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Sunday 19 June 2011

Show me the money

Or better said "Where the bloody he** is my money?!"

What I love about the end of a tax year is a letter from the tax office saying you've overpaid your tax. The amount of the bottom of the page made my heart skip and do cartwheels like a child who just found out they don't have to go to school. All of the sudden the rain in April didn't bother me anymore and I could almost see myself singing and dancing in the rain, but I'm no Ginger Rogers and my Fred Astaire is a bit too far away to join me. Anyway, I kept checking my account for the new balance and after a few weeks I didn't want to do any cartwheels anymore (and neither did my heart).

Only in June I decided to phone the tax office to ask them what happened to my money. Apparently they sent the cheque to the bank and the bank sent it back. Huh?! Don't they want the money? So, I phoned the bank. They put me on hold. Answered. Then put me on hold again. Finally, they found someone to talk to me. The bank claims never to have received any cheque in my name. Huh?! And they casually added that I've no money in my account to pay to keep my account open. Huh again?! I have no money, because you returned the cheque! Phoned the tax office again. Was put on hold. Asked to have the cheque sent to me personally. I will deal with it later. Was told by the tax office they sent me a letter in May asking what to do with my cheque. I didn't get the letter. The cheque was at that time in the post. Two weeks later I still have no cheque.

If you see it wandering around and looking for its owner, take good care of it (it needs a warm home, e.g. my empty bank account) and let me know.

Gee whiz

I'm back and have officially done something scary. I'm still shaking just thinking about it. And now everyone is trying to convince me to change my mind - well, not in a change-your-mind-or-die kind of way, but with subtle hints that are making my decision harder than ever.

Down to the point. I've decided that with all the recent happenings, not getting paid for work I've done was just one of them, I can't really see myself staying here and living somewhere, where only a careless moment of finally watching the news makes me so angry that my blood pressure rises to a dangerous level, is a mission impossible. Being only a few months away from the big three-oh is the time of my life when I'm supposed to enjoy myself (I've a job and should be comfortable being independent and able to do things) and well.... I'm not. The decision of those who lead the country to freeze my chances of being promoted to a better paid position is absolutely insane and it makes my jobs "prospect-less". I don't want to sound cocky, but I'm really good at what I do. And being good and working hard and doing more than just fulfilling your duties should eventually lead to a promotion... but nowadays it won't and God knows how long it will take for things to get better. So, I've decided that with all the language skills and my chameleon-like attitude, I would do better trying to make a life and a career for myself abroad. So, after years of struggling to get a full-time, permanent job, I quit the full-time, permanent job to officially enter the unemployed status in September. Unless, I get really lucky and get a decent job in the country of my choice. So, fingers crossed.

I've started applying for positions I know I can do and would be good at, but no luck so far. But I'm impatient as my friends tell me. I only started sending my CV around a week ago and apparently it usually takes longer to get an answer. My problem is that I've never gone through the I-really-need-a-job type of a job hunt before as I was always so lucky that something more or less just came my way.

All in all, it takes some guts to do what I've just done (especially if you are not the world's most spontaneous person) and it makes me proud that I've finally gathered the courage to do something I've wanted to do for the last 5 years!