Redundancy seems to do strange things to you. Which is why I am sitting in my kitchen writing this at four o'clock in the morning. My mind is full of stuff and its making me toss and turn and to avoid waking my wife, the lovely G, I decided I should give in and get up for a bit. Daylight is seeping in through the windows and the dawn chorus is in fine voice. The view out of the bedroom window upstairs is across the garden to the bowling green and is actually quite lovely in this light as there is a long line of gold and pale brown across the horizon. Having decided to get up has immediately helped quiet the voice in my head and looking out across the stillness of the garden has calmed me in moments. I feel better already.
I have picked some music to match my mood and am just now listening to the beautiful, ethereal sound of the track " sacrifice" from the film "The Insider". The sound seems to hover about the room and feels like a call to the morning, a haunting instinctive hymn to the start of the day. At one time calming and restorative and, it feels, just a bit healing..........
My mind has been milling over the days events and it feels like I have at last come to a crossroads where I will be able to cut off dealing with my employer and start truly looking forward and getting myself sorted out. Its taken too long to get to this stage, more so because I have been waiting for a resolution to a dispute about pension funds.
During the redundancy process I was informed that I would be contacted six to eight weeks after leaving by the pension dept to give me my pensions options as I will be losing a final salary pension, which is a big thing when you are my age and have been working for the same company for thirty two years. Having done a bit of research I had found out that I could put a lump sum into my pension from my redundancy pay tax free and decided this was what I wanted. On bringing this up at what is jokingly called a "consultation" meeting, I obviously caught my head of dept and his personnel manager assistant for the process off guard as neither of them knew if this was possible. As I had discovered that as this could only be done as my redundancy pay was processed, I argued that it would be unfair to pay me off until I had the information to allow me to make a calculated decision, and so I was given a stay of execution for a week until they got me the information I needed. As it has transpired due to poor communication and blatant incompetence on their part it has taken them five weeks to get me the information and the forms needed and I found out at the start of this week that they were sneakily planning to make this wait part of my redundancy lieu of notice pay. Well to cut a long story short, I succeded in persuading them that this too would be unfair and have managed to get them to agree that my redundancy date will be as of today. So - an extra five weeks pay - which feels like no small victory to me. And another bonus is that I will qualify for another year of profit share. That should be worth a couple of grand too. What a result! Get it right up ye ya shower of B's!!!
Ah well, my tea is finished and maybe I can slip back under the covers for a wee cuddle and a snooze to start off the weekend.
See you later.................
I have picked some music to match my mood and am just now listening to the beautiful, ethereal sound of the track " sacrifice" from the film "The Insider". The sound seems to hover about the room and feels like a call to the morning, a haunting instinctive hymn to the start of the day. At one time calming and restorative and, it feels, just a bit healing..........
My mind has been milling over the days events and it feels like I have at last come to a crossroads where I will be able to cut off dealing with my employer and start truly looking forward and getting myself sorted out. Its taken too long to get to this stage, more so because I have been waiting for a resolution to a dispute about pension funds.
During the redundancy process I was informed that I would be contacted six to eight weeks after leaving by the pension dept to give me my pensions options as I will be losing a final salary pension, which is a big thing when you are my age and have been working for the same company for thirty two years. Having done a bit of research I had found out that I could put a lump sum into my pension from my redundancy pay tax free and decided this was what I wanted. On bringing this up at what is jokingly called a "consultation" meeting, I obviously caught my head of dept and his personnel manager assistant for the process off guard as neither of them knew if this was possible. As I had discovered that as this could only be done as my redundancy pay was processed, I argued that it would be unfair to pay me off until I had the information to allow me to make a calculated decision, and so I was given a stay of execution for a week until they got me the information I needed. As it has transpired due to poor communication and blatant incompetence on their part it has taken them five weeks to get me the information and the forms needed and I found out at the start of this week that they were sneakily planning to make this wait part of my redundancy lieu of notice pay. Well to cut a long story short, I succeded in persuading them that this too would be unfair and have managed to get them to agree that my redundancy date will be as of today. So - an extra five weeks pay - which feels like no small victory to me. And another bonus is that I will qualify for another year of profit share. That should be worth a couple of grand too. What a result! Get it right up ye ya shower of B's!!!
Ah well, my tea is finished and maybe I can slip back under the covers for a wee cuddle and a snooze to start off the weekend.
See you later.................
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