Sunday 5 February 2012

Taken over by the fear

This has been one hard week my blog friends. All seemed to be going okay until Wednesday when a meeting requested arrived in my workspace. Not just any meeting. A meeting with top HR bods, and top library bods, and all of our little team of four. Safe to say we were all absolutely terrified. The meeting request didn't come with any reassuring messages that all would be okay, it didn't come with any nice soft words to tell you not be scared about all those really important people coming to a meeting with you. Most of all, it didn't tell me not to be downright scared. And I was, hell we all were! 

From then on I literally lived in fear every single chuffing day until Friday. And you have no idea how long the rest of Wednesday, all of Thursday, and until 11am on Friday felt. Talk about LONG ENDLESS days when all I could think was that by Friday lunchtime I might not have a job anymore. Of course that was what we all assumed, and who can blame us. These are uncertain times, the whole world has gone completely tits up, a few job losses in libraryland doesn't seem that unrealistic. 

I felt sick. Every single day. 

On Friday before I went to work I bought a lottery ticket. It cost me £2 but I reckoned on it being a good investment with possibly my last couple of pounds on the offchance that I might win and have some money to keep me going. 

I'm pleased to report that we didn't lose our jobs, no-one did. There's some changes, but change is all fine. I can cope with change. Losing my job? I'm not so sure. I spend an unhealthy amount of time despising my job, its lack of prospects, and the daily frustration but this week has been a lesson in not taking it for granted anymore. And it's been a pretty humbling experience. I know that I will go back to the inevitable frustration, I'm only human after all and it's tough when you don't feel satisfied and challenged by your work, a place where you spend so much time. But the thought of losing that? Of not having it anymore? Genuine fear. I've never felt like that before, and I don't want to ever again.  

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