Well, this weekend was very uneventful, I went to the local cafe for a very nice breakfast on Sunday and today I have spent the whole day in my pyjamas. I have been very busy though creating my crochet blanket. I have finally finished it after 4 weeks and nearly 60 hours of work.
It is particularly beautiful though and I have to say I am very proud of it as it is my first attempt at crochet.
I learned to crochet on YouTube of all places, somebody's granny was videoed teaching crochet, and I followed her step by step. I learned the stiches the American way, but as the first pattern book I bought from Hobbycraft was American, learning to crochet the American way was an advantage.
After a few practice squares I decided to go out and purchase a lot of wool for my first piece. It was a large investment considering I wasn't sure if I was even any good at crochet. But it has turned out very well, I am extremely proud of my first attempt and I cannot wait to get started on a second project. I just wish the wool was not so expensive. There are cheaper wools made of acrylic and such like, but I do prefer natural materials. What really shocked me is that the wool I ended up purchasing was 60% cotton and 40% acrylic at £4.50 a ball. I dread to think what a pure cotton yarn of the same weight would cost.
I am going to be on a mission this week to track down some wool for the next project at a cheaper price. I did see on a home interior website a large crochet blanket for sale for £400!! I couldn't believe my eyes, but when I added up how many hours I had spent on this blanket if I was paid minimum wage it would be around the £300 mark. Therefore my blanket would have cost near enough £400 including the materials. I am much happier with my blanket having created it myself and will treasure it much more than if I just went to a shop and spent a stupid amount of money on a blanket!
Tomorrow is the start of the week for me, I do wonder what the week will have in store. When I first moved here I spent a year and a half unemployed. The first year was through choice and I spent six months halfheartedly searching for a job. As soon as I got serious about my job search I very quickly found temping jobs which led me to finding an interview for the job I have now. I do believe that having a job makes it a million times more easy to find another job. Looking back it was a mistake not to go out and look for a job much sooner. Being unemployed is totally demoralising, even if you cause this to happen on purpose. I have to say that if I won the lottery, I wouldnt necessarily keep the job I have now, I wouldnt necessarily work full time, but I certainly would want to keep working and doing something. It provides structure to your day and you appreciate days off a lot more when you are working. Eventually, there was so little for me to do with my day that it just used to waste away and I knew there would be another day off the following day so all the jobs in the house that needed doing kept getting put off. Now when being at work all week, suddenly I appreciate my two days off and I get on and do a lot more with them.
Not this weekend though, this weekend I was slovenly and stayed in my PJs for most of it. I have hung around and looked at the housework and done absolutely nothing about it! I will have to live in a mess for the week and hopefully that will encouarge me to do something about it next weekend! Having recently had the living room tiled, the whole place is upside down and my kitchen is a minefield.
Hopefully tomorrow will be ok at work and the week will start off well. I seem to be having a few problems at work and goodness only knows why. I have never been good with office politics, in fact I am just not very good with people at all. I have this stupid childlike trust that people will be honest and decent, and I am probably too nice to everyone. That I feel must be the product of my childhood.
I grew up as an only child. When I was small I had many friends in the neighbourhood and at school but eventually that started to change. One day I was taken out of school and we moved to a new area. I used to go to private school and all of a sudden I was placed into state school. I was totally different than everyone there with this ridiculous "posh" accent. To top things off my mother hadnt had time to go and get the correct school uniform for the school I was attending and so I was sent in the uniform of my previous school! I was walking around state school in sandals for goodness sakes. From that day everybody picked on me, and it didnt seem to matter what I did nothing would change it. I never had any friends at home either because we had moved into a new estate full of two bedroom houses, houses for people who are just starting and generally do not have children. I was the only child there.
So of course my whole experience of interacting with people became very defensive and I would close down completely in order to save myself. I wouldnt interact with any of them, and eventually I learned how to be nasty because it seemed to be the only way to survive, if I was nasty back to them somehow I felt I could get by.
Of course once I left school the only social skills I had learned was how to interact as little as possible with people around you. I did become a hell of a lot nicer to people as I was no longer in the environment where I had to be defensive. But I have no concept of what needs to be done in order to get along. All I know how to do is to be nice.
Unfortunately it seems that being nice doesnt get you very far in the working world. There are people who are out to get you at every opportunity if they feel a threat. And the new person, regardless of their abilities or lack of always seems to be perceived as a threat. Or so it would seem.
I have no idea how I combat this, it is pretty impossible to change myself really now at 33 years old. I can't exactly go back to school and try to re-learn.
I go to the office every day and I do the very best I can. I seem to be making a few mistakes at the moment but I feel that is purely because I am nervous and because I want to succeed so much. I have placed an awful amount of pressure upon myself to succeed and it is leading to my failure.
This week I am determined that I shall go in, do my very best and not worry about whether I fail or not. If I have done my very best then that is enough. If it is not good enough for them perhaps I will be forced to find a new job.
I feel I need to learn where to draw the line between being pleasant to people and being friendly. I have been trying to be friendly and it just doesnt seem to be getting me anywhere at all. Fortunately there seems to be two or three people there that are nice and can be trusted, I just need to learn when to switch my mouth off and stop talking to people. I am far too open for my own good I fear.
I also suffer from a lack of tact and sometimes I really don't know if I am being offensive or not. I do know that whatever comes out of my mouth is never meant in a way that would cause offense.
It does seem that some of the people that work with have taken some comments to the extreme mind you. But I suppose this is the mindset of the office politic rubbish.
Tomorrow I shall go in say good morning how was your weekend and then just get on with my job and try not to talk to anyone. Hopefully that way I shall maybe avoid the rest of the nonsense.
The thing is the nonsense is not normally very conducive to the working environment. If anything it distracts these people from their work. I do not understand why people get like this, its a job, we go there to get money so that we can eat and pay bills to keep a roof over our heads and if we are lucky enough we may have some left over for special items or luxuries. What does it matter to anyone else what someone else is doing or saying or anything else. It is honestly just like someone brought the playground to the office only now it is 20 times worse. If only they would just spit on my bicycle seat perhaps I would know where I stand!!
Of course when I find out that people are two faced and not always what they seem, it just makes me upset. I truly do not understand why people in this day and age will invest so much time and effort into being nasty especially when they are literally gaining nothing from doing this.
Never mind, I resign myself to the "what will be will be" and I shall keep my head held high knowing that I performed my job to the best of my ability, after all that is all I really owe to myself.
My dog is busy snoring away in his bed, I think he is trying to hint at the fact I should actually be fast asleep right now.
If I get a chance, I shall write in here again tomorrow. Not sure if anyone will ever be interested in reading my ramblings, but actually it is quite fun to splurge out my inner thoughts!! I have not bothered to edit or read back any of my comments, perhaps that is the best way, it is less contrived and natural. If you take offense to what I say, I can assure you it was never meant in malice!
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