RIP My Career

Cancer claims many victims and we mourn them all. But we can't count it's cost in lives alone, as I've learned. Five years ago I was getting along rather well at work. I've never been what you would call an ambitious person, I don't get on too well with greasy poles. (The climbing sort you understand.) Nevertheless after a period of unashamed idleness on my part (which lasted for most of my thirties) I had decided that for the sake of my wallet, and possibly my sanity I ought to show an interest in promotion. In my department career development operates on a "dead man's shoes" basis, so the opportunity for advancement is rare. It was with some excitement therefore that we greeted the news that our immediate boss was retiring and that he was going to be replaced with not one but two people.

I wont bore you with the ins and outs of the selection process and the various hoops through which I was obliged to jump. I didn't get either job and I took it rather badly. Perhaps I had been too complacent going into the interviews, been too certain that my years with the department and my popularity with my colleagues would carry me through. It was not to be and I slumped into a malaise that lasted far far longer than it reasonably should have. I now know of course why that was. Anyway, at this point feeling snubbed and a little bruised I started my campaign to leave my departmental home of many years and try and get work elsewhere, and began with an attachment which was designed to fill out my CV and give me a broader range of experience. It was hard work but thoroughly rewarding and I began to see that there was a working life beyond my current boundaries. Moreover the contacts that I had made gave me the confidence to believe that should I put in an application for a full time post it would not be dismissed out of hand. All through this period I felt desperately and wretchedly tired. I put it down to the stresses and strains of working in unfamiliar surroundings and very long hours, and it was with some relief that I set off to Portugal for a family holiday in the sun. Things got no better there, however, and I felt so utterly drained of energy and devoid of any desire to do anything at all that I made that now fateful appointment to see the GP on my return.

And so the landscape has changed beyond recognition. Those tentative efforts to spread my wings have been well and truly scuppered. I find myself back in the same old job in a department that has been phenomenally generous to me (in terms of time off and working arrangements) and here I shall probably have to stay. What way out is there for me? I am in remission now but there's no way of knowing for how long it will last. Would the extra effort required to find and get a new job actually make me ill again? And if it didn't for how long could I find that extra energy? And let's be honest, what prospective employer is going to take on someone who is likely to have extended periods of time off for treatment and the possibility of having to give it all up anway because of ill health? It's unsettling to think that at 42 I might have achieved all that I ever will in my working life. Is my new "career" to make sure that I stay healthy?