by My trip to the US has done wonders for me. I’ve been back the best part of a month and things haven’t returned to normal at all. I wouldn’t want them to. Normal was terrible. Normal meant life was passing me by. Now I know that life can be bloody awesome. This feels just like it did after the summer of 2001 when I recovered from panic attacks: hey, I can live like me and dress like me and be like me and this feels fantastic. I never thought I’d get back there again. I still found social situations difficult, as I do now, but guess what, that’s part of me, and I can live with that.
In 2002, after nine months or so of being me in my final year of university, I had to get a job. This of course had to be one of those corporate jobs where I couldn’t be me at all, because that’s supposedly what my degree had been geared towards, and I never got any of those jobs because I interviewed so badly. For the next nine months I lived with my parents, packed boxes in a warehouse, and struggled with depression until I got a poorly-paying but actually not a bad job that allowed me to move into a flat and, to a limited extent, be me.
I moved to New Zealand at the end of 2003. I got my first proper corporate job a few months later. And that was pretty much that. With the exception of the work I did on earthquake claims following the two devastating quakes in Christchurch, I haven’t been me since.
I really wish I could get the whole team thing (that’s a part of being me that frustrates me). I didn’t get it thirty years ago; I don’t get it now. But apparently next week I’m suddenly going to love being part of a dynamic team, blazing a career path in my chosen industry, until in five years’ time I’m managing a team of dynamos myself. What really happens? I survive a year or two in my team environment by generally being personable and not pissing people off too much, or even making it all that obvious that I’m there, then I get depressed, I have a change of boss, I can’t face any more Christmas parties with those people, my performance takes a dive, and I jump, hopefully before I’m pushed. I might be lucky enough to get another job, in another team environment, and the whole process can start over again. I’m still young enough (and the retirement age will be old enough by then) to go through more than fifteen further iterations. My latest one, in the water industry, is about as good as it will ever get, I’m with a really nice bunch of people, and it’s still utterly hopeless. The vast majority of my work days are a case of damage limitation; the possibility of achieving anything hardly ever arises. I’ve got this to look forward to at least fifteen more times if I somehow survive that long.
Except I don’t. There are things I’m good at that I can turn into a career. Being bad at teams doesn’t mean I can’t work with people and help people. I like helping people. Language fascinates me, always has done, and my plan is to rent out my apartment and, as I alluded to in my last post, teach English in Eastern Europe. Traditionally when people from this part of the world teach English they do so in Asia, but I want to do what I think will work for me. I think Eastern Europe would suit me more (and I have an EU passport which will be very handy for this, although with the refugee crisis there’s an increased chance that the UK will leave the EU).
In a couple of years I won’t be attending meetings about strategic goals. I’ll be doing a job I love. And during my time off I’ll be doing 36-hour journeys on rickety trains, stopping at places I can’t pronounce, eating food I don’t even recognise, and it’s all going to be amazing. Yes, I know it’ll be challenging, it’ll be scary, but that’s kind of the point (and aren’t “normal” jobs challenging and scary enough?). I’m going to make this happen.
I’m looking at Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, with Romania winning at this stage for two reasons. One, there’s a lot of unjustified paranoia about Romania that keeps tourists away, and keeps the country largely unspoilt (for now). Two, well I’ll talk about that in my next post.
