Work

Today applied for a promotion. Regular readers may recall me mentioning that being promoted is one of my goals for this year. I’m very keen to seize this opportunity – not least as it's mid November after all! But I really do feel I deserve it and my colleagues have strongly encouraged me to go for it.

Going for it, as it were, has been a bit of a challenge on this occasion because of the complicating factor of my relationship. That is, on the face of it, unfair. Fella doesn’t stop me seeking career opportunities after all. No, what I mean is that we spend weekends together so working on my application this weekend I had to plan carefully around him-and-me time, especially as it was our hemiversary or whatever the word is.

Anyway, I go it done. Where I work has a peculiar system where a person can apply for a promotion at defined times in the year, but there may not necessarily be a specific post attached to that promotion. The upshot of this is, should I prove to be successful, is that I don’t know what work I’ll be doing.

Another thing I’m doing is finally applying for that master’s degree. I have selected my provider – Birkbeck College – and I am currently picking between two courses; and I hope to be accepted to start in September 2010. The course I really want requires an academic reference and costs about £5,000 a year in fees alone. While I currently hold two honours degrees (physics, and economics) I have been out of study for some time so I am not confident I can meet the reference requirements. The other costs about half as much; and requires merely academic qualifications for the entry requirements. Still, we can but try; if there’s one thing this blog shows it’s that I’ve decided being a one man idiot will stop stopping me.

I hope my employers will pay about 75% of the course fees (that is the standard percentage they offer) and recoup the rest by a monthly deduction from my wages. So fingers crossed on that score. The real challenge will be squeezing two evenings a week lectures plus study time out of my busy schedule. But this is something I really want; and I don’t see my relationship as something that would hold me back – if I plan carefully. On the other hand planning carefully is most certainly something the Cheerful Fairy has never considered a forte!

But anyway, there we have it. Those are my work plans over the coming months. I am quite convinced they are the right thing to do, not least because of the inspiring people I have come across in my day to day worklife that really make me feel I should strive for something better. I think being with Fella is a big part of that, in the sense that I have to be more careful apportioning parts of myself and what I commit to – it’s not just about me. I have to think what’s good for us. Fortunately being the best I can be is right for us – phew.