I lost my blog...!

Thankfully after much morning discussion in my full day meeting it became evident that we weren't really getting anywhere and a fresh approach was needed. So after lunch, those of us superfluous to needs were dismissed until 3:00.

Which meant I could go and pick up my new work laptop - a ThinkPad T61.

Unfortunately, I realised that meant that all of my history on Internet Explorer. So I went to Google and then Blogs and tried to search for my own blog and I couldn't find it anywhere - there were plenty of other Runnergirls out there though. I then searched for Orlistat which I knew I had put in as a keyword on my last post, but got a random selection of blogs from all different sites that didn't really make a whole lot of sense.

Then I went back to Google and did a search for blogger, and thankfully the homepage came up as a search result, but it was a tough call there for a minute! I might have had to wait for someone to comment and then link through from the email - except Kathryn is the only one who has commented recently and she's busy moving house!

Anyhoo - the meeting gave me some thinking time and I tried a written form of therapy. And I wrote the following:

• I don't want to be here
• Where do you want to be?
• I don't know, maybe at home, baking, just doing something less demanding.
• But you'd not have as much money...
• I know, and that's the main reason I come to work. Only so we have the money to be able to live the way we do.
• So, what else do you want from work?
• I know what I don't want - meetings, strategy planning; I guess what I do want is the bits of my job I like doing - pulling information together, doing analysis, creating presentations to answer what people have asked for.
• So, that might mean a pay cut - or do you want to go freelance?
• That's something I looked into a while back, but I'm not sure I want the stress of running my own business anymore - chasing customers, tax and accounts etc.
• So, basically, you want to be an Insights expert from the technical side of things, but you don't want the responsibility of being involved in or leading more strategic projects?
• Yes - I'm happy for someone to ask me what they need from me, but I don't want to lead or shape the whole project, and waste mind numbing hours sitting in meetings where I don't have anything to say.
• Would you be prepared to take a pay cut?
• I don't know that I can. We have a certain lifestyle, not lavish by any means, but comfortable enough. If we want a bigger house in a nicer location etc. then actually I need to earn more, not less. I couldn't ask Hubby to make sacrifices just because of my own petty work issues. It wouldn't be fair on him.
• But if he doesn't mind?
• I don't know what we would cut from our life to make the allowance for that. There are things we want one day, a bigger house, nice holidays etc. If I took a pay cut, we couldn't afford that.
• Are there companies where you could do what you want to do and be paid roughly the same?
• I don't think there are, because most companies always try and develop you and progress you. Having just the technical expertise is not enough, and although valued in terms of the actual work, is not recognised in terms of the salaries.
• So, what do you want to do?
• I guess I've just got to decide what's more important? The nicer house and holidays or the boredom of a job which doesn't make me happy. Put in black and white, I think I just need to stop wingeing about it and just realise that this is what people DO - they grow up, they graduate, they get jobs, they have a family and a home, they have holidays, then eventually they retire... it's the circle of life. I've got to get used to it and stop thinking that there is something better out there. Because there isn't. This is it until I retire.

I found this quite a useful exercise because it made me realise how most people just get on and live their life and they don't sit around complaining about it like I do.

The only way I will ever have my dream is if I win the Lottery, and that's not very likely. I work hard - and that's what everyone does (apart from crooks and those with inheritances of course), I'm not different. I'm not special. What gives me the right to think I deserve anything more than anyone else out there?