Greetings
neglect has started to creep into this blog once more, and I will try my best to stop this...but there is a reason. My motivation is shot at the moment, and i'm distracted with many things.
I'll explain...
As I previously mentioned, the company I worked for went into administration on Christmas eve, which was great timing obviously 'merry fucking Christmas to you too' but anyway, nothing else happened until 8th January. Now, we hadn't gotten any stock in since before Christmas and we were running pretty low, everything was out and the store looked good, we'd worked hard to make sure it did. But then, on my day off I got a call from my manager saying we'd shut and all the stock was to be sent off to a larger store. I went in, to help and to find out the details, a bit dazed really. We were to be made redundant at close of trade the following day. We were to send the stock off, and that was it, we were redundant, less than 48hrs notice. It turned out to be a great last couple of days. As sad as it was, and it was very sad, for me certainly, we made the best of it, and could relax, with no real pressure anymore. The guy that was sent down from head office really hated that he had to shut us down, and so he bought us 2 crates of beer to have while we were sending off the stock, so it turned into a sort of party, a send off. But the fact remained, we were out of a job, redundant.
At this point, i'll point out how my financial situation is. I have 2 loans, one for £200 and one for £65 a month. The £200 a month one has loan protection, so, having had a form sent through to claim for that and filled it out, only to find out that the job centre has to fill a part of it out, but that they can't until your claim with them has gone through I may still have that to worry about come the end of the month, as it still isn't sorted out. I also have about £100 of other outgoings a month, most of them are within the period of the contract where I can't cancel them, so nothing I can reduce there. I worked 8 days in january and from that I was paid £400, and I had a cheque I was owed for £183 that i've paid in, but I was over my overdraft limit, and so, with, adding on bank charges, about £500 to come out of my account at the end of the month, or a few days after my account has about £100, and I have a £250 overdraft limit. I get paid £45 a week jobseekers allowance, so that'll go in on monday, but that still means i'll be over my overdraft limit for a couple of weeks by about £100, resulting in more charges, and then my jobseekers will clear that just in time for about another £170 to come out, providing I don't get any charges and I sort out my loan protection. So i'll get more charges, while my jobseekers may vaguely keep me afloat for a while. But I have no money for anything else, my mum, who I live with is, and will have to buy the food as I won't have any extra money, and hope that the extra she'll get for housing benefit because i'm not working will cover the rent.
Keep up with all that? Sound fun? I know a lot of people are in a similar situation, but that doesn't really help me to feel any better, my motivation is lacking a lot of the time, sometimes I feel happy and ready to do stuff, other times...I don't. I have been jobsearching and have applied for getting on for 50 jobs now i'd imagine, most of them shitty jobs, or ones i'll likely not get, but i've been to some interviews, not gotten the jobs...it's not great fun, and I wasn't in the best state of mind before all of this to be honest.
But what about redundancy pay you ask? that must help. Well, as the company were in administration I can't claim it from then, so I only get statuatory redundancy from the government, which is less than company redundancy. I get 2 weeks pay, plus I can claim back notice they should have given me, which is 4 weeks, and holiday pay i'm owed, which is 8 days. So not too bad. But I have to CLAIM it, which I was advised by a lady at the job centre can take up to 6 months, even if they only say a couple of weeks. Helpful, really helpful.
Anyway, that takes us up 'till now. I am still jobsearching, and still with a topsy turvy state of mind. If i'm honest i'm pretty sure now that I have a form of depression, most likely, I would say, bi-polar. I can be great, really happy, and then because of one small thing, barely anything at all, i'll switch to really angry or depressed, complete opposite. I can't control it, and it was getting hard to control over christmas, several times I snapped, and only just held myself together enough to not tell all the customers to go fuck themselves, although I certainly wasn't my usual polite self. In addition to this my health isn't great, I have an enlarged tendon, or so my doctor tells me, on my left wrist, which I have a gel to put on, but it means gripping, or exessive movement can be, on occasion, very painful. I also have some other problems I won't detail here, but that make me uncomfortable in a variety of ways, physically and mentally.
I'll also admit that my relationship with my mum, who I live with, is variable. We argue a lot, she has a go at me for small things, that don't really matter, and she is especially snappy with me at the moment, for no reason at all, thanks to a problem with a stray cat that we can't have in the house all the time, but which won't leave our garden, is always at our window, wanting to come in. My mum feeds it, and lets it in supervised, and spends a lot of time worrying about it, so gets snappy with me, when I really don't need it.
Then of course I have all the same old problems of confidence and what effects that has on me, not being able to make friends properly, get a girlfriend, feel like I fit in, belong in a conversation with most people.
All of this adds up to this being a very difficult time, where I struggle to hold myself together physically, mentally and financially...and it's hard, and it's getting to me. Pretty much I just needed to write that down, get it out, a release of some sort, and this is the best release I have.
Not really sure I expect anyone to have read all this, but thank you to anyone that has.
I still blog here to get things out there, because it's my biggest release, and because I enjoy it...but also because of the wonderful people i've met on here, who I consider great friends,and hope to meet in person one day. It means a lot for people to accept and comment on my ramblings, I thank you all, I hope you are well, much love
Dan
xxxx
