What was the best decision you made in 2013? What were the results? How will you continue the good work in 2014?
Decisions.
The one that turned out to be the most significant was a very hurried one: I might as well put this application in, because I can just do it in these two hours, and because I need to keep my jobseeking tab open with the universe.
The one that I put the most thought into, the one that was the most difficult, turned out not to make any difference, and then not to affect me at all. The majority voted the other way, and then I was leaving. I am, however, still glad that I put proper consideration into it.
In actual fact, neither of those two decisions would have meant anything at all had it not been for a decision I made, several times over, earlier in the year: that, if it were possible, I was going to pursue a career with my current employer.
There were alternatives, some more practical than others. Quit my job. Start temping again. I was very tempted by a part-time job with WatCh, but the timing was all wrong. Write. Be very clever with the maternity policy. And the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to go, but I was equally concerned that there was no obvious career path for me. Of course it was all mixed up with Tony’s jobseeking progress, and the question of moving, and the lack of a transfer policy and the knowledge that something, somewhere, was going to have to give. And the decision really came down to what was going to give.
The decision was to stick with it; to keep prodding at things that might let me have my cake and eat it, to move and to stay simultaneously. And it worked. Everything seemed to be very finely balanced. I prodded twice, and it all fell into place. So far, it’s working well – but it’s all very new.
Into 2014: to do the best job I can, to get my head around how things work at HQ, but to do all this knowing that I do not expect, nor am I expected to, do this job forever. To keep my eyes open, my ears open, for the next step. Because I have decided, I have committed, to go bravely on.
Kathleen Jowitt 