Back Where I Belong

I am very happy to report my first day back at my old work was a success! 

I was starting to worry at about 1am Sunday night when I still hadn’t managed to go to sleep, I had taken two melatonin tablets earlier in the evening but they are really hit and miss anyway and they certainly weren’t working that night. It was too late for a proper sleeping tablet and I hate taking these as they give me a right hangover the next morning.

So I was left lying awake with my insecurities until I finally drifted off around 3.30am and woke up at 7am. 7am!!!! SHIT!!! I had ½ an hour to shower, dress, blow dry my hair and get four uncooperative, argumentative morning-hating children ready to leave the house by 7:30am. Somehow we did it, the kids were easier than usual, everyone found a jumper and nobody forgot their lunch box (unlike this morning – where do all the jumpers go anyway? Are there little jumper fairies that come and steal them while we sleep? Plus my eldest is going to be very hungry when he arrives home today!)

After my sudden start to the morning I found my body trying to catch up on sleep as I was driving into town, since this is unpractical and rather unsafe I spent the commute with the radio blaring and the windows down letting in the brisk 2 degree Celsius breeze trying desperately to keep my eyes open and stressing about how this wasn’t a very good start to my first day back in four years.

 

Luckily when I arrived and got out of the car I woke up properly and was excited to get back into the routine of cleaning out the livestock and getting the shop ready for the morning. (Yes I said I was excited about cleaning, enjoy that as I will probably never say it again!) 

It was just like old times, customers were lovely, my colleagues are the same lovely people I used to work with, my boss still likes rearranging everything every five minutes, I found myself spouting out animal husbandry advice that was still buried deep within my brain and I can still catch fish!

The only thing that is different is the addition of a store pet, a giant Mancoon cat named Leo, he is gorgeous and really, really naughty – apparently he was in a mood yesterday but he jumps up on everything, he particularly likes perching on shelves containing glass bowls and fish tank ornaments. Leo doesn’t seem to like me though, he gives me death stares and every time I picked him up (to remove him from a ‘breakables’ shelf) the not so little bugger bit me on the arm and then chased my legs when I put him down again, I don’t think he appreciated this stranger coming into his home and spoiling his fun.

 

So I know it was only one shift so far but I am really glad I have been given the opportunity to go back, it’s such a totally different world to the public service and it made me feel like I was part of a flexible considerate team that was making a difference, not just a worker bee adhering to strict time schedules and clocking on and off. For the first time in years, this feels right.

Do you get along with your cat? What would your dream job be?