There's a lot of bullshit talked about Christmas.
What it means. What it should mean. What people are expected to do, compared to what they actually do. Rampant consumerism vs guilty charitable posturing.
I just went into the living room to open the curtains, and as I did I saw one of my neighbours.
An elderly lady, she lives in the house directly across from me. Blue rinsed perm, glasses, twinset and apron, there she was, out sweeping her front path. Clearing up leaves, little and muck, sweeping them into a dustpan and then transferring that into a plastic bag, all ready to neatly put in the bin.
She's probably got family coming, and this is just part of her inbuilt cleaning routine, passed down through the generations. It wouldn't occur to me to do it, but times have changed since she was my age.
So I stood at the window and watched her for a bit. Impressed at the energy with which she was going about her task. Then I watched, confused, as she leaned over the wall separating her house from her next door neighbour, peering at their path.
My confusion was quickly cleared away when I saw her pick up her broom, her dustpan and her bag and walk up the path to their front door.
She picked up their doormat, laid it over the wall, and began sweeping their step, carefully pulling the soggy leaves out of the corners. On down the path she went, meticulously clearing the detritus from all the cracks and crannies. Then she bent over the recycling bin and picked up the bits of paper that had escaped, putting them in their rightful place, until the council comes and does their next recycling run.
A few minutes later and their path and drive was neat, tidy and clear of the leaves and assorted junk that had blown in from the road.
They probably didn't ask her to do it. In fact, I'd bet they don't even notice, or if they do, they'll wonder about it for a second, then it'll disappear out of mind. Lost in the hustle and bustle of Christmas preparations.
So it struck me that these days there doesn't seem to be nearly enough giving without the expectation of receiving... and by that, I don't just mean spending lots of money on presents for everyone. I mean just doing stuff because it'll make life easier for someone, or it'll make them smile.
For all the bullshit talked about Christmas, and for all that I don't believe in the religious aspects, if there's going to be one time a year when people think about other people and do stuff, then why not let it be now?
Have a fantastic weekend. Eat, drink and be merry.
Life's too short to do otherwise.
It's just not Christmas if you don't have some fake stuff decorating your table.
No, these pictures are not at all an excuse for posting something without having to talk about why I'm not so keen on Christmas any more.
As if I'd do a thing like that.
I decided to end the week where it began.
AAAAARGH! The Festering Season (tm Lyle) in Brum. Early. Way Early.
I'm not sure why this marked the beginning of an alcohol restricted area, but it's probably a good thing, cos let me tell you, after two glasses of wine this thing was terrifying.
I felt a bit guilty for gently slagging off Birmingham on the UK Bloggers Social mailing list last week by saying:
As far as I could tell when I was there a couple of weeks ago, "not finished" is about the only way I could describe it. :)
I'm sure it will be a really lovely, vibrant city when it's done, but right now it seems about halfway there.
The people were lovely (even the bloke in Sainsbury's who chatted to me while I was at the checkout - causing me to do a startled double-take, cos, y'know, we don't do that sort of thing in London), but the city itself gave me nightmares when I was trying to find my way around.
... and I'm not even going to get started on the hotel...
To be fair, I did have a streaming cold and was a bit out of sorts, which may have coloured my judgement, so I'm dedicating this week as Brum Week, because I just got the lomo photos I took while I was there back from Jessops, and, well, it's actually rather pretty.
I moved to London with high hopes.
I had plans.
I knew what I wanted to do.
I was going to do freelance web design.
I had a plan, but we all know what happens to plans, don't we?
In around November 2000, D tired of the lack of opportunity in the West of Scotland and began making plans to move south. Wheelchair bound and on extended sick leave from my secretarial job at the time, I knew I couldn't follow quite yet, but began thinking of options.
In the course of this thinking, a friend of mine mentioned that another friend of his was working for a company who were looking for a web designer, and was I interested? Of course I was, but I was also nervous. How would they deal with an employee who was in a wheelchair?
In the end, I didn't give them the option. My stubborn streak widened by a mile and I nearly killed myself going to the interview on my crutches. I got the job and started shortly afterwards. Let me tell you, the satisfaction of telling my previous employers (to whom the phrase "reasonable adjustment" meant demoting me to my previous position of receptionist and sticking me out in the reception area behind a big desk that would hide the wheelchair) that I was leaving for a better job is something I will never forget.
Fast-forward a few months, and the new job, my dream job, wasn't quite such a dream, in fact, it was more like a nightmare. Be careful what you wish for, indeed.
By this time D was safely installed in London, and I was once more making plans. I'd move to London, and do freelance web design. Maybe get a job in an agency.
Then the first bombshell hit. My dad was diagnosed with cancer.
I was torn. Stay or go.
Stay or go.
Stay or go.
I didn't know what to do.
So I decided to stay. To continue with the nightmare job, but that the nightmare job would be my last job in Scotland, and, after long conversations with my dad on the subject, I would look for a proper job in London, and if something appropriate should come along, I should go for it.
So I stayed.
Then the second bombshell hit. The people in charge of the company were chronically incompetent and redundancies were necessary.
I got the phone call the day before my birthday. I was off work with a work related stress migraine, and my boss called me to ask if I could come in because he really needed to talk to me.
I knew it was bad when I logged on to AIM and none of my colleagues would tell me what he wanted to talk to me about.
Four weeks later, after much soul searching, the vast majority of my worldly possessions were crammed into the back of a van and hurtling down the M1 towards London, and a new life.
I was going to be a web designer. On hearing that I was leaving and moving to London, a couple of our London based clients expressed an interest in my providing them with web design and related services. I was fairly confident that I'd find enough work to keep things going.
Only, I didn't take into account two things:
1) clients can be cheap, lying bastards.
2) the impact of 9/11 on the job market, both in the US and the UK.
In retrospect, I really shouldn't have been surprised when bombshell #3 hit.
One month after I moved to London, D was given three months notice of redundancy.
So, faced with the very real prospect of being unable to eat or pay rent, I decided that I had to get a job. Even a temp secretarial job would be better than nothing.
So next morning, at 9 am, I took my plans in both hands, ripped them up and phoned Office Angels. Ten minutes later, after talking about my skills and experience, I was in the shower, getting ready for an interview at the agency arranged for 12 noon.
At 2.30 I found myself in the reception of a building, being handed a job description and having ten minutes to prepare for an interview. The recruitment consultant had looked through her book of jobs, and, on seeing this particular one, had called the organisation to suggest that they interview me, despite the fact that they were already interviewing three other candidates for the post that very day.
Exactly a week later and I was back for a second interview, to meet the man who's PA I would be, if appointed.
We got on incredibly well from the start. It just clicked. I left 45 minutes later with a good feeling. An hour later, just after I got home, the phone rang. It was him, offering me the job.
The next morning, 31 October 2001, at 10 am. I started my new job as PA to the Head of Personnel.
My first six months were bumpy, to say the least. Quite apart from having to adjust to a new life in a new city, my dad's health was a constant worry. It would have been very easy, particularly during that six month probationary period, for my boss to say "thanks, but it's just not working out", and he'd have been perfectly within the law to do so.
He didn't though.
I'll never forget sitting in his office in my first week, talking things over and him saying to me "if you get a call and you need to go and be with your family, just go. Call me and let me know what's happening at some point, when you can. Just do it and don't worry about me, or about the office, or about your job. Your family is more important.".
The support and care I got, particularly during those first six months, as my dad's health declined more rapidly than we had expected was above and beyond anything I could have expected.
For the first time in my life, I actually felt truly valued in a job. I was never treated as "just a secretary". I was encouraged to grow into the role, to take on new duties.
Nineteen months later, when the vacancy for my current job came up, making the decision to apply for it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
I actually cried when I told him that I wanted to apply for the job, but he didn't make me feel bad, or try to persuade me to stay in the job. Instead he was positive, and although disappointed that we wouldn't be working together if I got the job, gave me his full support. I cried again when I got the job, and again at my "leaving" party, because he was so genuinely pleased for me, and took an almost fatherly pride that I was moving on to something new which would be challenging and possibly provide a career path into an area I was passionately interested in.
Ironically, my new desk was about 30 yards away, and actually closer to his office than I'd been the whole time I was working with him. In fact, rather than having the option to go past his office or not, I now had to walk past his office to get to my desk.
He continued to keep an eye on me, never missing an opportunity to compliment me whenever I changed my hair colour (on average, every three weeks). If I was out of the office for more than a day, he would always check I was ok. If I worked late, he'd gently scold me and caution against working too hard. He'd enquire about my family, and give me updates on his. He'd ask small favours, but email my manager to ask permission, to make sure that she didn't feel like he was abusing his position as my ex-boss.
I was really quite disappointed to hear that his office was going to be moved to the other side of the building, but had resolved to go round the long way a bit more often, because I knew I'd miss our frequent chats.
Only, he didn't seem to be in his office very much. At all, really. He was a busy man though, and there were restructures and things going on, so I figured he was just out of the office on business.
Only he wasn't. He was off sick. Weeks rolled past, and the information was very thin on the ground. Even my ex-colleagues didn't really know what was happening. Then, at the end of October, almost three years to the day I started, an email came round telling us he was taking early retirement after a period of ill-health.
The office is a different place now he's gone. His cheery smile and gentle idiosyncrasies are conspicuously absent.
He was among the first people I wanted to tell that I'd got the new job. That I'd done it. I'd moved on from working for him with a cautious eye on becoming a Consultant, not really expecting an opportunity to come up at all, never mind so quickly.
I saw him last night, unexpectedly. He'd come into the office take his current PA out to dinner as a thank you for all her support during his illness.
He gave me a hug, and asked how I was getting on, and I was so pleased to be able to tell him about the new job, because really, It's because of him that I'm here now.
It's as a direct result of his support and encouragement. His genuine care and concern for the staff he was responsible for, both directly and indirectly, and willingness to ensure they were able to grasp opportunity with both hands when it knocked.
I can quite honestly say, hand on heart, that he changed my life. What started as a stop-gap measure, a job that I knew I could do until something better came along, somehow became something more. It became a cause that I can believe in. A job that I can be passionate about, that will make a real difference to people's lives, and I can't think of a better outcome than that.
Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned.
It has been 12 days since my last post, and significantly longer since I posted anything of personal substance.
It's not that nothing has happened of note, it's more that a lot of stuff has been happening and I've been struggling to find a way to write about it. I did think about creating some sort of graph of the ups and downs of the last year, but then I realised I might be able to make some money out of selling it to the people at Alton Towers as an idea for a new rollercoaster.
In thinking about it, I'm not sure there's an element of my life which has remained unaffected by the tidal wave of change which has swept through, laying waste to my fledgling plans for the year.
To say it's been an eventful year is both a gross over-simplification and a staggering understatement. I've not only experienced some of the lowest lows in my life, but also some of the highest highs, and if you'd told me a year ago that I'd be right here, right now, I'd have thought you were crazy...
... and yet, here I am, with the last pieces in the jigsaw of change being flipped over. I'm still me, but the picture that's showing is fundamentally different.
My family have changed. Perhaps not as much as some of the other aspects of my life, but things move on. My wee sister has now added "home owner" to "being married" and "moving away from home" in the list of things she's done first. My mum's health continues to decline and cause me worry, and there will no longer be two furry faces greeting me at the door when I go home.
My home has changed. Next week will bring the four-month anniversary of one of the biggest changes to my life this year. The date I moved out of the flat I'd shared with D. Not only is it a lovely flat, with a lovelier flatmate/landlady, but it feels like home. It's comfortable, it's in a lovely area, and it's the first place I've lived where I got to make all the decisions. I chose this place. I decided what I wanted and got more than I could ever have hoped for. I would have settled for a reasonable room in a structurally sound building and polite flatmates. What I got was a home and a good friend.
Along with the new flat and new area came a new smile, something I've cryptically referred to a few times over the last few months. It's difficult to find the words, but I've been spending rather a lot of time with someone. A male someone. There's been snogging and hand-holding, walking and talking, laughter and tears, romance and lust, late nights and early mornings, phone calls and text messages, London and NotLondon, breakfasts and dinners, lunches and brunches, sickness and health, red wine and port, bourbon and scotch, West Wing and crappy telly, geekery and photography, inspiration, motivation, support and acceptance... and it feels good.
... and those changes have triggered other important changes.
Firstly, after months of dithering, I finally got my act together and took the first baby step along the road to doing something serious about making money from my photography. At the beginning of November, I submitted a test CD to a stock photography library, and am delighted to have been accepted as a contributor. Next step - actually selling something.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I swallowed my fear of failure and when one of my colleagues left, applied for her job. On Friday, after what felt like the longest week of my life, when all my self doubt and insecurity threatened to swallow me whole, I got the answer.
I got the job.
The precise details of start date and salary are still to be agreed, but come the new year, I will no longer be the administrator for a small team of consultants. I will be part of a small team of consultants.
I'm unbelievably excited about it. It's something I identified years ago as something that I thought I'd like to do, but had no idea quite how to get there, and now, through a twist of fate, find myself here.
It's going to be challenging. There's going to be a bit of a learning curve and it's going to force me out of my comfort zone a bit, but I'm looking forward to it. It's a chance use the knowledge I've already got - not just from the day job, but from all the stuff I do in my spare time as a basis from which to grow and develop, and more than that, it's a career, not just a job, and that makes such a huge difference.
... and you know what?
I couldn't have planned all this if I'd tried.
... the online home and (not very) alter(ed)-ego of Ann McMeekin, a recently freelance Web Accessibility Consultant.
... passionate about many things, most of which will turn up on this site at some time or other.
... contactable via email.
Design and content copyright 2000-2007 pixeldiva, except where noted.
Copyright of comments remains with the individual author.
All rights reserved.
