New Beginnings at Work

Recently I moved from Clacton fire station to Harlow fire station which has reduced my travel time and expense which has been good for time and finances.
It has been interesting settling into a new Watch on station.

Last month I noticed a job vacancy come up within the service in the community safety department as a senior instructor on youth projects and decided to apply as I am an instructor on youth projects on a casual basis on my days off and have really enjoyed teaching on these courses.
Last week I had an interview for the position and got offered the job the same day!

I am really looking forward to it but it will mean a lot of changes on my day to day working life, I will move from a 4 days on 4 days off shift pattern to day work in a normal working week. It has Pro’s and Con’s.

Con’s

Less time off during the week to train on my long runs and I will have to get up early to get any reasonable runs in during the week.
Less time off during the week with Sue my better half as we currently both get plenty of time off during the week.
Lots of admin stuff to do with the job and loads to learn and courses to ddo to get me fully qualified into the rolee.
Working in an office environment when not teaching, losing the teamwork aspect of station life.
Most of all not being on a fire engine going to fires and helping people in distress and having to deal with very challenging situations on my own judgement testing my abilities.

Pro’s

Promotion so more money, not much but in todays climate even £100 a month will help.
Home every night and off most weekends so great for family life and seeing my daughter on regular weekends.
It is a very interesting job and an opportunity for me to get my teeth into a project and prove my managment skills and demonstrate my skills.
Very rewarding working with young people with issues and seeing the positive result your influence can have on some yong people if focussed in the right way.
Loads more time to train on weekends when most people do their long runs/rides etc.
More time to race and build up race experience in ultras and give me and Sue more weekends on our own to race and travel around and be more socially sporty.
Another step up the carreer ladder and help to build my career for the future in an area I would like to work in.

I was supposed to start as soon as possible but current industrial action and leave over the summer holidays at my station means my current manager won’t release me till september so my new post won’t start till september the 5th. I am technically promoted now and lent back to my station till the end of the summer leave period so at least I will be getting paid from last week with no extra travel incurred.

Rreally looking forward to it but apprehensive to as it will be out of my comfort zone for quite some time till I settle into it. I am much more comfy dealing with dynamic incidents not office politics but as my career moves on I will have to accept more of that and learn to deal with it..

Onwards and upwards…..