Career change

No not me, although I'd love to.

Donna handed in her notice today. She's worked for the same employer for the past 18 or 19 years. She started of as a shelf filler, moved to checkouts, and for the past 5 or 6 years she's been working in the office. A few months ago she was offered the position of office manager in another store which she took.

Now office manager has a nice ring to it, and it does involve a lot of responsibility. What it doesn't involve is a lot of money, nor time to actually get the job done. In fact she's earning less per hour as a part timer in the office than Sarah is as a casual checkout chick. With regular budget cuts there was less money for overheads, and so less hours to do the office work.

So she decided it was time to get out and do something she would find interesting and more rewarding.

The plan is to go to TAFE full time and do temp work around that. The local college runs a certificate course in native animal rehabilitation, and in fact it's within walking distance of home. She was going to start that this month, but it turns out the course actually starts tomorrow (Tuesday). So she'll be starting it in the new year instead.

I've got to admit, I'm a little jealous, I'd love to quit and do something else. I'd even drive buses for a couple of years until I finish my degree. The trouble is, I earn about twice what Donna does. We can afford for her not to be working full time. We can't afford for me to do the same. Now if my employer would make me redundant, that would be a different matter. It would mean bye bye mortgage for one thing.