16th November

 It's late.

Can't sleep. Or rather I slept a tiny amount, woke up, and then my brain kicked into overdrive and I couldn't sleep.

A lot of things passing through my head.

Today was a very rough start. Felt like the dead getting up. Ended up going back to bed for a few hours which helped. And was somewhat reassuring that a few extra hours of sleep helped quite a bit. But still. Rough as hell.

Work.

Even at its best, the priorities of work shift continually. The longest period I get is maybe 3 days before another priority pops up. And 3 days is a luxury. More often than not it's half a day. 

My memory isn't what is used to be, and the continual chop and change the last few months has, eh, just made that worse.

But eh, it's ok. At the moment. It wasn't a few weeks ago.

Quitting.

I fretted about it. The realisation I will lose an income ( not true ). That I would jeopardise long term stability ( half true ). Maybe I should just stay where I am, take the money, cruise for more years.

That's the fear talking.

I calmed.

Plan Z I retire. Not well. But I retire. I will have oodles, and oodles of time. To do. Something. Maybe nothing.

Plan D. I fail to do anything useful in 2 years and look around for an employer. I can probably get a job with one of Naglotechs clients. The one thats super sucked into ( my ) Naglotechs infrastructure. This is my baby. Not Naglotechs.

Plan C. I fail to do anything useful in 2 years, and see if Naglotech ( assuming it is still around, ha ha ) has got any jobs it wants doing.

Plan B. I fail to do anything useful in 2 years and get a job with some of the contacts I have in Norwich.

Plan A. I achieve something useful in 2 years and all is, if not golden, then stable. But possibly golden.

That's the rational plans.

Now onto the touchy feely. The rational is where it's at. And me being me. The touchy feely gets little if any say until the control monster is placated. The plans above mostly do that. So. Touchy feely.

I need to do this. If necessary I need to fail. I haven't yet failed in life, and I need to do that. That's not a boast, oooh, no failures, look at you Mr Perfect. The opposite in fact. I've never really made decisions for myself. I've just followed my nose. No plan. No career. Just a mildly, OK attitude to things as the literally slap me in the face. From school I have just followed Others Peoples Paths. By some measures this means I've epically failed in life. Just not failed to the extent where I crashed and burned with no money.

So. Choices. The only time I have made my own choice was in moving from Full Time work to Part Time work. Which worried the hell out of me. But in hindsight was a fantastic decision. That's the only ( laughably small ) decision I've ever made for myself.

Yes, but, you've had this job, and that job.

Not choices. Not me setting a goal and going for it. Just literally a means to... no end. I've not job hopped. At all. I've plodded. Sure. I can do that. And so my work life has just been one long non decision, one long other peoples expectations. Not believing in myself. No risks. Pushing other people up and on or fitting into others patterns.

So. I think it's high time I made a mistake. A stupid decision. Something that doesn't work out. Crashes and burns. But. Is my decision. Is a choice. An actual choice. Something where I say, in a very quiet voice, hey, what do you actually want.

So. Quit. Take that leap into the unknown. And just do it. And at least I get to say, hey, yeah, I made that decision. Ha ha, terrible decision. But I did it for me.

And that's worst case.

Best case is I do that, and it's the *best* thing that happened to me. I made a choice - for once, and it was great. In fact, the downside to that, is it took me so very very long to believe in myself, take a risk, and actually do something. I will look like an utter idiot.

In fact either way, succeed or fail, I will look like an idiot. For either doing it. Or leaving it so long to do it.

Heh.

It's not an easy decision for me. It goes against a lot of my upbringing ( mostly the negative aspects of it ), it goes against my craving for stability, for no change. But I can see a whole bunch of that has been invested in me as a kid. No encouragement. No positive influence. Just a rabid fear of making no mistakes. And getting a job. Mmm. You can almost feel the dark crazy parental influence there can't you.

Ironically my dad made the same mistakes ( or maybe not ironically, inherited patterns and all that ). He never jumped. He watched others he worked with become self made men - and resented them because he saw the work he put into them, and then felt he wasn't rewarded. My mom said it was the one thing he couldn't do. Take the leap. He never even got as far as me - working for myself. He was always an employed person. And ended up resenting it heavily, unable to see that the biggest failing there was in himself, not others, to be confident and just do it.

I'm different to my dad. But not completely alien to him. I share stuff with him. But I have learned to push past his limitations, his small world and in some cases be very different to him. In outlook. In temperament. In understanding.

So again. This leap will be another difference. A major one.

Which is somewhat reassuring to me. I am not my old man. And that's a good thing.

If it fails, that's ok.

It's just important I do it.

When.

Time is speeding by. December is hurtling towards us at a crazy speed. So. January seems like a good time. I don't want to drop the bomb on Andy before Christmas and ruin it for him. That would suck for him. Although, dropping it in January, in the post Christmas blues is also not great. But. It would be not great at any point.

So January. Given how... iffy... Andy is with money. Almost certainly on the day he pays me ( this ensures I actually get fucking paid ).

No doubt he will then demand ( expect ) me to work some ridiculous notice period.

This is where it gets a little ugly.

Because the answer is no. I am under *zero* contractual obligation to do *any* notice period at all. Morally, there isn't a huge amount of leeway either - he has withheld pay on sick days, when I've been dying on my arse, I've had zip holiday, etc etc. I am a contractor and... subject to his whims... get treated like one.. or not. For the record, he pays actual employees only statutory sick pay. Which. Is a serious mistake for an IT outfit imho. But it's money. And Andy does like his cars. And stuff.

Anyway. Notice period. I already know - because hes comfortably complacent and his anxiety will spike - he will think he's entitled to everything and push hard for it before lapsing into emotional blackmail. And possibly an epic sulk. And before you go judging him, eh, people are people. This is how most people are. It's not to hold it - too much - against him. It's mostly driven out of fear. Could he be better ? Oh God yes. But then. Eh. We all have flaws.

So. I think I might do a month. I'd rather do zero. It depends how that conversation goes. I'm certainly not doing longer than a month in any circumstance whatsoever. And if he fucks me off enough, I will go with zero. Just what he's entitled to. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

So. There it is. The plan. Fleshed out in probably its final form.

Of course. This is counting chickens.

The thing I should be concentrating on is my surgery on the 30th November.

The outcome of which could put a bomb under everything.

In all likelihood it wont. It will be routine.

But there's a chance it wont be. Jeez. There's a chance I might not even be alive in December.

But. All things being equal.

I will quit Naglotech in January. In practice it would be good to tell Andy now. But. It wont make much difference work wise. All that will happen is that it will give him much longer to fret about and ruin Christmas for him. So. Eh. Plus. I am not 100% sure that's the final plan. But it probably is.

A lot of things fall out from this.

The first is a sudden realisation on Naglotechs part - and some of their clients - just how much they rely on me. How much their very profitable businesses rely on me. And how I am just another cog in the machine to them. In the case of Naglotech. That's unfair to me. I should have shared in the success of Naglotech. But Andy has taken all of that. It is one of his flaws. Pissing money up walls and his... questionable... relationship with money ( either running away from financial commitments, or at the other end greed/excessive materialism ).

Eh well. Time for everyone to grow up. I suspect it will be very difficult for Andy. He will actually... have to ... well.. do. He wont be able to replace me. He can throw money at it, but he wont be able to replace me like for like, he just wont be able to afford it. And I think in short order will probably drive someone crazy anyway. He has to learn to fix a whole bunch of self problems he has with client anxiety, fear, greed, scheduling and on and on, as well as a bunch of business problems like processes and boundaries and employee retention, and has to get a whole lot more professional to development. A huge ask. Who knows. Maybe he will rise to the challenge. Finally. After many many years of not bothering. He's probably in the best place he's ever been to rise to that challenge. So. Possible. And of course he will be fighting hard with fear at his arse, to keep the business going.

On balance, I'd give you a coin flip. Maybe. Worse than a coin flip. Desperation will be all there is driving that. And that, without solid competent habits or an impressive capability to adapt fast, won't get you that far. Andy doesn't have either of those things.

The other fallout is it almost certainly means I wont be moving down South to my family. Moving in the midst of quitting et al would be.. an added financial burden which would be nuts. So. That will get postponed. Possibly indefinitely. Probably indefinitely.

Which is a lot to think about.

So here I am. Braindumping where I am.

Perhaps my mind will change again in the meantime. Perhaps 30th November will be a shitshow.

But I don't think so.

I think we are there.

Instinctively, I think Andy senses he has lost me. And that getting me moved down to my family ( and coincidentally Naglotech ) would pull me closer again. He mentioned it last week. About getting me moved down. He is, on the one hand, just trying to help. But it's one of those... can't remember the term... self aware help you help myself kinda things. Not entirely altruistic.

I sense that he's a little more nervous of me of late. At some deep level, he knows. He just hasn't ( or refuses ) to consciously catch up. Funny how that works.

Change of topic.

Went for a nice ( albeit miserable wintry day) walk with Athena today. Was good. She was in good spirits. I thought of Ares again. And missed him again. Thought of all the days he had missed with me and Athena so far. He would have liked today. I imagined him sniffing the grass with Athena. I can't stay there in such thoughts for too long. I get too sad. I have to stop. And think of something else. Otherwise it destroys me. Ho hum. I struggled to think of the day instead. Concentrate on Athena. I am so sorry Ares. I would do anything to have you back. But I know our time is limited. And yours was done. It doesn't make it better. Just makes me angry at the universe for such a shitty setup.

Anyway.

End on a positive.

Today I surprised myself with how well I recovered out of a shit start today. A little more sleep, a little more rest. Huh. Ok. Sleep is good.

I did some nice work today. Positive. Got to do what I was doing and also shore up a bunch of stuff on the test platform and improve procedures and yada blah. It was good to be a bit proactive again rather than just desperately fighting whatever bullshit fire Andy had passed along ( or created ).

Poured some resin to make some custom miniature bases I made. Another learning excercise. The resin was super easy - super expensive... and super slow at curing. Interesting. Hopefully by tomorrow ( later today, its like... 2am right now ).. they will have cured. It's going to make doing a full set slower than I like - I need to pour them at least 3 times. But it was cool to do. I hope they turn out ok.