of these people : -

Jane Doe = chronically pissy trainee, who is so miserable yet doesn't do what any normal person would and get out. More angst than the combined Fallout Boy/ My Chemical Romance/ Good Charlotte fan club. Newsflash. No one gives a shit, and many would kill to be in your position. If you don't like it leave. For the sake of your future clients at least.

K= This woman posts a reply to literally anything. Nothing escapes her radar and she never fails to pitch in her two cents regardless of the laws of inanity. I will be the first to admit I have too much time on my hands, but I really think K takes the gold on living on the net.

Dark Ruble= Self appointed rebel and humourist, if bad language and pointless baiting constitute "funny". The only thing this guy proves is that "bullying is acceptable on psyclick as long as you can make others laugh".

I would like to say that they are anomalies but they are representative of some of the nastier assistants I met in my time in psychology land. Reading that thread makes me SO happy that I never have to see any of them ever again.

I Have Not Been to Oxford Town

2009-04-25T14:36:00.003+01:00

Sitting in a bar in Oxford that is trying a bit too hard to be trendy, I meet up with an old university friend. She works for local government now, but there was a time where we would sit in extremely boring research methods lectures and keep a low voiced running commentary about the beardy lecturer. Major chart hits produced by this duo include: "Does he realise how boring he is?", "Have you done last weeks assignment?", "Did you see him perve over Gemma's low cut top" and the unforgettable summertime smash "How much time do we have left ?/ God its got to be 4 o'clock by now".

It's always gossipy when we meet, because we do meet infrequently. When we do we talk non-stop to make up for lost time. In this instance she reminds me about Emma with whom we went to uni with. In short, Emma simply did not realise it was appropriate to shut the fuck up. I hasten to add I was not the most vocal of people in lectures (still am not), but Emma more than made up for my deficiency. She was the mistress of the inane question and there was no subject that was too stupid for comment. " Why are babies small?" is one of her all time classics.

Emma, like the rest of the bloody universe, is getting married. We are SO tempted to turn up to the service and at the bit where the vicar says "Does anyone know of any lawful impediment why these two should not be married", we would pipe up "What do you mean 'married'?", "Does impediment include the fact they may be related but not know it?" and then ask "Is this going to be on the exam?".

We laughed so hard and (her) so loudly I think the manager of the bar thinking we were on some kind of day release program.

Toys in the attic

2009-04-23T19:06:00.003+01:00

Since I have moved, I have put off sifting through the piles and piles of documents that I have accumulated across the last decade. Due to my current living circumstances (limited space, but it is entirely my own so I give a shit) I have decided to bite the bullet and start clearing out what stays (very few things) and what goes (most of it).

Some of it is nostalgic, like watching one of those lookback clips in a "best of" TV show. Look there is that NHS Health and Safety module I did. Can I bring myself to throw away that Health Psychology text book that cost me a bomb as an undergrad that I never even opened? I definitely cant be arsed to e-bay it, and any remorse that I had spending so much has long gone with the knowledge I would have probably spent it on WKD. Oh look there is that flyer from that club night where we went to where I, Charlotte, Sarah or all three ended up being sick in the toilet. Do I really need those cinema tickets for American Pie 3: American Wedding? (I am not even going to ask why I saw this, but why did I think I should keep the tickets?). Its so nostalgic, its like stepping into a time machine.

Even still, I have to ask why did I store this crap and cart it around 4 different homes? Why did I think I may need half of it? Was I ever likely to need instructions to assemble an IKEA desk ever again? Half of this stuff belongs to ex's, ex flatmates, or ex flatmates ex's.

Even just looking around I realise I am going to need a skip. Or I could just do what I was doing before and pile it back into the cupboards and leave it for another time.

Loser

2009-04-22T18:01:00.003+01:00

I was watching breakfast TV as you do in the morning in that period while you are still waking up. Dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown I was munching on my Coco Pops idly wondering if I could pull a sickie because it is such a nice day, when I saw Serena Lawson* suddenly appear on the telly on the sofa next to the host. Serena had been to secondary school with me and was one of those people that effortlessly blended into the background like a chameleon. To see her a) out of her school uniform, b) on the set of breakfast telly was as surreal as suddenly seeing your dad presenting on MTV.

Breakfast cereal was spilt as I hunted around the room to pick up the remote and put the volume up. I wish I hadn't. Serena was part of a feature which was superficially about the credit crunch. What it really was, was an exercise at laughing at feckless spendthrifts who evidently lived wildly beyond their means.

I say this despite being completely in debt myself. What I am not though is completely deluded about money from nice men from VISA being a gift which they are giving to you because you are lovely. Serena, to all intents and purposes, was. She was blaming banks, credit cards, shops, you name it. I think she would have even blamed Lord Sooty from the Beano if she had been able to think about it. Basically anyone but her. All the while the host nodded soothingly and encouraged her to talk about bank bail outs. I had to ask at this point, does any of this qualify Serena to talk about good financial management? Surely thats like asking Anne Widdicome to talk about sex advice?

Anyway, Serena was patronised a little longer then there was a move to another item about the woman who was singing on Britain's got Talent. Another one.

When I did eventually grace my workplace, I naturally logged into internet forum acompanying the program (as you do, along with that first cup of coffee) and lo and behold the entire board had their knives out regarding Serena. Everything from what she was wearing (sample comment "She surely should have spent some of the money on decent clothes") to her morality ("Its people like her that put us in this mess in the first place"). It was like being around the village stocks in the medieval period.

What I wanted to ask (but didn't) Serena was "Why would you do that to yourself?" Did she honestly believe she would come across like some chip and pin version of Robin Hood? Hopefully she wont have read some of the comments but you know thats unlikely.

Tempted to facebook her, though probably not the best time.

*Note: not real name

Viva la Vida

2009-04-21T20:37:00.002+01:00

Some of you may be curious about what I now actually do.

Well, its a bit complicated, but not really. I spend most of my time giggling with Priya and Jane, who are like Charlotte and Sarah used to be before boring boyfriends and unbridled promiscuity warped them out of shape. Ostensibly we coordinate fundraising events, promotion of the charity and what is ominously termed "general administrative function" but pretty much means everything else from typesetting pamphlets to setting up websites.

We also get to boss around the regional offices which is great for my ego. Less so for my karma.

Its really quite different from being an assistant as it is more managerial or white collar. I very rarely get to see the group of people my charity helps. I do talk to some psychologists still, usually when they want something from us. It is a bit of a head trip after being turned down for years by various psychologists to suddenly me having to turn them down.

The best thing is the constant Youtubing, skyping and MSNing which our boss doesnt mind but my ex supervisor would have gone mental about. Its far more relaxed and less "stuck up" than the NHS, but there are very real fears around money which I felt wasn't ever real in the NHS (budgets there were more like monopoly money).

What is best of all there is no bitchiness, well at least that I am exposed to. No assitant groups where you are expected to hear all about how someone else did, no stepping on others turf accidentally.

Could do with a few more men though. Attractive ones preferably.

The Long Walk

2009-04-20T18:13:00.004+01:00

On my lovely long Easter holiday, I had the pleasure of reading a book that had previously been recommended to me called "The Long Walk" by Stephen King.

The book is set in a dystopian near future, where the USA is in the grip of a tyrannical regime lead by the Major. The most celebrated national event is the Long Walk- a yearly endurance contest where 100 participants, who are selected from the many applicants, compete .

The Long Walk itself is simple, you just have to walk. However, each walker must maintain a minimum speed of 4 miles per hour. No rests or breaks allowed. If you go below this speed for a total of 30 seconds they get a verbal warning. After three warnings you are "ticketed" (i.e. shot through the head by one of the soldiers that accompany you on trucks). The race continues until one is left walking. This lucky winner receives a mysterious reward known only as The Prize.

Call me melodramatic but does any of this sound familiar?

I know its not quite the same as being shot through the head, but it does feel like "being ticketed" every time I got one of those letters saying " Sorry but due to the high quality of applicants...". In the story contestants have actually tried to crawl at 4 mph in order to survive after their legs gave out. Several characters completely breakdown, and most have some mental degeneration from the stress and lack of proper sleep. (Sounds like talking to most of the trainees I have met then).

Still it was a great read, and I highly recommend it for anyone applying this year.

PS. Speaking of great reads, why not check out the new psychology blogs I have linked to at the side.

Killer Queen

2009-04-17T17:53:00.002+01:00

The Easter holiday is now officially over and I am back to earth with a bump. I have learned 3 things.

1) No matter how good your holiday is, nothing puts a dampner on it like stepping back into the English drizzle. Ditto gas bill.

2) What you save in money on Easyjet plane fares you pay back double in the cost of your mental health.

3) Drunken tossers on Easyjet going to Magaluf (or Shag-aluf as they so politely called it) are not the best travelling companions. Your stale BO and Stella tinged breath are not in the least bit sexy, neither is the compulsion to scream to your mates sitting in the aisle behind you "Awooga" every 15 minutes. This gets tiring quick. Also the best way to be communicating to a woman you wish to chat up should not be by using the sort of innuendo that would be rejected by a 1970s Carry on film.

But on the plus side Jane is bringing CAKE in on Monday. So that will certainly take the sting out of the Monday morning blues.

Holiday

2009-04-09T18:09:00.003+01:00

Bank Holidays are good. But they really are not as good as the day before your bank holiday officially starts.

Bank Holidays are quite a new invention for me, as when I was a lowly assistant a perverse sense of machismo meant that I would not really take them off. My ex-supervisor didn't (or more accurately would be working privately during that time) which meant that I couldn't either. So I would be hanging around a deserted workplace while everyone else with far better sense would be sleeping in an watching the bank holiday Bond film. To say it sucked like a grandmother with a Murray mint would be an understatement.

Now its a different story.

I am not getting up before noon and plan to spend an obscene amount of time, money and braincells at the pub with my old university friends who are visiting -and after that I will have Saturday to get through. This is probably not news for most people but for me its like a 80 year old man discovering the internet for the first time.

"Paid state holidays! That everyone gets? What will they think of next!"

and after the bank holiday, my proper annual leave holiday starts! It really doesnt get any better than this. Its only now I look back and realise how hard it was before and how I used to get by on so little. Its quite sad in its own way, or you can think I could have stayed like that forever (or you know what I mean) and was lucky to get away now.

Enjoy it folks (assuming you get them).

Shut up

2009-04-08T20:36:00.002+01:00

They really need to invent a facebook group called "I am getting married and won't shut up about it". They can liase with "I am travelling to India/Thailand/somewhere else equally 'out there' and won't shut up about it" and the "I have bought a new house and won't shut up about it" facebook groups and oh, I dont know, all get in a bus and drive over a cliff somewhere.

I hear Switzerland is nice.

Its not that I begrudge them happiness. Not at all. Its just when your feed is clogged up with smug self-congratulatory behaviour that you have to wade through when you log on. Yeah, great. It just means that when you get back from whatever you are going to bore me with your photos. Or needlessly drop it into conversation when talking about something completely different (e.g "Oh in India they don't even have Brown sauce")

Okay I realise the innate hypocrisy of this coming from someone who is blogging to the public. In my defense I am not going to come around to your home on a Saturday night and dominate the conversation with whatever I have happened to post here. Then expect you to read about it in your own time. Then spend the next 6 months telling you how great it all was and you should really try it yourself.

Alright

2009-04-06T17:50:00.003+01:00

Too often we dwell on the negatives.

I have just spent a lovely Sunday sitting in my back garden, a small disposable BBQ and about a tenners worth of ingredients (including alcohol) and a paperback I have been meaning to finish for ages. And it was great. Even though nothing amazing or dramatic happened, and I didn't meet Mr Darcy at the Nether fields Ball or any such happenstance. It was just nice to while away the afternoon without any cares in the world or any nagging doubt that I spent too much on the weekend or Mr Sharp was expecting my GCSE Chemistry coursework by Monday (or the grown up version).

What is essential is to recognise the good stuff while it is happening and not to think about what great thing is happening next, or what if...? You may call it mindfulness. I call it an Ecuador Dark Magnum on a sunny day. More so, what I wasn't expecting was the relatively unhurried and unfrenzied bus journey to work, the lack of kids screaming in the school next door to the office or the chilled demeanour of everyone at work. That was all a bonus.

I am starting to get a bit suspicious that I am actually in a dream at the moment and I will wake up and grey reality will flood back, but I will worry about it when it happens. Also I don't think my dreams are so detailed that they have the "Warning! Fire resistant" tags on the sofa which I still haven't removed, that I am currently staring at. If I really dream in such intense unnecessary detail it really is quite disturbing.

Crazy

2009-04-03T18:46:00.002+01:00

It has been an intense 48 hours. Our boss has been on the rampage after Jane's "incident" on April's fools day and we have been lined up outside her office like naughty schoolgirls called before the headmaster. Even though technically Priya and I haven't don't anything wrong I guess we are the fellow consipirators alongside Jane's Guy Fawkes. So after a chewing out about professionalism and the impact of the recession (among other things), where I thought I may actually burst into tears and snivel "I am sorry, I will never do it again", we were let out. But this isn't the end of it.

Pah! The apprentices know NOTHING about fear in the boardroom. Nothing.

God do I deserve this weekend. I am going to get SO drunk I may forget the ability to write for the next few days.

Trouble

2009-04-01T22:12:00.000+01:00

April Fools day. Always fun and games until someone starts crying.

I handed the phone over to Jane, saying it was one of our larger contributors and patrons. I said that he was hoping to fly her over to Switzerland for an all expenses paid trip and colloquia about fundraising.

Jane, already on her guard, assumed it was a joke and grabbed the phone. She politely listened and then proceeded to tell the person on the other end that she would only come out if it was a first class ticket on BA, and she would not under any circumstances stay at anything less than 5 star accomodation. Oh yes and there had better be a car waiting for her at the airport or there would be hell to pay. The line went dead and Jane smugly looked up at me with the look that said "nice try".

Only it wasnt a joke.

Oh dear. I guess she must have overlooked the fake "wet paint" signs I placed in the office.

Long time coming

2009-03-31T19:08:00.005+01:00

Flashback cont'd

I remember a famous philosopher once said "There are some consolations to crappy jobs". I think he was talking about the philosophy graduate nicking Mars bars from the newskiosk he worked at, or that future pulitzer prize winning author working in Pizza Hut experiencing the fleeting joys of experimenting with two pizzas stacked together, like a mutant giant cheese sandwich, through the funny conveyer belt pizza oven thing.

My research assistant post also gave me certain joys. The joy of solitude whilst feeding meaningless numbers into a spreadsheet. Photocopying can be an exercise in mindfulness, but also a way to achieve a zen like trance. Having a self styled "Senior RA" throw his weight around was a useful introduction to the world of heirarchy and accepting that complete tools will try to impose their will on you for the most arbitrary of reasons.

All that aside, while I was paid for this job (below minimum wage I might add, and usually conned out of overtime) I would still say this job was exploitative. It took someone who was naive, trusting and eager to do a job, and sold them the idea that this job would develop them. It promised relevant experience, was termed a "graduate job" and evidently I was not the only one that wanted to have it. Instead I can say I got almost nothing out of that time. I wasn't expecting to walk into a consultant psycholgist job or anything, but I wasnt expecting to do the sort of work that I could have done working for Office Angels for much more at the time.

The next person who did my job actually ended up doing it for free. For a year.

I guess there beats the dark heart of psychology. It runs on the sweat and tears of the innocent and desparate and lures them in with hope. That famous study, the nationwide audit that a prolific doctor headed up, the academic papers that we read more often than not are all built on a foundation of temporary contracts, "experience" jobs, and corner office sweatshops. What does it say when the BPS have to produce guidelines in the Employment of Assistant Psychologist that expressly forbid the use of cheap or free graduate labour in order to do entirely clerical jobs? Shouldn't psychologists abide by morals, standards or just general empathy?

The "nice" lady who suckered me into this job is now a senior figure, and frequently makes empassioned pleas about "empowering" service users, being fair to those without and those without a voice. But what about those audit drudges that were underemployed and underpaid? The abusive, stuck up senior RA went on to become a forensic psychologist and from all accounts still lords it up over his assistants. If there was one lesson I did learn from my time there is that the idea of justice doesnt really hold up in the real world.

This article in the guardian talks of how internships and the like have almost become the new "degrees" in that they are mandatory requirements to do the jobs we have supposedly been educated to do. They also effectively close the doors to those that cant work for free or need to secure a living wage. The assistant system is not really any different. A huge number of bright, motivated and eager demi-professionals often prop up services. Until recently they were very underpaid considering the hoops they had to jump through.

It doesnt have to be like this. In my current place of work, we have an unpaid intern (not a psychology student) on a placement year from a university. He gets time off to study, his own desk, and is a valued member of the team. Yeah, he makes the tea, but apart from that we dont abuse his trust or use him as a personal errand boy. If a charity that is run on public donations and held together by sellotape and good will can treat its interns better than a profession that bases itself on compassion and empathy, what message does that send out?

When you were young

2009-03-30T18:42:00.004+01:00

Flashback.

Picture the scene. Its the early 2000s. Y2k virus hasn't wiped us out and our government is still looking for weapons of mass destruction. Somewhere in a largeish British city a fresh young naively optimistic graduate is looking for "relevant experience". We will skip the part where she is photocopying CVs and on first name terms with the post office clerk and jump straight into a dank basement in a hospital.

A young waif sits there near a battered Cannon photocopier where she is kept warm from the light of the scanning tray. Autumn outside passes, while she does what ironically she has spent the preceeding few months doing in order to get this job. Copying pieces of paper. The "nice" lady who had kept her waiting while their first choice for this job uhmmed and ahhed before pissing off to Bali, had assured her that her skills and talents picked up on her degree would come in handy.

They certainly had.

So far she had had to invent excuses for being late (The dog ate my train), and using those staying awake through tedium skills painfully gained from her research methods lectures. By the end of her tenure at Stalag basement she would also have developed the immunity to strange illnesses all freshers have. Unfortunately the job itself had relatively little to do with psychology apart from introducing her to some networking contacts.

Endless photocopying, tea making, and sitting quietly while your superior interviews research participants (very badly in retrospect) can certainly be counted as "experience". Experience about how to conduct a uniquely demoralising punishment if one was asked to manage Hell. Still, the thing is I didn't know better at the time. I honestly didn't. I just thought this is what Research assistants did and it took 6 months for me to get a clue, hand in my notice and escape. To the dole queue. True, but Steve McQueen didn't whine in The Great Escape, and neither did I.

In hindsight, the Bali girl had the right idea and spent the time sunning herself on a beach, instead of trying to acquire a tan from the photocopier light.

Where did you go?

2009-03-28T14:22:00.004Z

The more sharper among you may have noticed I have taken down the old poll and put up a new one. I feel I am at the crossroads where I could take the blog in several directions and was wondering about what to cover in the future. While it really isnt going to be massively different (I am not going to start covering WWF wrestling or anything) I would be interested in what people actually are more interested in reading.

So if you havent please do vote at the side. If anyone is feeling brave, they could even leave a comment.

Right. That's all. As you were. I am off to the pub.

Fools Gold

2009-03-27T20:28:00.002Z

Its April the first soon. I haven't been in here long, but I have already caught wind of the "anything goes" culture come April fools day. Its quite brutal. Last year Priya called up Jane pretending to be from the IT department saying she has been busted for spending too much time on the internet. Jane was overwhelmed and spent an hour about agonising over how she was going to explain her heavy daily mail online usage to an unsympathetic IT bod.

This was not entirely undeserved. The previous year Jane had a friend call up Priya and the person that was in my post (Claire) pretending to be from BBC radio and doing a feature on the charity. The friend then proceeded to ask lots of embarassing personal questions apparently live on air. (Think along the lines of "If you had to snog one of the following to secure a large donation who would it be a)Alan Sugar, b) Richard Branson, c)Bill Gates"). If that wasn't insulting enough, both Priya and Claire had actually called their parents to tell them they would be live on the radio...

I know that because I am the new girl this year, they WILL try it on with me, so I intend to be on my guard. In addition to that I am scheming of a couple of things myself, but I am open to suggestions. If anyone is hit by inspiration let me know. At the moment I am planning to be an irate client as a bit of a wind up, but I am sure I can think of something better come next week. Muahaha.

Take me higher

2009-03-25T18:29:00.002Z

Happy today. The weather outside was beautiful and for some strange reason we had to go outside to do our mandatory fire training. Then wait around for the bloke to turn up. Who didn't. But that didn't stop Jane, Priya and I sipping Mocha Frappe's and reading Closer and talking crap, out in the sunshine.

For the whole afternoon.
Completely uninterrupted.

God bless Microsoft Outlook calender block booking function.

That means I am in such a good mood, and if you have to ask me for anything (money, a place to crash, drugs, food) you will probably get it*. If only everyday could be like today I am sure there would be far less war, heartache, Jeremy Kyle victims-of-society, car crashes and such. Hey, Perhaps my charity may want to promote the RLJ lifestyle initiative?

*Terms and conditions apply. Place to crash on limited availability. Money will be restricted to amounts less than £5 and replayable on demand. This does not affect your statutory rights.

Money changes everything

2009-03-24T20:10:00.003Z

I know its crass to talk about money. Forgive me. For the first time in my life I am earning a "graduate level" salary. It is a massive achievement for me, especially as I was struggling for what feels like such a long time. I had more than my fair share of going through voluntary experience positions, low paid jobs and a salary at the lower of the low end of the Agenda for Change banding (thanks crappy NHS Trust assimilation dude!).

Now I am not.

Dont get me wrong, I am not going to say I am Kanye West and am going to be providing you with advice on how to show of bling. Its still only an "average graduate salary", but what I enjoy the most is being able to hold my head up when other old university friends come up and not feel like a poor relation. I can basically do what they do without having to mentally calculate my part of the bill, forgo dessert or explain I can't go away for that weekend hen trip to Spain. Basically just being one of my peers for just once in my life.

True, some things are still beyond me like home ownership, or ever flying business class. Even so it finally feels like I can join the land of the living. I never realised what I was missing until I started actually having a paycheque that didnt feel like a punchline to a bad joke, or make me think I could earn more if I was on the dole.

Obviously I am still in hideous debt from my assistant days, but thats all starting to be paid off. Slowly. My life really hasnt changed radically (okay, more clothes and a bit more shopping). Its more about that sense of self worth and the fact that people value me enough to pay me a living wage that is making all the difference.

Why am I telling you this? Because I just saw a post for an RA job that I would have slit my throat to get 12 months ago only now I actually decided I wouldnt go for it because of the salary. Does that make me shallow and materialistic? Maybe. What it really does say is that APs, RAs and the like are massively underpaid for the amount they do, and still "they" get away with it.

Family Portrait

2009-03-23T21:20:00.003Z

My cousin is studying for her A-levels at the moment.

As you would expect she is looking for universities at the moment, and like a significant number of teenagers, wishes to study psychology. I would like to say that she is emulating the footsteps of her dear elder much loved cousin, but I would be lying. She a) finds it interesting in itself and b) fancies her psychology teacher at college. Ah well, she isnt the only one.

What is not "quite" on is on Sunday lunch in front of her extended family, when she declares her intentions to apply for six quite respectable universities her father replies "Oh, you don't want to do psychology at uni. Its not a real subject. Besides, look at RLJ, she did it and look what happened to her". Cue my mother and me becoming extremely tight lipped and pissed off.

Gah!

Ironman

2009-03-20T22:00:00.000Z

Thank god that week is over

Typical day would be that we would roll up at around 9am. I now realise that my boss is viewed by almost everyone else as this Darth Vader like figure that strides around the bridge of the Death Star barking orders at men in grey nehru jackets. I always regarded her as tough and a little intimidating, but I had no idea that when we would walk into the office of wherever people would literally stand to attention. This one poor girl actually quaked when my boss (I will refer to her as Lady Vader from now) asked her a question and stammered something completely unintelligble.

It got to the point where there was even one afternoon at one of the larger offices where we were all sitting around a large table in a grey meeting room. I was almost expecting her to lift her hand and start choking someone.

All well and good, but some of that fear/awe somehow rubbed itself onto me, so people would be overly solicitous when they saw me. Offers flooded in of tea/ coffee/ someones big leather chair/ can we send someone out for sushi for you/ how about my first born child? Unnerving when it first came, but even more unnerving when I started to get used to it, and started expecting things. I guess this is how it is for Mariah Carey. She was probably initially thrilled with the free packet of peanuts on airplanes, but then eventually got to the point where she started demanding baths of Evian water and kittens in her dressing room.

Okay, I am not that bad. Yet. And to be fair I got off lightly compared to some of the people we met (apart from that one night of tedium I wrote about a few nights ago).

Ah sweet bed, come to mamma.

Another girl, another planet

2009-03-18T19:10:00.004Z

Thank heaven for pubs with free Wi fi!

We are currently doing the round of the regional offices, and the rootless wandering is fairly non-eventful. However, I found myself yesterday after work sitting at a bar with this girl who was basically my opposite number but for the north.

Basically, its the workplace version of that thing that used to happen when you were a teenager and you went to some new friend of your mother's. She would say "Oh, don't worry, she has a daugher your age and I am sure you will have loads to talk about!". Except you dont, because she is into B*Witched, boys and the colour pink and you like Stephen King and The Cure and black eye shadow. So you stand around looking at her quite frankly worrying bedroom making the smallest of small talk counting down the seconds until your mum said it was time to go home.

It was like that but worse. My boss had decided to have a late night session with her opposite number, who aparently went to Cambridge with her, and she intimated that I should do likewise only go somewhere else with my counterpart. So there I was sitting at a bar that is like a 3rd generation photocopy of a fax of what a bar from Sex in the City. I am notable for my ability to talk to anyone, so I start off with my usual repertoire (work, news, interests), then go into my extended repertoire (books, school, family) before plumbing the depths of my emergency
small talk survival kit (men, house prices, the bloody weather). To no avail. I am up against the human version of a conversational Sahara. Nothing can grow or flourish in front of this arid, barren desert of chatlessness. I have never seen anything like it- not even when working as an Assistant psychologist in severe learning disabilities.

"Have you been working in the northen office long?"
"10 months"(silence)
"Do you like it?"
"Shrugs" (silence)
"So, have you seen any good movies recently"
"no" (more silence)

Thankfully the evening ends before I have to resort to the most extreme of common grounds "So I understand you have breasts, Wow! How about that! I do too. They are SO remarkable arent they?".

In the meantime onwards with my trek. Am missing my own bed something chronic.

Hotel California

2009-03-14T00:08:00.002Z

Okay, got a bit of a road trip up ahead. Have to go do the rounds of various regional offices so I am going to be intimately acquiainted again with the interiors of the bedrooms of various Holiday Inn Expresses. As they charge a fortune for internet access (5 quid a minute or something equally Narnia-like) it is unlikely that I will be able to update for a few days. What I will be doing is watching huge amounts of Channel 5, eating the same pain au chocolates and fruit for brekkie for seven consecutive days and hopelessly fiddling with my keycard trying fruitlessly to get my door open, before going back to the concierge who will do it first time.

What will be nice is that I willl stay the night with Sarah so can catch up.

Be good, children.

Inbetweener

2009-03-12T18:26:00.003Z

I honestly did nothing today. However, I have managed to shake off the guilt that once I would have had on a do-nothing day ("surely there is something for me to do, to improve myself, to make myself better") and actually did nothing apart from browse the Internet and plan my next holiday. Its coming soon and I am thinking Southern Europe, possibly Greece.

What credit crunch?

The change has happened in a far more dramatic fashion than I anticipated. I was one of those irritatingly proactive types that once really tried to put 150% in, and ran myself ragged trying to please everyone and achieve perfectionism. Not the worst offender, but definitely in the FBI top 100 most wanted category. Now, its fairly easy to let go. If there is nothing, then there is nothing. Not my fault those above me hadn't given me enough to do, if they don't need to make use of my time www.Amazon.com will. I like it now better than I liked it before. No unrelenting standards to live up to, just free will and gentle self direction.

Perhaps I should extend this to other areas of my life such as wearing something new everyday and bothering to shave my legs. Probably will draw the line at eating food straight from the packaging and going easy with bathroom hygiene though.

Weekend ahoy in sight although it feels like it has already started.

Guiding Star

2009-03-11T19:04:00.004Z

Priya is the ice cool, take-no-prisoner smartarse that sits on the other desk in the office. While Jane is chatty and is like a human version of the radio, Priya is like a sniper with her words. She fires a pithy comment or sarcastic line and is gone before you can even look up.

Jane- [about sister and her new beau]"Oh, and then he asked her to marry him because he said he wanted a solemate, he wanted love, he wanted..."
Priya- "Citizenship?"

I, of course, like the cut of her jib and we have a lot in common. So far she has made an excellent buddy in this new workplace and a natural friday afternoon in the pub ally. So imagine to my horror when she discusses a world of cut throat competition and endless university applications that made my own efforts pale into insignificance.

Priya wanted to go to medical school. She has applied twice when she did her A levels, once again after she did her Biology degree and several times after she did her MSc in bio-medical sciences. To no avail. Her work experience in various healthcare settings rivals mine, sat horrible exams for seemingly ever and she is smart, personable and would easily make an excellent doctor. For one there is not a patronising bone in her body. This would place her head and shoulders above my GP, who likes spelling out the simplest of concepts as if I was eight years old. Who is also uncannily obsessed with me having a smear test, although I have them frequently and am fairly sure I dont need them on a monthly basis.

So far, so tragic right? Nope. Her story starts where mine finishes. Priya has had to stomach all of her overachieving grammar school friends excel at their chosen fields. She has had to put up with her myriad of cousins all getting PhDs and becoming neurosurgeons. Hell, all I had to do is put up with a bit of assistant anxiety and a few barbs from the warpigs. From all accounts Priya has to put up with this crap in her private life. Worst of all she is reminded on a constant basis from her everloving mother and father, what a failure she is in their eyes, the eyes of god and their community (all of whom sound horrid if you ask me). Just because she doesnt have those two little letters before her name "DR".

Thinking probably best if she doesnt read this.

You would reckon that all of the above hideous unrelenting pressure would make a neurotic, suicidal wreck of a human. Thats where you are completely wrong. Priya better balanced than anyone I know and is an absolute joy and delight to be around. Funny, sarky and a genuinly decent human being. It clearly sparks that old indignation about all the dickheads getting the breaks while all the good folk suffer out in the cold.

Fuck it. If her parents dont appreciate her I will suggest I adopt her myself.

Paperback writer

2009-03-10T19:00:00.004Z

Periodically we get this bumpf of glossy written material to send out. Basically its a newsletter, the kind of breezy, self congratulatory stuff that I used to see in the NHS. You know, Mrs Pickersgill won the hand hygiene award, we raised £23.15 for Comic Relief, and there is a major level consultation about parking going ahead so watch out! More or less meaningless, but probably kept somebody somewhere in a job. Its the workplace equivelent of those naff round robin letters people send at Xmas that talk about holiday, Jemima going off to "the" university (what? Is there only one?) and how Malcolm's recent prostate operation went well. Nobody I know likes these

Anyway, my charity has its own equivelent, which has an incredibly cheesy title based on a pun to do with the sort of work we do. I really can not say it out loud without blushing a deep, deep crimson. I wish I could tell you the name, only I would completely identify myself. It's glossy and professional looking, but it is written by someone who has at best a very loose grasp of the English language. Its as if they hired someone who based their literary style on the contents of a GPs waiting room circa 1949 stocked with People's friend. Twee does not even begin to describe it. There is even a story about an elderly lady from what I gather hasn't actually done very much apart from live until 90. Thats not a story, that's just irrelevant information.

Also they are staffed with a photographer who must have done his training in a prison. Everyone featured in the newsletter looks like a paedophile or potential rapist. Even the women. They took a photo of our receptionist, who is a fairly nice looking girl, but she looks like she is currently on remand.

Its quite bad, as we do rely a lot on PR and mobilising publicity. When I am liaising with clients I am tempted to say "I am obliged to send out our recent newsletter. Please disregard the contents, its not a reflection of the kind of things we actually feel are important".

Night train

2009-03-09T18:56:00.002Z

Jane who sits opposite me is looking at me while I am on the phone. She is 26 about 5'4 with dirty blonde hair and reminds me of Barbara Windsor (Think the early Carry On films not Peggy "Get out of ma Pub!"Mitchell from Eastenders). Ordinarily she is the chirpy, chatty life of the office.

Today she is sitting opposite me trying to get me to laugh while I am talking to some German bloke on some supply deal. She starts by whispering fairly stupid comments like "Ask if he has a big bratwurst for lunch!" or "Tell him you have to call him back because a lion is in the office".

I am a pro. I can easily play her at ther game and am able to keep my cool.

She continues to up the ante. She starts making monkey faces and pretending to play her keyboard like a piano.

I still don't crack. Pah! Amateur.

She then writes furiously on her spiral bound legal pad in thick magic marker before turning it around and showing it to me. The message reads "Ask if he poos on his wife's chest. They all like that in Germany".

"Mr Schmidt. I am afraid I will have to call you back. Somethings just come up".

Cow.

All along the watchtower

2009-03-08T22:34:00.003Z

If you haven't seen Watchmen, go and see it. Go on. I'll wait.

Back. Yep, told you didn't I? Always a fan of the book, but to be honest I thought it may turn out to be a bit crap. It was an epic sprawling story of comic book heros, impending nuclear war and psychological dysfunction and obviously they had to miss some of the stuff out, but they got more right than wrong.

However, it got me thinking that if there was a film based on a former best selling graphic novel about my life I would prefer it if there wasn't a distracting 10-inch penis dangling around whenever an important point was being made. Or maybe there would and the real tragedy of my life is not paying enough attention when said appendage appeared on the scene.

Okay, lets change the subject.

The best thing about Sundays now is that I don't dread mondays. That soul destroying cultivating of motivation and grim antique roadshow watching before school on Monday stayed with me until my late 20s. Now I can spend Sundays doing enjoyable activities like going to the cinema and the like without thinking every few minutes "Shit! Its Monday. We cant have too much fun". Hey, I havent got homework to do, there isn't double maths with Mr "Vinegar odour" Henshaw any more first thing on Monday and I am spending the rest of the evening with my head buzzing about superheroes. At this rate I could invent some sort of anti-nostalgia based on how crap the past was and talking about the "good current days" with the internet and decent coffee franchises.

Across 110th street

2009-03-06T18:24:00.000Z

Okay. I have officially crossed the line.

I was sitting in my office. The intern came over and asked me if I wanted anything. I thought about it for a second, and I fucked him. Right there at my desk. No. Just kidding. What I really did was I asked him to make me a coffee. "White, one sugar" as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Then, when he came back, I asked him to photocopy some information pamphlets.

Big deal you might think. What is so strange about that? Well, you see until recently I was that intern! (metaphorically I mean. Not literally, as the intern is actually another person). I was the one fetching coffees and taking minutes and doing that general dogsbody stuff. Back then I swore that once I was in a position over someone else, I would do my own dirty work and not subject anyone else to any undignified errand running. It took about 5 months before that resolution was conveniently forgotten.

True the intern actually was looking for something to do and I was busy. Then again I am sure they probably used such excuses in Nazi Germany. So now I am wondering if I am on the slippery slope of clicking my fingers at waiters, bawling at my secretary and screaming at PAs if they bring me a latte instead of a machiato. Probably going a bit overboard, but there is a part of me that worries that the intern is going back to his cubicle and start working on a version of "The devil wears prada" but with me as the main baddie.

Sandman

2009-03-05T18:05:00.003Z

Bah. Spiny has a clinical interview. We all know about it.

What is worse is that apparently has managed in the very brief period of time between the envelope hitting the floor and now rubbing it in the face of Justine (currently at nul point). I have had to spend most of the day consoling a wailing Justine on the phone.

It is strange being on this side of the supportive divide. "Hey, its their loss" and the old favourite "Always next year"really sound inadequate, but its better than my own attempt to improvise which was "If you took two dogs and put them in a basket and drowned that basket, but one dog escaped, the other one wouldnt feel that bad", which baffled Justine and even I don't understand it now although it felt the sensible thing to say at the time.

This telephone consolation was also a bit surreal because my own office phone policy is very lax about making long personal calls, but Justine (working in a doctors surgery front desk) understandably doesnt. This meant rather strange conversations ensured where Justine would pretend to be addressing an elderly woman about her bunion halfway through an agonised rant.

I guess this is what it must be like to be on drugs.

Justine actually seems to be gaining a dawning understanding that she has been reliving the same mistakes and there seems to be some kind of change in her thinking. However, its not exactly what I would consider logical. Its more along the lines of "maybe if I can become a psychologist I could instead become an astronaut" school of thought. I am hoping its the dissapointment, but if symptoms persist I think I will have to talk to her some more before we get to the stage where she is sick of cleaning the toilets at NASA waiting for her big break on the space shuttle.

Love in the elevator

2009-03-03T19:30:00.003Z

My boss at work is one of those enigmatic marvels. She can be simultaneously warm and compassionate, but you would not want to get on the bad side of her. I am trying hard to think of someone to drawn comparisons to, but all I can get is the owner of the bar in the film Coyote Ugly. Not that my boss is a bar dancing wildcat, but that she embodies that mix of being cool without being a pushover.

I would like to be like her, but I am also aware that I lack a certain something that gives me that presence. You see I think its the fact that deep down I still think I am 14 that undermines my attempts of being cool, but serious. Take today, when she gave a bollocking to this guy interning. There is no way I could ask someone to come into my office, then admonish them, yet expecting them to get on with work. I would go something like:

"Hi, yes, do come in. Um. So. I understand you havent been turning up to work. Well played! No. I mean that is a rather serious matter isnt it. Not that you should be made to wake up stupidly early because everyone has a different sleep patttern and I myself am a night owl, but thats beside the point. The point, the point is that you shouldn't. I mean you should. Turn up to work on time that is. Is that okay? I am sure you are very nice and everything, so don't take this the wrong way, but turning up to work at 11am really isn't on is it? I mean what would your mother think? Right, okay back to your seat then."

Yeah. I am fairly sure my boss doesn't do that. Perhaps there is a class I could attend.

Love is all around

2009-03-02T20:07:00.003Z

It's going to be a bumper year for weddings.

Sarah (ex housemate from the reservelist years, for any latecomers) is getting married soon to boring Tom, as well as another couple of friends of mine. Spiny too is getting married too from what I hear. She made sure everyone knew via facebook, mass email, announcement in the times, press conference on White house lawn.

Hopefully it will rain.

I had the first of what I will call the utterly unmemorable, memorable occasion. Cookie cutter wedding with a mediocre dress, in a mediocre venue, with a mediocre wedding dinner with a mediocre bridegroom. Just as well I am remaining anonymous really. It could honestly have been anybody's wedding, and even though it was just a few hours ago it has already faded in my memory into this one large mashup of wedding experiences. There was nothing exceptional about any of it, and I strongly suspect the best man took his speech straight from the internet.

I can imagine telling little Phillipa or Hugo (or whatever middle class nomenclature they decide on) "Of course I remember your parents wedding. Your mummy and daddy had an, um wedding. There was....music. They, um, got married."

Okay, so I am not the biggest fan of white lace, overpriced wedding cake and blistered feet from strappy sandals. I wouldn't actually mind so much if the girls suddenly become "I want to be a princess for today" school of matrimony. Except you are not a princess. None of us are. You work in a bank.

What a cynical bitch am I. Still I can rationalise its good practice for the upcoming maelstrom of holy unions. Also the prospect of getting pissed without having to pay is always something to look forward to.

Look at me

2009-02-28T16:47:00.004Z

Huge thanks to everyone that has taken the time to comment on my posts, and for actually checking this blog after most people would have probably given it up for dead. Consider yourself the hardcore committed, and in the unlikely event that this blog ever gets made into a book/movie/boardgame you can safely hand on heart say "Well I liked her before anyone else did."

However, I do actually realise that a lot of people that did used to read this have now vanished into the electronic ether and may not be aware that I am up and running again. So I would ask you faithful truebelievers to shamelessly pimp my blog in various chatrooms, forums and other nefarious internet havens you may frequent. Hate to do this, but from the poll in the corner right column a few dozen people had read this, and I am certain most have drifted away.

I obviously can't do it myself as that would be immodest and conduct unbecoming of a lady, but that doesnt stop you doing it. Maybe it could be a suggested reading for someone you know contemplating life after applying for something competitive,anyone interested in non-psychologist psychology-esque jobs or a general fan of sarcastic women?

Money for nothing

2009-02-28T00:15:00.002Z

When I was a much younger, idealistic younger woman, I too in my undergraduate social psychology lectures learned about group think, mob mentality and herd poisoning. That when people get together and collect behind an emotional sentiment they can often behave erratically and irrationally. They get caught up and do things that they may individually know may not be sensible and can be much more mean or hateful than if they were alone. They can have funny ideas and demand the impossible. I sagely nodded, noted down these excellent points and said to myself "Group think. Got to avoid that. No point in making ill thought out knee jerk reactions"

Even so. I cant help genuinly wishing that bankers should be made to give up their bonuses and then horsewhipped around the streets of London.

Issues

2009-02-26T18:24:00.003Z

Anyway, since I moved to my new house there has been the inevitable whirlwind of social reorganisation that accompanies every single shift. As well as hauling your various belongings (who knew you could humanly accumulate so much crap: a feather boa?, the abdominiser!? stupid hat with antlers?) you have to get to know new people. Some of these people are great (like the people at work, who I will no doubt gossip about later), some are shitheads.

Guess who I am going to talk about today?

Anyway, I met this guy. I don't normally talk about guys as my romantic life is complicated and larely theoretical, but although this bloke may not have been the Leonardo DiCaprio to my Kate Winslet he may have been worth getting to know a bit better. I first bumped into him in my old job, as he was from a social worker in training, that moved to this end of the world a while back. Since then I have seen him a couple of times out and about, and there has been a bit of low energy Facebook flirtation. Think Duracell AA battery amount.

Still as I was new in town and really didn't know anyone I figured it would be a great opportunity to get back in contact. He seemed to think likewise, but almost everytime something would come up (mum sick, dog lost, Poland invaded, etc). Anyway I was about to write him off for good when he actually does turn up at the agreed time, and the agreed place. We catch up with each other at this tapas bar.

How mature! How grown up!

Well it would be if he wasn't trying to do some horrible hippy drivel. Do you really want to re align my chakras and give me a chi energy massage? Or do you want to cop a feel? Also its not great to throw out cheesy lines like "the whole universe is built on quantum energy" or "its like there is this astrological realm" to anyone with an IQ over room temperature.

Obviously I would love to have said something like "You seem to have mistaken me with someone who gives a fuck about your lame, misguided and scientifically ignorant nonsense" or even "this all would sound so much more plausible if you werent wearing dreadlocks despite being white and middle class". Instead I just sat there and nodded politely watching the seconds tick away, before leaving at a time that would not be considered rude. The only good thing is that if he calls back I can blame it on Taurus being in the ascent as a reason not to see him again.

If I could turn back time

2009-02-25T18:26:00.002Z

You remember those instances in life where you genuinely wish you had some kind of magic egg timer you can turn upside down and undo what you just did/said/slept with? If anyone has one please do contact me and maybe I could borrow it?

One of my duties involves attending long, drawn out meetings. I actually quite like them, as people have started listening to what I have to say, and I actually feel there is a point to them. Its all very well and good sipping coffee and breaking into the Dark Chocolate Hobnobs (always dark choc. Milk choc is for wusses) while someone else talks about "raising awareness of X".

However, when giving the presentation the dynamic changes a bit. More anxiety provoking, less biscuit eating. Fair enough. What is not fair enough is when your laptop decides to use your photo album as your screen saver, so as I am fielding questions various photos of yours truly pop up.

Including but not limited to:

- that one of you dressed in that vile dress you bought against your better judgement and now resides in the cupboard under the stairs.
- Charlotte with her tongue down a strange man's earhole.
- a badly framed shot of your parents dog?
- a strange photo you never took of a man's hairy winking bumhole.

Yes, while I was looking all serious and professional, this little carousel of pictoral joy was playing out behind me. Hilarous

-if it happened to someone else.

Momma Said

2009-02-24T18:08:00.003Z

One of the unintended consequences of leaving the ranks of the underpaid and underappreciated is the rapid ascent in salary. To put it in perspective the average graduate starting salary is currently about 26k although doing the series of low paid jobs on the clinical trail means you can often end up earning around half of that.

I no longer do.

How have I made best use of my increased means? Have I wisely invested in ISAs, or taken advantage of stocks and shares? Perhaps even paid off some of the hideous debts accumulated since the dawn of time? Have I bollocks. I am now on first name tems with the staff at the local branch of Kew and Jigsaw, and Smirnoff and Bailey's can probably ride over the recent economic downturn based on my sole spending alone. Yeah, probably not the best of moves, but fuck it, make hay while the sun shines and all that.

The other unintended consequence of leaving 'the business' is that my mother finally understands what I am doing with my days. "Its a very worthy cause" I have heard her trill down the phone, "she is very high up in X" (steady on ma! I think regional exec assistant doesn't quite qualify as CEO level). I had a friend of my aunt corner me over New Years Eve and personally thank me for all the work I was doing single handedly combatting the mental illness that my charity cover.

Yep. Its all me. From standing on street corners raising money, to actually sitting in a treatment room prescribing medication. All me.

This is all well and good. Its clearly about time I recieved some of the warmth afforded to my other friends who went off to do sensible subjects like accountancy. However, what it has also done is made me become one of those girls that everyone elses mother talks about and prompts those "why cant you be more like..." conversations. One of my family acquaintances, who is making her way up the greasy pole that is law, crossed the room to avoid me. Another (closer) friend explained how her mum spent a good 50 minutes trying to cajole her into getting me to get her a job.

Ordinarily I would be the first to stand in line and throw rotten lettuce at the "goody two shoes" but when its me, its not so fun. My attempts to calm my mother down are not really working, because she simply wont shut up. I guess its her way of saying "Hey! See! My mothering skills were amazing. Told you she wouldnt be a loser forever". Until then I guess I have to be the metaphorical kid in school whose mother insists she wears the proper school uniform, while everyone else customises their skirts and ties and stuff, and take exception to the appropriateness of her attire.

Sort of like what is happening with that girl from University Challenge but on a pettier scale.

I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked

2009-02-23T17:43:00.000Z

As an anonymous commentator so astutely pointed out, I am probably missing psychology a bit. More specificially I realise I really do miss is the "scene". Unfortunately, there is no third sector workers groups to attend, where people who know the same things and are all in the same boat can meet each other to complain about the stresses and strains of getting cash out of tightwad corporations (in a credit crunch of all times), or organising fundraising drives etc, etc. There is no "pissycharityworkers.org.uk" to browse and waste time over (although YouTube is always good for that). I even considered attending a local assistants group, but that idea only sounded good in my head, and even then for about 30 seconds before coming to my senses.

And I guess I just like bitching if I am being honest.

As for my job, I am still sort of settling in, so I am still in the honeymoon period and still thrilled with fairly minor otherwise inconsequential events. I had to take a client out for a boozy lunch last week and I was thrilled beyond all proportion (as lunching in the NHS tends to be sandwiches- if lucky). Should I really still be cooing and ahhing over the fact that I can stay at the Holiday Inn Express on a business trip? How decadent, we get a complimentary breakfast!
What about being thrilled that my office roof doesnt leak or have waterstains that resemble Pablo Picasso's Guernica on it? They say the grass is always greener on the other side, but sometimes it so genuinely is.

Still, the poster does probably have a point. Once you are through the looking glass, it can be quite hard to get back.

Computer blues

2009-02-22T10:13:00.005Z

Its rather fitting that this post discusses computer related woe, because my ISP decided to have some kind of critical failure over the last few days. It was almost as if it was aware that I had made a return to blogging and was determined to prevent it. Hah, you can't keep a good woman down.

As I mentioned I know a few people that have been going up for computerised tests, and they seem to be splashed all over the psychology forums. As I mentioned I have some experience of doing that kind of thing, which were okay, but nothing I would like to repeat on a voluntary basis. What I remember with even more grim horror is the HR test I had to do before joining my current organisation.

I was in a position where I was offered my job already, and the HR harpy contacted me by post asking me to come along for "an informal chat". I assumed it would be about tax (none for me please), pension (um, what pension?) and leave (as much as possible. Would be pushing for 40 weeks a year). Was this the case? Was it bollocks!

I was plonked near a computer in a corridor so draughty that it must have also been used by scientests as a wind tunnel for testing aerodynamic qualities of aircraft. This woman who resembled Little Jimmy Crankie with a long standing alcohol problem came to me and asked me if I knew what a mouse was, how to "use the internet" and "What does the phrase "e mail" mean?". She then sat me down and handed me this scrap of paper, which had insultingly simple instructions and asked me to do this mindless task of opening and closing multiple windows.

It was ridiculous, it didnt test any real knowledge about anything, just carrying out mindlessly repetitive tasks. Like some kind of toddler's game of peek-a-boo, but one that lasted 2 hours. I can honestly say that I learned nothing from the experience, only that someone is paying HR way too much if this is the sort of thing they are doing.

This is the same HR department that had to send me the same email 3 times because they mispelt my name, and the second time they forgot the attach the relevant document. Still it beats sitting at some random university having to try to type in everything you ever learned about stats in 10 minutes, while 1000000 other people around you are trying to do the same thing.

Walk the line

2009-02-18T18:00:00.003Z

So how is life on the outside?

Well, like most things in life, it has its ups and downs. Its great to be secure and not completely dependent on the whims of a supervisor who could very well turn up one morning and say "RLJ today I would like you to carry out your duties, only you may not use the letter V throughout the day". Not having to deal with NHS shit and countless, pointless forms is a bonus too, as is not having to log on to Psyclick every 30 minutes or feeling I will miss out on some crucial piece of information.

I sit next to a cool girl called Jane, who is Scottish and lovely enough to be in a shampoo advert. My boss is cool, (in a slightly scary professional way) but very likable. I no longer have to acclimatise myself to noxious smells (Olga. That means you.) My work actually has a point now, rather than being the career equivalent of an aircraft holding pattern.

....and...this is the best part...there is a Starbucks only two shops away!

The not so great thing is that the whole "Psychology thing" seems a bit of a waste now, and I feel I know nothing compared to what I used to know in my old job. Presumably everyone feels this. Probably even the Pope. Also I get various emails and listing updates about things I shouldnt know or care about anymore, but sound exciting ("Ooh, DBT training at the University of Someplace, 12 spaces left").

Which leads me back to the main subject of why I am back (at least for a little while)... the start of application fever!

When I'm gone

2009-02-16T20:03:00.003Z

Facebook has a myriad of fantastic purposes. It can reunite star crossed lovers, bring comfort to the elderly and generate world peace by allowing an international collection of friends to bring down barriers.

Or it can be used by gobby loudmouths to brag to everyone.

So when Spiny's newsfeed piped up "I've got an interview at University of Questionable Judgement", I was intrigued. From my days on the reservelist, I thought "Surely this is a bit early? If it keeps going on at this rate they are going to need a time machine to give interviews to people before they even apply." This clearly warranted further investigation.

On closer examination Spiny had been economical with the truth. She had an invitation to one of those computerised test thingys. I went to one once (one of the pioneer Guinea pigs) and came away from the experience like a World War one pilot that had been shot down and whose plane hit a gasoline truck. Enough said. An achievement, yes, possibly, but a bona fide interview? No way! Thats the grown up equivalent of a fourteen year old boy feeling a furtive handful of bra at the school disco, and then bragging to his friends that he had shagged her.

Still, I am out of the rat race now, so what do I care? I shoudn't mind the hearty congratulations posted below. Or the frantic texts from the few friends who are still in "the game". Obviously I shouldn't care at all. But why am I moved to blog this?

Just when I think I am out, they pull me back in.

Since you've been gone

2009-02-15T22:44:00.003Z

Once upon a time in land far, far away, there used to be a girl who sat in a tower and wrote of a quest to find the Holy grail -the magical artefact that many have sought and even fewer understand....instead she ended up in an office, a Nescafe Gold Blend addiction and serious case of the "What ifs?".

Hello my darlings. Did you miss me? I know I probably jettisoned most of my readership around the time Kate Perry "I kissed a girl" was No 1 in the charts. Since then 2009 has arrived and the world economy has collapsed.

Probably not just because I stopped blogging.

By now you are probably saying, "Why blog after maintaining radio silence for so long? Surely you are off the reserve list merry-go-round, and have gone onto pastures annew". Yes. Well there hangs a tale. It started when a facebook update popped up declaring Spiny had an interview....

Thats all.

2008-10-16T22:43:00.003+01:00

So here I am 100 or so posts later, a little older and a little wiser. If I could have done anything differently would I have?

Some of it definitely:

- I wouldn't put up with strange men that happen to be shagging my housemate eating up the last of my coco pops.
- Wouldn't read internet forums and get hysterical about so much stuff that has as much basis in reality as an episode of Inspector Gadget.
- Take some time to chill and realise that taking the odd day off will not mean the sky will fall on my head, or I will miss something life-changingly important (Aaron Beck deciding to pop in and needing a new helper, Richard Branson needing an heir, etc)
- Kissing Hunky Nick.
- Giving Spiny a slap (if only).
- Not see Tomb Raider 2: Cradle of Life.

Things I wouldn't change include:
- working face to face with the general public (which has made me so much more tolerant of slow waiters, and the new girl who has just started in the shoe department)
- Snooping in Olga's desk drawer and generally dicking around (although finding this weird box with Polish writing that was either some kind of sex toy or occult idol statue, which completely freaked me out).
- Starbucks time.

Okay, I am stretching out this goodbye way too long, but thank you SO much all of you regular readers. Thanks to Lishlove for her ever amusing emails and support, the rest of the bloggers tagged below that decided to follow me on my adventures, and everyone that emailed me privately (including the person who sent me the Pizza hut coupon which made me smile).

My undying gratitude to Spatch for all your help, guidance, blog pimping and encouragement to start this. I am sorry for nicking your writing style, but please note I never used used extremely complicated words or wrote about my day in the style of Shakespeare or that sort of thing.
(Sorry, I know I said I wouldn't acknowledge you but I lied).

I know you will never stumble upon and read this (God, at least I hope not) but thanks to Sarah, Charlotte, mum dad and the rest of the colourful cast of characters that were in my life over the last few months.

Though this is goodbye for now, I will keep the blog up to remind me of this interesting period of my life or incase it brings amusement to anyone else comes across it. I may post if anything spectacular happens (coming of the Lord, I am kidnapped, discover cancer cure, etc). If any of you are starting blogs email me and I will link to them, or you can do the whole "I follow" thing and people can read them from there (I will try to check my account sporadically, but no more offers for sending willy photos please).

Bye.

x

Unforgettable fire

2008-10-15T18:54:00.004+01:00

When I started writing this blog I did it mainly out of therapeutic reasons. I wasn't sure if anyone would ever read it, but writing things down always helped me put things in perspective. Its been great to know others have liked what I have written, and that I may have entertained people. Someone commented that they hoped that the blog could have been about how I got onto training, and the whole process, and maybe it would have been a good story (would have had to change the title, but thats just a detail). However, if there was a point to this blog, I would like it to be that not getting on training isn't the end of the world, and that people do well despite not getting what they initially set out for.

Just looking at the statistics most people that apply get rejected, yet most of the stories we hear are about people that make it. That seems as grotesquely distorted as watching Pretty Woman and expecting that most prostitutes end up marrying people like Richard Gere. But although we weren't selected, we are not worthless. This was really rammed home to me at this latest interview. We had achieved a lot, our skills were appreciated, and that someone will value us. My new manager made it clear that I was far more than just a reservelist jockey, the Cinderella that never gets to go to the ball, and I would say the same for the majority of the others with their unvoiced stories. Its just we never got to hear them.

Maybe if more of these stories out there the whole trip would be a lot less painful? Where are the stories of people going onto other things and do brilliantly? That's not to put down the achievements of those that make it, but to also recognise that those that don't are also important as well in their own way.

I guess this blog to me will be about a time in my life where lots of things could have happened, but in the end I made a single choice. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad, but at least I made that choice.

...it didn't even matter.

2008-10-14T23:24:00.002+01:00

... and there has been something else that I have been thinking about too.

There is that whole "follow your heart" "don't ever stop chasing your dream" X-factor style sentiment and I can see it as a good thing, in some cases (Yeah, I like Rocky too). At the same time I started to wonder was it a case of the plucky underdog trying to fight against all odds or was I the psychology equivelent of one of the bewildered, deluded tragic cases that goes before Simon Cowell et al, completely butchers "Angels" and then gets completely outraged when the Panel completely gun her down. Was every subsequent application cycle another way of shaking my fist and saying "You'll see Simon, I will make it as an international recording artist and get a number 1! Just you wait". I for one have always viewed that sort of parting shot as making things infinitly worse (my preferred style at being shot down by Sharon Osbourne would be to thank the panel and move along with at least a shred of dignity intact, Charlotte differed and said she would squat on Loius Walsh's desk and wee into his lap, but hey, to each their own).

Maybe this is my way of shaking my head and getting comiserated by Dermot? [Maybe I should stop with the X-factor comparison before it descends further.]

Thanks for all the comments and support that people have given. I have appreciated them greatly. As for the blog, it will be ending in the next couple of days, but i have a few more things to put down before I hand in my reservelist jockey spurs.