Thursday 30 August 2012

Au Revoir Orchid

Lovely orchid plant from lovely ladies at work. Bit sad to be going now.

A lovely leaving present orchid from my just as lovely colleagues. There was also a card and some scrumdiddlyumptious fudge to go with.

So, today was my last day in my current PT library job. Not through my own choosing, though; I've been working on a temporary contract since December last year, and, after several extensions, it's finally up. The library service here is having a big restructure and shake up to save the council some moolah, and is finally, after what seems like months and months of discussion, faff and compromise, going live this coming Monday.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I can totally see that it's necessary, and I think the new ways of working are going to be a really positive thing, but, on the other, I also think it's not going to be easy going for people who have worked in the service for a long time. We have lost a lot of staff members through voluntary redundancy and retirement, so at least there's not been any need to "get rid" of anybody as such. As someone on a temporary contract, I'm at the bottom of the pile for a place in the new system, even though I've been working on and off for the service for seven years, which is a bit annoying, but, to be honest, exactly how it should be. I have plenty of casual work booked in for the next couple of weeks filling in the gaps in various libraries, hopefully after that something more permanent will turn up. Even though the faff is annoying, I'm very, very lucky that this is not my "proper" job and that my first love is illustration, particularly compared to those who have been in the service for years and years and rely on it alone to pay the bills.

I hope this uncertainty in the PT job department means there's a lot more illustration work coming my way! Watch this space.....

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