THE GOOD BUCK

I’ve been applying for other jobs after the last one was an ungodly o’clock start. I saw a good one, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, £23 p/h, etc. Usual agency nonsense. I rang, “No, we aren’t doing the weekend shift, it’s any 5 from 7 (so less money) start times from 02.00”. sigh. All the ones that aren’t insultingly low paid seem to be ridiculously early starts. I’m not doing it.

I’ve been putting off changing the throttle bodies on the Bonnie because I’ve been worried about setting the throttle position sensor (TPS), but I read a really good article by some Triumph guru. It’s not such a big job. Then I discovered that software and lead I got to plug into the bikes ECU has that feature. You just run the bike with the lead plugged in, slightly loosen one bolt and delicately move the sensor until it reads 0.67 volts. Then tighten it up, run it for 15 minutes, key off, key on, and it’s reset.

Hmm, I was going to do it in the morning, but it’s supposed to be raining all day. Not ideal for a laptop. Meh. We’ll see.

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Well, so much for my destiny. At best, it’s on hold. I went for the interview at Home Bargains, but before they got started they said the only shift patterns they had were 01.00 -05.00, or 16.00- 22.00 starts. No good to me. I came home again. It really would have been so convenient. It is so near I just went in my work high vis coat (no leather) and I didn’t have time to get frozen or go fast enough to worry about crashing without protection.

The only good thing is I was feeling the anxiety so it was a huge relief to come home again. And not to have to go through the stress of learning the ropes of a new job while pretending to be fine.

So now I’m stuck at Sainsbury’s for the time being. I’ll keep looking.

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I’ve been banging on about working for Home Bargains for years now. I was eyeing the job when I worked at Booker. I’ve had my name down on company website for years. I was willing to travel to Liverpool to do it, then I heard they were opening an RDC just down the road from me (3.1 miles away by road, about 2.5 by pushbike) so I was even more interested. That must be 18 months to 2 years ago. Not heard anything about it. No replies, nothing on their website, not seen any jobs, not a sausage.

Then over the last 2 weeks I’ve seen an agency job recruiting for them saying 12 weeks, definite temp-to-perm. I applied. Nothing.

My current agency head office text me to say ‘you used to work for us at Royal Mail, would you be interested in HB, 8 weeks, temp-to-perm. I said yes, depending on the shifts. 02.00- 06.00 starts. No too early. Got back to me a few days later. ‘06.00 onwards starts’.

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Well, that was terrible, but it seems to be over.

I’ve had patches of giddy excitement and happiness. While I was barking my brain was depressed. I don’t mean I was sad, per se, but sluggish of brain. I couldn’t get excited or happy, I was just mentally weary and wanted to sleep. That’s another indicator, while I was loony I could (happily) nap all day and then sleep at night. Since I’ve got better my brain is whirring and I find it hard to sleep at night again.

Also I’ve been looking, with intent, at bikes again. I even bid on one. The price went up slightly more than I was willing to pay, but I was in the game.

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I’m struggling with this anxiety lark. I had two really good days just before my last blog and was thinking the pills were kicking in and it would be all plain sailing until full sanity. Nope. I’ve been anxious every day. Not good. I was doing OK with it, it was there but I was dealing with it. Then I took a wrong turning and drove into a busy customer car park. There was no room to spin it around so my anxiety was mounting, I turned down one of the car park lanes, hoping to get out at the top but there wasn’t enough room. I tried to turn, but I just couldn’t fit. I was stuck. My anxiety exploded into a full-on panic attack. For a quick moment that was it. I just couldn’t. I wanted to run away in terror. My mind was totally gone. I turned off the engine, put my head on the steering wheel and somehow got a grip.

Once the panic passed the actual mechanics of reversing at 1mph across a busy car park, across multiple junctions with cars driving behind me and crossing me, was just terrible, not mind-numbing terror. One of the junctions had a few empty car parking spaces next to it which gave me just enough room to get to the end of the row, bump over a barrier with bushes in it, and escape back to the road. It was a genuinely stressful event, but this loony and the panic attack made it a thousand times worse.

I’ve just had my 3 week pill. The doctor said up to 6 weeks for it to kick in, but I was really hoping, expecting,for it to have worked by now. Wendy was sane in 3 weeks. This sucks.

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