Monday, June 02, 2008

Picking your battles

It was the first day of my new job as a Domiciliary Care Worker yesterday and so far, so good. I was the delighted recipient of so many horror stories prior to the start so the fact that I didn't come across one morsel of excrement was a matter of great elation on my part. I had forgotten how well I get on with older people, and they appreciate the attention, generally have very good humour and one is generally contributing to the overall improvement of humanity which can't be sniffed at. The other thing which I hadn't truly appreciated is that you are more or less your own boss. There isn't some ogre of a manager inspecting your every move, which is a great pleasure, something I am shocked to say I haven't ever experienced before. The person I was shadowing though, told me that I really needed to shadow her this evening at 7, as there is a particular client who, apparently once you can look after her, you can do anything. So this is the real test.

Other news, I am supposed to be completing another application as we speak. My excuse this time is that I'm too depressed. Heroin is still a problem in my home town, as it probably is everywhere, however, my coping mechanism to pretend it isn't didn't work at the weekend as we had a little visit there. And then they had some numbchuck from 'Migration Watch' on the Today Programme which was preceeded by a debate on commodity prices which didn't mention the levels of speculation, followed by a debate about Care for the Elderly which is not examining how to pay for it. That's the problem. The thing that upsets me about politics isn't so much what happens, it's the feeling of absolute powerlessness. And the today programme exemplifies this. People get misleading, uninformed claptrap and then they're expected to make the right decisions. If you start off with some good information, then we might not get Boris as Mayor, or an increase in BNP seats. And that's another thing making me depressed. The BNP has infiltrated one of my favourite websites -'Daily Mail Watch'. What can you do? Actually nothing. If you're a left leaning liberal pacifist champagne anarcho feminist socialist like myself, then you can either 1) have an argument with them 2) Tell them to shut up. I prefer option 2, but then everyone bleats off about free speech. And then I start thinking well actually it is better when they shut up. Perhaps I'm not in favour of free speech. So after all that I'm thinking I'm a communist and I'm going to move to Venezuela. I mentioned it to my life coach - how do you pick your battles? She said pick ones you can win. Application form vs Heroin Addiction vs Fascism vs moving to Venezuela . Application every time.

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