Boast

I love my job.

It seems wack but I do. Until the end of this month I'd spent five months getting money for walking into a jobcentre and signing a piece of paper every two weeks. Even that took it's toll, but here I am, ready and raring to go, jumping out of bed with wild abandon at 7am every week day morning (that may be a slight exaggeration... stumbling, grumbling and wearily dragging myself around for half an hour until I am conscious enough to be trusted with a bread knife and then making bitchy comments about the breakfast tv presenters until I could officially be classed as 'awake' - it's weird how much being a bitch to the tv does perk me up though).

To be fair, I have only been there two weeks. There's plenty of time for me to start hating on it. Also to be fair the last two weeks, three days out of five, I've been training in Winchester - far removed from where my actual job will take place and sat in a room with two other women looking at bits of paper while one of them explains the words that run the length and breadth of these A4 sheets; which is far removed from what my job will actually entail. Regardless, I've been present, my mind has kept to the task at hand, I've not spent time looking at the window or felt my eyes start to droop after lunch. I'm interested in what I'm learning. I love the fact my job was created to help alleviate child poverty (I try and drop this fact into conversation as much as possible because I think it makes me look good). I'm fired up to start and fear I might actually end up being quite good at this and that it might lead to doing other interesting things.

Here's why I'm excited:
- I get to make my own hours. As long as I work 37 hours in a week it doesn't matter when and it doesn't matter (too much) where this takes place. I am not stuck at a desk in a cubicle wishing my life away and willing a clock to move it's hands faster so that I can go home.
- I get to talk to people from all walks of life, I have to make contacts in my community with people who I wouldn't normally even know existed, I get to help people who really need it and find them options they didn't know they had. I am basically a demi-God now.
- I'm not based in one place. I get to move around and visit loads of different 'settings' (as they call it in the outreach worker biz).

Here's why I'm scared:
- I get to make my own hours. How am I supposed to keep track of everything if there is noone standing over me ensuring I do my allocated time?
- I have to talk to people from all walks of life. I have to make contacts in my local community
with people I wouldn't normally talk to. Even if I am kickass at hiding it when I need to, I am naturally socially awkward and prefer standing on the periphery. I get to help people who really need it. What if I fuck it up? This isn't filing a late TPS report. This shit affects real people in their real lives.... What if I fuck it up?
- I'm not based in one place. I don't know how I'm expected to cover all this ground. There's fuck loads of settings in my designated area, where the fuck do I start?

The other slight issue is that I'm still not entirely sure what my job is. I know I'm an outreach worker for the county council. I know the area I look after is south east hampshire. I know where my 'base' is and that everyone who works there is (for the most part) lovely. But as for a day-to-day thing there is no set guide, there aren't any particular rules to follow. I kind of have to make it up as I go along. The thing I fear and crave is doing my own thing and making the best of it.

Be careful wishing for things, they might come true one day and then you actually have to deal with it.

I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. I'll be fine. I hope.