Signs of Progress
Posted: Sun 14 December, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Creativity, D4D™, Depression, Domestic, Geeky, Introspective, People, Sociable | Leave a comment »Last week, I had a couple of indicators that things are definitely in a recovery pattern for me again. (And not just that contract offer a month before the current one expires) This year’s been pretty up-and-down, albeit with more ‘down’ than was feasible or expected, so it’s good that it appears to be closing off on a period of much-needed ‘up’.
The first real thing has been the ability/desire to get out a bit over the last month or so. As already blogged, I’ve been off to Felixstowe and Brighton, as well as two London concerts. That’s a massive improvement over a lot of the year already.
Next was the MK Geek Night last Thursday. I’ve been going to this now for a couple of years, but this year had a couple of wobbles – one where I didn’t want to go because of Too Many People, and one where I was simply too busy/overworked to go (although that one also had the potential for Too Many People as well as A Couple Of People I Really Didn’t Want To See) Me being me, I usually get myself a bit stressed about it due to the whole lots-of-people thing anyway, but those couple of times this year it felt pretty insurmountable.
However, this time it didn’t worry me at all – just turned up with some other friends, and all was good. That, I think, was the real ‘lightbulb moment’, that showed me I was doing better now than I have been in a while. Indeed, I even commented on it to one of the friends while we were there. Definitely A Good Thing.
And finally, I’ve started writing again. There’s a couple of ideas on the burners, and as yet I’m not sure if they’ll actually go through to completion – but they’re being written, which is another major sign of things being better.
So yes, it’s all a bit positive. Of course, the pessimist side of me is now just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to mess up a bit, but that’s par for the course – and I’m not hiding away or sheltering and trying to avoid the shoe when/if it does drop, I’m getting on with things in the meantime.
Slightly Quiet – the Recovery
Posted: Sun 26 October, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Getting Old(er), Introspective, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Work-related | Leave a comment »Carrying on from the last couple of posts – Reasons and Repercussions – I’m hoping that I’m now on the road back. (If nothing else, the fact I’ve done these three posts should say that I’m on the way!)
This last few months has been tough, there’s no denying it. There’ve been a number of facets to that toughness, but I’m generally optimistic that they’re all on the way back to something approaching sanity.
Financially it’s definitely been tough, and I’m back to pretty much square one again. This month will (hopefully) be the last of that level of toughness, now I’m back to working on contract instead of permanent roles. The last few months have cost me dearly, going into what savings I had amassed, based on promises that salary deficits would be fixed and so on – which never happened.
Socially it’s been absolute piss. I’ve hardly seen anyone – some of that is related to the financial stuff, some of it down more to depressions, to not wanting to go out, as well as to feeling a bit trapped by a number of things.
Workwise – well, we covered that in other posts. Safe to say, it’s not been fun, and it’s affected me pretty negatively.
Creatively, it’s been a bit of a dead zone. The only positive is that the amount of time spent on the road while commuting gave me the opportunity to think a bit about some writing ideas, although I didn’t have the time or inclination to actually get them done. Still, with any luck that’ll be part of the next phase.
Really, the only real positive of the last few months has been health-wise – I’ve managed to lose two stone in weight, and been walking far more than I was. And again, that’s something I’ll continue making the effort on, I think, as well as (now I’ve got some more time to myself and my life) getting back to the gym a bit more.
This last few months have left me feeling pretty flat and wiped-out. I’m hoping that now it’s a bit more settled and sorted, things will head in a more positive direction for a while.
Losing an Hour
Posted: Sun 26 October, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, SAD | Leave a comment »And now – well, at 2am – the clocks go back, and we welcome GMT back into our live.
In some ways, I’m quite happy about this – mainly because my body clock has been absolutely knackered for the last few weeks, so with any luck this will help reset it.
Slightly Quiet – the Repercussions
Posted: Sat 25 October, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Driving, Getting Old(er), Stupidity, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »As I wrote yesterday, some of the stuff of the last few months has affected me in a number of ways, none of which I’m all that great at explaining at the time.
The work and jobs I’ve been doing this year haven’t left me in a good place, and I’ve found that (as on other occasions) it affects me more than I’m actually happy about.
I value myself to some degree by the work I do – and I like doing good work. Being part of a grinding factory of make-work bullshit isn’t my thing, and that was the kickstarter this time, a three-month contract with a company in Cambridge that was almost local-government in its use of people and make-work self-justifying crap that signifies the environs I really hate working in.
The work I did there was negligible – it wasn’t even relevant – which never helps. The next one was just bad, totally demoralised staff and an obsession with everything being “Agile” and a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP), which appears to be techie-code for “Yeah fuck it, that’ll do”.
The idea of MVP is a good one in a startup business, or one that’s launching. It means that you do the basics, get it ready and get it out, then continue improving, adding functionality, listening to customer demands and the like. However, when you’re in a business whose product has been available for a while, MVP means basic “do what the customer requested”, but without any thought for knock-on effects, or even how that functionality affects or integrates with existing code and setup.
From there, the next role was more challenging, but owned by an asshat. Lots still ongoing on that one, but at least it’s over.
But when all’s said and done, it all affects me – and more than it should. More than I admit, probably even to myself. It leaves me demotivated, and not wanting to work on my own projects – whether web/tech-based, or just writing. You’d think – and logic would dictate – that when I’m down about my paid-work being shit, I’d want to rectify that with producing decent stuff outside of work. But it doesn’t work like that – if I’m not happy with what I’m doing, I don’t want to do more of it.
With the excessive work hours at the last place as well, I didn’t really have time. I felt like I was existing only to commute, work, and sleep. Never a good place to be.
About the only positives to come out of it all have been that I’ve learned ever more about things I really don’t want to do, more warning signs about working with/for douchebags, and some more writing ideas when I get back into the mood for it.
Slightly Quiet – the Reasons
Posted: Fri 24 October, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Interviews, Work-related | Leave a comment »I’ve written many times about depression and how it affects me – although at the same time I realise that I don’t actually write about its effects on me, and I rarely (if ever) write about it at the time it’s all happening.
If I’m honest, this post isn’t going to change that status quo, I’m afraid.
I’m truly, truly awful at asking for help, and even at saying “No, I’m not doing well”. I go quiet, curl in on myself, and fight through it, being the only person I know I can rely on. I guess I’ll never really be an open book, it’s just not in my nature. I like to think I’m open, that people who truly know me should/would know what’s going on in my head, but I know that’s not the case. In many ways I am open, there’s very little I won’t disclose or talk about. But – ah, that infamous ‘but’ – I don’t disclose it at the right time, at the time of need. Afterwards, and with hindsight, yup. But at the time? Nope.
So – the last six months here haven’t been overly fun. It’s mostly been work-related, but that’s then had knock-on effects into every other aspect of life, which is never a good thing.
I’ve been more aware this year of my work instability, it’s been very much a year of ups and downs – and more downs than ups, by a significant margin. With everything else, I thought I’d aim at permanent roles rather than contracts, but the two perm roles I’ve had this year have been utter, absolute dogs. Roles and situations I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. (In balance, I’ve also had a contract that was one of the worst and dullest in recent memory, so it’s not been a good year all round)
The first of the perm roles lasted exactly three weeks. I knew within a couple of days that it was a dog (the interview whanged on about how positive everyone was, and within those two days, I knew that was a sack of shit, as was the product they were working on) I left and quickly moved on to Job Two, which turned out to be even more of a dog – although this time because of the owner, rather than the work itself. The work was grand, the owner was (is) a cunt. I won’t talk about it, because there’s a lot of legal tat still ongoing. Safe to say, signifcant dollops of broken employment law, disregard for Working Time Regulations, Contracts, and many many other things.
More than anything else, it was Job Two that burned me out, and pushed me further down the slope. It’s not been a good year anyway, but that job was the final shove.
I left there at the end of September, once I’d been paid. I didn’t have anything to go to, didn’t even have any applications or interviews lined up. I just knew I needed to be out. Even with my experience of interviews and so on, knowing there’s no safety blanket makes that a pretty nerve-jangling decision.
It took me two weeks to get a new job, that was all. I’ve been ridiculously lucky, and the new contract seems like it’ll be OK – I’m two weeks in, and it seems to be going well.
All this is most of why I’ve been quiet for the last few months.
I’m hoping that things will start their slow build back to normality – or at least my usual approximation of it – and that things here will come back too. We’ll see.
Creativity Locked
Posted: Thu 29 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Insomnia, Project 42, SAD, Words, Writing | Leave a comment »Over the last couple of months, my creative side has felt like it’s completely locked up. I don’t particularly know why – although I suspect it’s linked to feeling constantly tired, burned out, and unwell.
After this weekend, I’m making some changes again – mainly employment stuff (of which a bit more tomorrow) but also a few life-based things.
With the new job, I’m aiming to limit myself to work-based stuff just in work hours. With the last couple of jobs they’ve been coming home with me, and it’s been sitting in my head. I suspect that’s been a mistake. It’s certainly put me in a position where a lot of the time I don’t even want to look at a computer while I’m at home – although again that may be down to also feeling depressingly run-down – so I’m currently hoping that if I limit myself a bit more workwise, I might have the time and inclination to do other stuff when I’m back at home.
It could also be that I’m going through a bit of a depression dump. It wouldn’t be the first time that I get affected like that once the days have started getting longer. I can deal with – and fight – the seasonal depression of long nights and grey days, but once the days get longer I lower my guard, lower my resistance, and sometimes it just hits hard for a while.
I’m hoping I’ll find some ways to reset myself a bit over the next couple of weeks, but we’ll see.
Location Fixation
Posted: Fri 16 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, Bankruptcy, Change, Commuting, Depression, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Housing, Own Business, Project 42, Thoughts, Time, Work-related | Leave a comment »Over the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking a lot about location – where I live, where I work, where I want to live, all that. I’ve been in the current house for two years now, and I know I’m getting a bit twitchy.
The current tenancy doesn’t expire ’til November though – due to an initial six-month one, followed by 12-month ones. As a result, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, look at the pros and cons, and – I think – I’ve now pretty much made a decision.
As has been noted on many occasions, I’m not all that good with permanence – I like change, embrace it even. It suits me. So two years in the same place is enough to make me twitchy, to start to feel that itch in the back of my skull.
It’s not too bad at the moment though. I’ve certainly had it far, far worse than this. If I were still in the same job as well, the options would be different – I’d be needing to move on in both cases. As it is, I’ve been back on the contracting since July, and it’s kept things decently varied – which means the house side of things can relax a wee bit.
There are places I’d like to move to, some new locations and some old. (Or at least close enough to qualify as revisits) They’re more about reflecting how much life has changed in the last few years, most particularly the ability to drive, which opens up whole new vistas.
For example, I’d like to go back to the North-West, live around the Peak district somewhere. I wouldn’t live in Manchester itself again, but there’s loads of places around it that I really like. It’s still a front-runner when the move does happen. The same applies for the South Coast, and Dorset in particular. It’s an area I love, but didn’t really get to appreciate as much as I could’ve done, because I didn’t drive. So yes, that’s also a front-runner.
There’s other places too. A revisit to Bath and/or Bristol wouldn’t be out of the question – particularly when not combined with an insane commute, ideally – and there’s new locations too. I’d consider most places, but Nottingham and Derby have always been good to me, and there’s a whole heap of other places. (Plus a long-standing idea to sod off to somewhere like Cork)
However, right now there’s also a bigger plan in place. Rebuilding after the bankruptcy, seeing what comes next, as well as looking at work and finances and what the hell I want to do/be when I grow up. There’s ideas on that score, but I need to have the time and inclination to do something about them. Time I’ve got. Inclination? Less so, right now. But that’s a post for another day.
I could move, sure. But practicality-wise, where I am right now is pretty much perfect for me right now. It’s not a long-term location, but for now it’s good. I’ve got all the transport links I need – my commuting radius for work covers an insane amount of miles. It makes my contractor life a lot easier. Location isn’t in many (if any) of those calculations I have to do. For me, right now, that’s an important factor, and outweighs pretty much everything else.
Financially, it’s easy. If I move North then the odds are that my rent would drop. But for where I am, for what I’ve got right now, I couldn’t do much better. I’d like some extra space, an extra room or two – but it’s not something that’s necessary right now either.
All told, while I would kind-of like to move, I don’t need to move. And staying put has its advantages too – location, money, blah blah.
That means that – in the lack of a good reason for moving other than “But I want to” – I’ve decided I’m going to plan to stay where I am for the next eighteen months. The six months from now for the current tenancy, and then extend it by another twelve.
Of course, the landlord might decide to sell up or something, or work may throw up something that makes me have to move. Neither option is likely, but they could happen. But short of those kind of eventualities, I’m going to face up to things, and not move.
By that time – November 2015 – I’ll have been in this place for three and a half years. Then I think it’ll be time to move on – or at least move up. If my work is still keeping me based in a way that the current location is still OK then I’ll just look at moving to a bigger place locally. If things change or work isn’t a limitation (I can work from pretty much anywhere, after all) then it might be a big location change too. We’ll see.