Work is equally grudging but not giving an inch. I'm struggling to keep anywhere near on top of my workload which is beginning to take its toll. A new locum started yesterday (which required a day of babysitting from me) so I'm hoping that there's light at the end of the tunnel. I know things must be bad though as one of my colleagues, who is usually the very definition of stoicism, started snapping yesterday. I know it sounds mean, but I was quite pleased as maybe people will take notice and actually DO something about this.
Morale in our team is pretty low. We are very much the "Cinderella" team in our department with all the attention and recruitment going to Child Protection. We just found out that they are to recruit 6 or 7 additional solicitors and, to assist with this task, they are going to be paying them a supplement on the scale pay of 10%! So, not only will that team be properly staffed, they will also be earning 10% more than me.
I know that Child Protection is completely important but this does not help with the feeling of being taken for granted and undervalued. We had a meeting with our relatively new manager and expressed these feeling to him (and credit to him he made his case well and listened well). His solution is another Peer Review of our team and clients in this hope that this will persuade the powers that be to staff us properly and possibly pay us properly. This will take time but he's probably right - no-one listens to us - but they might listen to an external Peer Review.
I've decided to take on management anyway and put in for a re-grade. I'm sick and tired of doing the job of a manager, being the most experienced property solicitor in the Council and therefore having to take on anything even vaguely complicated and attend strategic meetings etc but being paid as a foot soldier. I can't bear this sort of thing but I came to the view that, if I don't value myself, who will?
I took part in a Peer Review of another team recently and the barrister interviewing me was visibly shocked when I told her what I do for no additional pay. She also showed me comments about me from senior managers in several teams which were all glowing so this gave me some confidence to go for it.
Anyway, thanks for listening to my work woes.
The positive thing about all this is that I'm managing to keep some semblance of work/life balance. I have struggled in the past, during periods of work strife, to keep up with exercise and sensible eating but this time I am doing it. Runs, walks, lunch time walks when I'm in the office and no comfort eating either.
I've been for 2 runs this week leaving me less than 2km short of my 50km target for January so I'm going to try to knock that off tomorrow.
Today we played golf!! Yay! It was a grey, drizzly and chilly day but not terrible by any means. It was a team of 3 so I played with Rich and our pal John. We started off really well but subsided somewhat in the middle so our score, while respectable, will probably not trouble the leaders. But it was great to be out and I played some nice shots which is always pleasing.
I then sat in the conservatory and counted birds for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. The results were fairly unsurprising- loads of sparrows, goldfinches, chaffinches, jackdaws and pigeons. A healthy band of blackbirds, starlings, robins, blue tits and coal tits but NO greenfinches sadly as they have gone into sharp decline over this last few years. We also had a flurry of excitement in the first few minutes of the hour when a sparrowhawk swooped in and out around the feeders. I couldn't see if it took one of the little birds but it could have done!!
Just because we've been out for a hilly walk all morning, this did not excuse us from dog walking duties so we went out again this afternoon for more hills. It has been most satisfactory - over 20,000 steps and over 100 flights of stairs. That is a LOT of extra calories so I think I'll have a couple of glasses of wine this evening!! Have a great weekend everyone!
See how gloomy it was on the golf course!
But it brightened up a little for our walk round the village.
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