2024: The Year of Crap Jobs

The problem with having a gap in one’s CV the size of the Mariana Trench is that the only escape is via National Minimum Wage (NMW) jobs. Please allow me to elaborate.

In June I attained a job in a local branch of Wetherspoons. It paid £11.67 or suchlike (NMW is, at time of writing, £11.44). This particular building contained far too many steps as it is a converted bank and bizarrely had two roof gardens!? The app made it more of a waitressing job and the shifts were all over the shop. The pub closed at midnight and clearup took 90 minutes to two hours, so I ended up getting home at half two in the morning. I managed a total of three shifts, resigning with immediate effect.

In July I forwarded my CV to a local care home. They were offering zero hour bank care work, so I was duly interviewed and offered the job on the same day. Unlike Wetherspoons I was given a whole raft of paperwork to complete and then a huge amount of online training. I attended an in-house 'moving and handling' course, finding that everyone there had worked in care since leaving school, unlike me. 

I had a really bad reaction to the CPR etraining, allied to the fact that I was being interviewed for a DfE role on the same day. This led to me seeking assistance from a local disability charity. The head of retention came along to a meeting with me, the General Manager and her deputy. It wasn't great - I was admonished for not declaring that I had bipolar and I didn't accept the job.

Time went on ... I was interviewed for office jobs and a Co-op role. Nothing succeeded. I then decided to re-look at the care home job and I started on 9th September. The first week was great - I was shadowing an absolutely lovely Care Assistant, but sadly this wasn't yo last.

My second weekend (Saturday 8am-8pm and Sunday 8am-8pm) was bloody awful. There was an absolutely foul care assistant I was teamed with on Saturday who picked on me all day. She and the senior care assistant made me accompany one of the residents to A&E, meaning that I was there for hours and ended up having to call the Deputy Manager to relieve me. On the Sunday there was a bossy Care Assistant who was a nightmare to work for so I ended up in tears, going home early. Following this, I did ask the deputy manager for Reasonable Adjustments via email, but they were never granted.

I worked there for twelve shifts in total. Although I never completed another 12-hour care shift, I didn't like it as the atmosphere was so strange, cliquey and unfriendly. I'd already changed my number to a burner phone so that I'd never see the WhatsApp messages which popped up all day every day. 

I don't regret it whatsoever.

Post #74: The Comfort Zone Is There For A Reason

On Tuesday I went to a gig in trendy east London.  One of my male friends (I'm not a total sleaze: being a female Aspie, the demographic I mostly click with, friends-wise, tend to be straight geeky guys) asked me along as he'd purchased two tickets ages ago when he was dating a London-based party animal.  That said, regular readers of the blog will know that I'm not really suited to such events; I did, however, decided to break outside of my comfort zone and try to embrace a different experience.

As ever, the medium of online coversation is not straightforward; the WhatsApp trail became confusing whilst I was wandering around John Lewis in Westfield East, Stratford and I only got his call when I was en route to Hackney and desperately trying to push my way through the UK's seemingly busiest transport hub, Stratford Station.  He himself has a condition which makes travelling on crowded public transport an issue, so let's just say that the evening didn't really get off to the best start?

Baxters Court, The Wetherspoons in Hackney was absolutely packed, which I'm unsure was a normal occurrence for a Tuesday night, but maybe it was?  Once we'd managed to get a table, it was located far too closely to the one behind, and I had a braying woman shouting in my ear after one couple left and were replaced by a group of urban middle-class east Londoners. That kind of thing always tends to happen to me.

Once we moved onto the gig I was immediately tranported back to the nineties when I was indeed in my twenties and I guess, young.  I'm not really trendy, although I confess that I do wear Ray-Ban Wayfarers, but that's because I'm incredibly shortsighted and really do need them, so they're not really a fashion affectation.  We soon moved into the performance hall and it was ... crowded; people were pushing past all of the time, it was just, far too crazy for me.  I really thought that the night would never end; even though I'd removed my M&S cardigan (yeah, so what?!) and placed my Gap leather jacket over my retro blouse, I was still far too hot.  I can't imagine that I ever managed to glean any enjoyment out of such an evening, I really don't.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, I ended up leaving my friend and getting out a bit early - say, 22:35ish.  He didn't follow, which caused a few communication issues, which we later smoothed out via the medium of text and WhatsApp.

I fully realise that I am far too middle-aged for my own good, but being an Aspie isn't an easy ride sometimes.