Jobless, stay-at-home

I used to have a job some time ago, PA's job to a President of the multinational company, big responsibilities, not so big money, nothing much interesting, everyday the same routines, just another office job that needs to be done and I just happened to be there. I remember more and more responsibilities added to my list, tasks of other people who got sacked - it was cheaper that way for the company. I remember ideas of extending my working hours to irregular, but without any benefits. I remember almost becoming everybody's PA because they all knew I wouldn't say no to their requests, and when I finally did, they were all surprised and confused as if their world suddenly collapsed. I remember doing others' jobs while they were collecting praises for them.

I remember getting off the bus near our company's building every morning and screaming inside, I remember the state of nervousness on Sunday afternoons when the weekend was nearly over and I knew I would have to go back to the office next morning. I remember in my sixth year in this job having eating disorders, vomiting and the suspected stomach ulcer disease - that's how my organism reacted to my office job. I remember having a handful of pills first thing in the morning for about three months, when...

I got sacked.

It was the last day of January three years ago, and it wasn't just me - the company decided to introduce the new savings programme and lay off most of the long term employees (5 years and longer), because they could take new workers and offer them smaller payments (the girl who worked in my position after I had left got a salary half of what I earned!).

Because it was the general lay off programme we all got very good financial terms of leaving, so we payed off our debts and after some debate and calculations Robert decided that if I don't want to go back to another office job I don't have to - I may stay at home and concentrate on my crafts and on housekeeping (which I like very much). Several months later we opended our gothic apparel&accessories shop, then I started to make things and sell them through different on-line galleries. I cannot tell that we can afford everything but we lead a happy life, and have I mentioned that I stopped with any ulcer pills after that January? ^^

But there is always a 'but', right?

Yes, there is.
My family went crazy just after I lost my job, and they at first didn't even want to believe that I wasn't going to look for one (especially my mom, Robert's mom and his grandmother). They never regarded my shop as something 'real', nor the fact that I sell my creations in other people's shops, and up till now somebody comes up with some office job offers which they push gently into my direction and wait for my reaction.

The worst thing is when I have such conversations:

' So, (there must be this 'so' at the beginning, as if it suddenly came to somebody's mind to inquire about what he is going to say further), Joanna, aren't you looking for a job?'
'No, I have a job.' I answer politely.
' What job?!...' the expression of a total surprise on the face of an inquirer, as if he suddenly lost his memory million times I told him about my job before.
'I have a shop with clothes and accessories I make myself.' still calm but starting to boil inside.
' Oh, that one...' patronizing look and smile, you could almost feel the imaginary pat on the shoulder. 'But I mean the proper job, in the office, or something...'

And at this point I really feel I could get up and leave the room with a huge slam of the door or at least describe how I felt when my stomach twisted when I vomited nothing but blood at the very thought of going to the office on Monday.

But I stay calm and quiet, because I know that they would not understand - these are the people who had they lives organised in a certain way - you are born, you go to school (elementary, secondary, university), you go to work 9-5 everyday, ect. I don't fit their image - I possibly have some job but I don't leave house everyday for it, so it's suspicious, I'm a stay-at-home but I'm not a stay-at-home mum, another incongruity ('why doesn't she have kids at the age of 32?', 'what's wrong?', 'why is she such a freak?', 'why cannot she be normal?' they ask themselves and me sometimes). There was nobody in our families that had any kind of a stay-at-home job (like a writer or some artist), so they cannot imagine this kind of life. They never stayed at home, apart from the times when women stayed with their new born children for a short period of time, when they were ill (they were never ill, as my mom once said, 'I don't know why you are ill so often (twice a year? during the big flu virus explotions?...), I've never been ill for 35 years of my work!'), or on weekends.

In this month's "Mirror" (Polish women magazine) I've read the interview with two ladies who several years ago left their jobs and set up the organisations called 'Maturing Of Roses', where they offer numerous workshops that help women develop different skills and talents, learn new things and find their own place in life. And one of them said:

'I've been following my own path for the last 12 years, and my mother still cannot agree with the fact that I don't work from 9 to 5 in some office. She thinks that I walk on the thin ice and that I'm jinxed, because nobody wants to hire me. This shows how strong a certain scheme is.'

I remember I got a call from the headhunter agency about six months after I left my office job - they offered me a position of the IT Director's PA and I said 'no, thank you very much, and could you please remove my name from your database because I won't be looking for a job from the ones you can offer me', and the lady at the other end of the telephone was stunned. 'But why?...' she whispered with the utmost horror and surprise. She must have thought I was mad, because I rejected the opportunity to be in the database and possibly get another better paid job, and another...

And I like it this way.
And even if I haven't found my own dream, my place, my vocation yet, I don't want to change it because my family feels uncomfortable with it.

Sometimes I wonder...

Today I've been going through my wardrobe and found some old jackets that I wore during my horrible office times (more about that tomorrow), and then I wanted to destroy them physically in a ritual of cleansing myself from all the things I experienced while wearing them, then I decided to just throw them away, then I wanted to sell them but I never got to it and then they stayed (I really must get rid of them now, they just occupy the valuable space!).

Anyway, this picture brought to my mind a memory from the Summertime last year.

I was at the bus stop, the weather was beautiful, a real Summer sun was shining and there was some happy, laughing young people (this bus stop is in front of the Agricultural University gate) dressed in Summer clothing. And I, of course, was also dressed colourfully, as you can imagine from my wardrobe remix photos, I had some funny comfortable clothing plus some accessories like lots of bangles, some necklace, ect.

And there, among the colourful crowd I spotted a girl. And she spotted me. We looked at each other and then into each other's eyes. I was all Summery/freaking colourful/having fun sort of dressed and she was... well... in a very dull grey trouser suit, with some white buttoned up blouse underneath, with a black case in her hand. Her hair was not too short, not too long, indefinite colour, no expression of any kind on her face. She couldn't stand out more.

And I thought: "What a sad life she must have, working in some office where she has to wear the suits everyday to satisfy the company's standards. I bet even during the weekends she keeps this invisible dresscode, because it probably stuck to this fashion taste." And I recalled the times when I was a secretary with a low salary and I had to wear black, grey or dark blue suits (in fact, I never wore suits, I wore jackets with black trousers usually), so I was buying whatever I could afford, mainly in a thrift stores, because for me spending a lot of money on such suits was just a waste of it.

But then I started to wonder, what did she think about me? I couldn't figure out whether she approved my look or disdained it, because her face remained statute-like, and I didn't really wanted to ask...

I made two assumptions though: she could either like the way I looked, and maybe be a bit jealous that she had to wear such plain grey clothes (I would be if I was in her place), or just regarded me as a weirdo with no sense of fashion taste and felt happy to stay in her comfortable suit 9 to 5 world.

I'll never know what she thought, maybe she even didn't pay that much attention to me as I imagined. And I sound very judgemental here but isn't the way we dress reveal our personality, creativity, imagination? When I had to wear my office jackets I always accessorised them with colourful scarves, brooches, ect, that was all I could do but I thought I would die of boredom if I didn't do it. And when I look at people dressed all in grey, dark blue and greish brown office fashion clothes, with dull and tired expressions on their faces, I want to scream: "Stop wearing such plain things, jazz up your wardrobe a bit and it'll make your life more cheerful!" *^v^*

Hard work

What a coincidence... (No, I don't believe in coincidences, it meant to be like this! ^^)

On the same day I came across two things that described the same attitude towards work and achievement.
First, I opened my Stitch'n'Bitch calendar on the Saturday 20th Jan page and read the following words:
'Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.'
Rita Mae Brown

and then on Vera's Dragonfly Psychic blog (which I highly recommend, it's very inspiring!!!) I read her interview with her friend and artist Angie Renfro (she' s painter, check up her works!), where she said:
'It is possible to live the pipe dream of doing something you love for a living. It takes talent. It takes hard work and commitment. It takes rejection and disappointment. It takes selling yourself and shmoozing. But it is absolutely worth it.'

Yeah, my dear readers, hard work again.
This is the thing that I lack of, that I very often forget about. Sometimes I wait for things to happen, to come to me as I lay on the couch (or sit in front of my computer screen), when I should be working hard to earn my keep. If you are self employed, it is you who set the working hours and coffee and lunch breaks, and it is up to you to manage the time of the working day wisely and economically. It needs a lot of self-discipline, especially when you work at your own home, with all the distractions like laundry or watering the flowers, or just reading a book instead of working on some projects. That's why I wish I had a studio somewhere outside my flat (or at least a separate room devoted specifically to crafts), where I could go to and stay there undistracted, working. Because I am lazy and have a tendency to leave one project and start another one just because it came to my mind that I want to try it out right away. I have millions of ideas but they often stay unrealised because I have so many of them I don't know where to start and I end up with a book on the sofa, pushing my work till later.
I decided to fight with my laziness! ^^
I'm going to work out a scheme of weekly working time (just because your studio is at home doesn't mean you will work all the time, there must be time devoted to work and time to play/relax) and stick to it. (Well, we'll see how it goes... ^^)

My timeframe:

Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings and afternoons - it should be the time to work on my business projects (commisions, things for all on-line shops I sell to, packing and sending out the orders, administrative work).
Naalbinding Wednesdays - because we are going to go to Sweden this June for a Viking market and I decided to take some naalbinded merchandise with me, I have to find time to make these items (socks, mittens, ect), and Wednesday will be a good day for naalbinding, because on Wednesday evenings I'm having craft meetings with the girls from my medieval group, so naalbinding in the morning will introduce a medieval crafts mood. ^^
Fridays - time for my own sewing/costume/refashioning projects

Saturdays and Sundays - time to relax and work on the projects if I really feel like it!

Knitting

Yesterday I promised photos of my latest FOs, so here they are:

Candle Flame Shawl for Imbolc (I know that the colour for Imbolc shawl should be different, white or light blue or silver, but I found this pattern and could only imagine this one in red).

Yarn: strange five-ingredient yarn from my old stash, 1 skein of 100g

Needles: 4 mm

Pattern notes: this is a very easy to remember pattern, almost mindless knitting, no charts (Amber, no charts! ^^). The shape is a bit odd, because it starts rather narrow and then it sudenly grows widthwise, but it still is a nice wrap.

My Winter Gloves have all the fingers now! ^^ Unfortunately not black or red, but grey, and I thought I wouldn't like them this way but I do and they are original! ^^
Yarn: Wendy's Merino Double knit 100% wool
Needles: 3,5 mm dpns
Pattern: my own


Morning Surf Shawl which will be my Ostara shawl (yes, I know, it's still a long time, but when I finished Candle Flame shawl last night this one just jumped onto my lap and asked to be knitted a bit... *^v^*) has grown a few rows and I really like this pattern.