girlofprey

The first week of the year was interesting to say the least. Hopefully we're not starting as we mean to go on.

I don't know, I'm very blah and deflated at the moment. Everything is terrifying. I don't know what the rest of the year holds for me at all - I had a vague idea of looking for work in spring, when things will hopefully be better, but I feel like we're not through with the business bankruptcies yet, and if there's a chance I can hold out and get the vaccine, that would also be worth doing. I'm not particularly interested in getting long Covid, or long-term problems that show up a year or two or ten after being infected. But then there are stories of people who had the vaccine then getting the disease, and people are a little bit sketchy about the government messing with the vaccine schedule anyway. I don't know. January and February are always kind of crap, but now it seems to have extra greyness and uncertainty to it.

Mum was scared to go shopping today, for the first time since the whole thing started. I mean, I think she's been scared before, but yesterday she was actively looking for ways not to do it. She looked up online deliveries for Morrisons, and then debated just going to Marks and Spencers (rather than M&S then Morrisons) and trying to make do with the food in there, for a week. Marks and Spencers were apparently doing a little more in terms of precautions than Morrisons have been doing, only allowing a certain number of trolleys/people into the shop at one time. She cheered when the news about Morrisons enforcing mask wearing came out yesterday. She did go today, to both shops, and said it was noticeably quieter and emptier than it has been for a while. Maybe people are finally taking this seriously.

I have started playing Borderlands 2 again. It doesn't seem like a way to broaden my horizons, but it does seem like the game with the least darkness I can think of, and the most colours, which I think will suit my TV screen better. It is an amazing game, though. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but it just feels refreshing in a way so many games don't, like there's a real sense of space. And just a focus on one or two mechanics, done well, rather than a bunch of things all jumping for your attention at once, which feel super limited when you actually pay attention to them. Anyway. Also, I get to play Maya, after they did her dirty in Borderlands 3. Oh I love Maya. I have also been playing the Sims again, which I think is just because I crave the outside and more interactions with animals. My character adopted 2 stray dogs, and they made the most beautiful offspring in the world.

I have also been watching TV. The Great is on on Sunday nights - I intended to watch that last year, for Women's Month, and now it turns out you can't really get the whole thing anywhere in the UK legitimately, and the one 'unofficial' site I tried gave me a bad experience I just don't need at the moment. You can't even download the whole boxset on 4, it's just coming out one episode at a time, and that's it. I'm really enjoying it, as I assumed I would given the glowing reviews last year, and I will let you know my full thoughts on it in eight weeks' time. I've also been watching Traces on the BBC with mum and dad. The Guardian gave it a 2 out of 5 last week, but I'm really enjoying it. It stretches at reality a bit and has the same 'small world' syndrome a lot of modern crime stories have, but the acting's really nice and believable, and there are so many women. Talking to each other. The subject matter is a bit difficult, obviously, but I'd say it's still worth a watch if you don't mind murder mysteries.

It feels very strange not to be buying things. Usually that's how it goes, you have Christmas, and then after Christmas I go looking for all the stuff I suggested but didn't get, or that was too niche to suggest, and try to buy it in the January sales. But now I just don't want to spend money, with the future being so uncertain. I'm not exactly badly off, but I could be with a few expensive purchases. Money isn't going into my bank account anymore, and I have to remember that. So that's another thing I'd normally be doing at this time of year, and can't do. Also my mum's (second) Christmas present still hasn't arrived. The company have sent me about 3 emails revising the expected delivery date, so at this point I just don't expect it when they say anymore. Maybe it'll be here by June. In time for mum's birthday.

I got paid yesterday, and it was supposed to be a day I started buying a bunch of things I've been holding off on, but my cat has an ingrown dew-claw - on the outside of her paw. I noticed it back in March, when the lockdown started, but I figured it wasn't enough of an emergency to go to the vet about. It doesn't seem to hurt her, but I do see her limping very occasionally and assume it has something to do with that. And the other day I saw her rolling around in the grass outside, and she grabbed that particular paw and started licking it and biting at it. So I think I should probably go to the vet about it, and therefore should probably hold onto a lot of my money until I know how much that will cost. I also need to buy a cat carrier, because I don't know what happened to ours, and my dad is genuinely angry at me that I won't just use the carboard box he's offered me. Mum, meanwhile, was absolutely adamant there was no way we could take care of the ingrown claw at home, while it seemed like that was the only option, until I started talking about talking the cat to the vet, and now she's been researching it and watching videos about it for a day. Trying to do anything I actually want to do is a real struggle with my family.

I also have tinnitus, which I assumed was just my deserved reward for a childhood listening to loud music and adulthood with headphones constantly in, and wasn't planning to do much about it. But now it's graduated from a ringing sound to occasionally a weird vibrating sound in one ear, and apparently it might be caused by earwax, which can be fixed, or in very very very rare cases a tumour, so everyone recommends you go check it out anyway. So I'll probably be going to the doctor and letting them breathe near me over that too.

And my room really really needs sorting out, but I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon either. Probably not until I've finished Ghost of Tsushima. That's not on my family, that's on me.

Yesterday at work, the company put out new guidelines saying that no 3rd party company was now allowed on site, and employees weren't allowed to meet them offsite either. Except for interview candidates whose travel history had been carefully vetted. For a while, my manager was trying to figure out if that meant all of our 3rd-party Facilities company, or at least those of us who work at other sites. Turns out that no, they don't want us to stay away (at present), so now we're just trying to work out which other 3rd party people can't come in. We're handing over post in reception rather than letting the Royal Mail person come through to the postroom, but today they called in a photocopier engineer to fix something and let him onsite. The email really didn't specify if all 3rd party visits should be cancelled, or only non-urgent ones - or really seem to consider how it would affect departments like the post room or Facilities at all.

Today they sent another email round asking all employees - which I assume means everyone onsite - to email a 'secure inbox' saying whether they had a diagnosed medical condition which either gave them a lowered immune system, or an underlying medical condition. Which seems to me like they're gearing up to tell people with those issues not to come in, which also seems sort of discriminatory. I get that they're trying to reduce the chance of illness - particularly since they're a financial company and we're having a virus-related financial crisis - but telling people who aren't ill they can't come to work because they have medical conditions seems super weird. And maybe isn't so bad for people who actually work for the company, and might be compensated or given paid leave - but for people like our cleaners, will probably just mean they can't come to work, and won't get paid as they haven't worked. The cleaning manager I speak to, at least, didn't seem to have any faith our company would pay us if we couldn't go in to work, and given that they don't have sick pay I'm inclined to agree with her. There's been a lot of talk about working from home, but I really can't do much from home, as a receptionist. So I assume if that's what they want in the near future - or to ban anyone who comes in on public transport, which is also me - that means I can't go to work, and won't get paid as I haven't worked for it. So I don't know. Things seem to be changing very quickly at the company right now. And my manager thinks it's a massive overreaction and is furious, but at the same time, it's the reality we're having to deal with.

It's not really a great time for me, because I'm overspending a little at the moment. It's annoying when you think "I have £80 to last me until payday, I'm not planning to buy anything massive, I'll be fine!", and then you start to think "train fare for the week will be £25 - I know I spend about £30 a week on random food - my £9 Netflix subscription will be going out in the next few days - I owe mum £10...", and suddenly you're in single digits and sweating. And next month isn't looking to be any better, because I've got some time off and was planning to go on a few trips for my birthday, which ain't cheap...but then who knows what sorts of travel will be restricted by then, and which places will be closed, so there's probably not much point planning for those either. This virus is a real spanner in the works. But at least I'll get paid over my holiday time, whether I get to go anywhere or not.

In the meantime, everything I own is breaking. A little hand has come off a little dial in my watch, and is bouncing around inside the watch face, ocassionally getting caught up with the second hand and making my watch wrong. I don't even know who to call about that, other than the watch manufacturer. And my lovely new music centre makes a weird clicking noise when I play CDs. It did the first time I put a CD in, but it was an old CD, and when I tried it with a newer one it was fine. But now I've tried it with a CD that is newer than both the others, and it's still making the noise, so I'm guessing it's the music centre, not the CD. salkfjasklj. Do I call Currys or Victrola? Both companies will want me to pack the music centre up and transport it somewhere. slkdfjasdkljdsa. I don't need this.

Well, I had a plan for my money this week, but then I went to the Rooster Teeth site, noticed I wasn't logged in as a FIRST member (it logs me out more often than not), signed in, and then discovered in an email from Paypal that my subscription for FIRST had run out, and logging in had auto-renewed it, and they'd taken £50 out of my bank account. Without any notice or warning. Interesting tactics, Rooster Teeth.

My mum is going to transfer me some money so I don't go overdrawn. Makes me want to cancel my subscription entirely though. Particularly since it seems like you can't turn auto-renew off - the question for it in the FAQ just tells you how to cancel your membership, or change the length of it. They say they 'may' be able to offer a refund if contacted. I've sent a question in about the system, so we'll see...

I have a chair, by the way.

I hate the secret money you forget you're spending. Like bus fares and cans of coke at work.

This week:

• My phone died - it warned me of low battery one day after I'd charged it, and then switched itself off, and then when I picked it up half an hour later it was crazy hot. So I'm not going to switch it on again. The search for a new non-smart phone has been more complicated than I thought it would be, but I've hopefully got a good one on the way. In the meantime I have no phone though.



• The new drawers I ordered for my bedroom redo arrived, and it turns out they are flatpack. So now I have to set some time aside to build them, as well as move them in. Don't know why you can't just buy furniture these days.

Sometimes I get Perfect Day stuck in my head, and then I am emotional:

Sometimes I forget how much puritans suck. Then I remember.

I tried to pay off my tax credits overpayment yesterday. It was a massive pain, because first the letter told me to call a number to speak to HMRC about it, which was not a free number, then a bit later in the letter it said there was also a website I could go to; the website said I could pay it off by cheque at my bank or building society, using the payslip they'd sent me, but I only had the letter and no payslip; I went to my bank on Saturday with a cheque and the letter, but they said they couldn't do it because they didn't have a sort code or account number to pay the cheque into (which was probably on the payslip); so I got the sort code and account number from the website, where it told you how to pay things off using telephone or online banking, and I went into my bank again yesterday, and they said that sort code and account number weren't for a Barclays account, so they couldn't pay it in. However, using the letter and sort code and account number and the cheque I'd written, they could pay the money as a transfer, using the payment reference on my letter as a transaction reference. So I hope that worked, and HMRC don't still think I owe them £1028.94. I could probably find out. By calling the non-free number.

I've decided to try to read Stephen King's It, since that trailer suggests it's a pretty powerful story. I went into Waterstones today, and I was going up in their lift I saw some Stephen King books on the ground floor. I was looking for something else too, but then I went down, with little time to spare till I had to go to work. There were only three books on the shelf, because it was the Stephen King part of the crime section. I went to 'Fiction K'. No Stephen King. I assume his books were in the horror section upstairs, but I had to leave. I searched for 'Stephen King It' on Amazon. The first result was 'The Stand'. Then 'Mr Mercedes'. Then 'The Shining'. I don't know why the world doesn't want me to have that book.

Christmas whale.

It doesn't feel very Christmas-y though. I don't know if it's the mild weather or the fact I'm working, so that takes up most of my time, but it's true. Or maybe it's that people are still reeling in shock from all the politics stuff, so no-one's really in the spirit. Watching Sky News all day really doesn't make me feel too Christmas-y. But anyway, it's true. I can sing Christmas carols to my heart's abandon, even though I don't feel like it, and yesterday I tried to think of even one and could only come up with 'Greensleeves'. Anyway. I'm going to have to do some Christmas shopping soon too, although I don't know when. I have an idea for something to get my mother, and I have the money for it this year too - but it does mean I'll probably need to get my dad something of a similar value, and I don't know what that is. Plus the kids. It's my YN's birthday in less than two weeks. Although I do have a present from last year that I never used hidden away in a drawer. Maybe that will have to do.

After all my worrying about how much time I have these days (despite my claims to the contrary), they're asking me to work extra hours next week, because the morning receptionist is on holiday. I awkwardly explained to my boss that I have OCD and find changes to my routine hard, so I couldn't say I was raring to do it, but I would. He was very nice about it, and said maybe I wouldn't find it as bad as I thought it would be, so we could take about covering in future after that. The thing is it's not the work, it's the amount of time outside of work I'm going to have. They want me to go in for 11 - and really, I think he was hoping for 10 - which means I won't have to get up any earlier, but I won't have time to have a shower on a morning like I usually do, and I won't be able to stay up a little late, because if I sleep in it will really fuck me. So I'll have less time of an evening. But maybe it's only my expectation of what I'm going to get done in a day that really upsets me, and if I let go of that it will be okay, or better at least. And it is only for a week. But the morning receptionist is pregnant, and so she's going to be off for months shortly, and I really don't think I can do that, no matter how well next week goes. I came to this job very much as a part-time job. But like I say, they've been very nice and flexible so far, so we'll see.

Things I have been doing: playing Final Fantasy XV. It's a game that's taken 10 years to come out, so it felt very special to pick it up on day one. And the game had a little leaflet in the front, which was a print-out of a thank you note signed by everyone on the team that made it. Which was lovely. I wanted to get my own opinion of it, rather than just having to listen to all the reviews and whether it was a 'real' Final Fantasy game or not. And I really like it. It's very atmospheric, and everything sort of feels like it goes together, which is hard thing to explain but really makes a game feel special for me. When the story and the characters and the mechanics all seem to work together, and nothing's jarring or feels too 'video-gamey', like it's just a set of mechanics. I really like the combat too, which is cool, because a few of the demos felt very janky. I haven't really touched the story yet, but I'm really enjoying it so far. And really, having everything work together is a real achievement for a game that was in development for so long. Well done to them.

Also, I have been reading the original Superman comic strips. They are amazing. Superman does not give a fuck. The first strip involves him going to see a governor in the middle of the night, who has a SOLID STEEL bedroom door. And the butler's like "haha, just try to get through that", and Superman's like "haha, I will" and rips it apart. Then the butler tries to SHOOT SUPERMAN. Like a fool. But Superman just laughs it off. And then saves a woman who was about to be wrongly executed for something she didn't do. It's great. Of interest to me: Jonathan and Martha Kent were not in the story from the beginning. Superman was raised in an orphanage, where they were like "golly!" about his super-strength, but decided not to say anything about it. But Lois Lane was there from strip one. And she is amazing. An example of their dialogue:

Clark: "Why is it you always avoid me at the office?"
Lois: "Please Clark! I've been scribbling 'sob stories' all day long. Don't ask me to dish out another."

Interestingly, I guess because of the time, Clark Kent is the star reporter at the Daily Star, and Lois is a 'sob sister', which basically means an agony aunt/writer of the sentimental pieces. She's pretty mad about it though. Perry White won't put her on a story about a dam bursting, so she tricks Clark and goes anyway. But then she nearly drowns in the flood and Superman has to save her, so it's not like it's super feminist. But still, she's great. And Clark is all about her. Which is quite lovely.

I get paid today, so I can continue to buy computer parts and actually try and get the thing built. Woo hoo. Also the tax credits place have written back to me, and now they want to pay me £380 a month instead of £390. Which is fine. Still seems bizarre to me, and I suspect it won't last past April, when the new tax year starts, and all my 'freshly working, was recently on ESA' stuff won't really apply. But I've queried it, and they've said it's all fine, so it's very welcome. Given that I'll probably be fine on my wage, I can just put it into my savings account. And then, if they decide they DID make a mistake, it will all just be there anyway to give back to them, and I will be mad, but it will be doable.

Meanwhile the company my company's working for is losing money every year, apparently, so I don't know how safe my job is, and my sister's partner's firm went bust, and I thought he'd been taken on by the firm that took over from them, but apparently everyone except him and his friend got picked back up, so he isn't working. And Christmas is coming, and my sister just got a £150 fine for not showing up to an anger management course they said she had to go on after assaulting a woman last year. So it's all a bit up in the air. But we're out of the depths or recession, say the Conservatives! So hooray. My sister and her family are moving into the new house this weekend apparently. They can't afford to pay my parent's rent yet, obviously, but they will at least be in there. So that's something, I guess.

My dad is genuinely in a mood with me because I started buying parts for my new PC build, and didn't consult with him or get his approval first. For real.

I called the Tax Credits place today, just to double-check about my form. The lady said as far as she could see from looking at it, they didn't have me down as having been on income-related Jobseeker's, which is a relief. The part of me that still worries keeps thinking maybe I got confused when I was deciding whether I qualified for the Disability aspect - but I always understood the concept of being on the taxable Jobseeker's, even if I got the terms mixed up, so I don't think I would have. The woman said that a lot of their decisions are based on 'faith' and not actually looking into your circumstances. But I feel like I've done pretty much everything I possibly can at this point to check if I made a mistake, and everything suggests that I didn't. However - one thing the woman said they didn't have was my projected taxable income for the rest of this year. This was something my Job Advisor said I'd need to do the Tax Credits calculator thing online, to see if I qualified, and it never asked me for it. And when I filled in the form it didn't ask me for it. But the woman on the phone said they'd need it, and it would affect my awarded payment, and if they didn't have it and they overpaid me they'd have to take the money back somehow. I don't think she meant sending the bailiffs round, just paying out less in the future, but still. So I gave it to her, including the taxable Jobseeker's Allowance I received this year. She said it would affect my payments, and I'd get a new awards letter sent out. It's all the same to me, I wouldn't have even thought about tax credits if it wasn't for my Job Advisor, and my new wage is enough for me. But it all seems like it's in a bit of a shambles at the moment.

I hope "even our very worst, most despicable politicians still hate Nigel Farage" is a top news story every day.

First day at work yesterday. In true Halloween fashion, I cut my finger and started bleeding a bunch, had to fill in a Workplace Accident form for the first time in my life. And because we have big screens opposite the main desk playing Sky News all day, I had to watch Donald Trump talk and crow over Hillary. Her latest scandal being - she has an assistant that sends emails.

I can't believe the polls. I just...wish Americans knew what a real evil female politician was like. Like Theresa May, or Margaret Thatcher. Just no, Americans.

Anyway. Work was okay, pretty quiet, as I expected. I didn't have my email address and stuff yet, apparently now because my line manager accidentally only requested it from November 1st, so they couldn't give it to me before then for security reasons. But I should have it by today, and then I can start doing the emails and car parking stuff, and looking on the internet to while away the time. Honestly, boredom might be the biggest problem in that job - I figured I'd read graphic novels while I was there, since they're a little more pick-up-and-put-down-able than a book. But I read 2 massive ones during my shift, completely. I can't really afford to buy 2 every day for work. It was nice to actually get on with reading though. But books might actually be better.

As I expected though, the late evenings are really going to take some getting used to. The security guard who was taking over from me got there a few minutes early and was nice enough to let me go for my train, so I managed to get the 19:12 one, but even then I don't get home until about 8 o'clock. By the time I've had dinner, it's 9 o'clock. I watch a couple of Youtube videos and it's bedtime. I'm up now, and I only really have 2 hours till I need to leave for work. I mean, I knew spending 25 hours of my week working - plus travelling to and from - was going to mean I had less time for everything else, but it's different to actually be doing it. If I end up getting the 8 o'clock train most nights, it's only going to be worse. Should probably bring my PS Vita to play in the station if I get stuck. But anyway, at least I'm working. And earning.

Eventually, anyway. At the moment I'm so broke my mum had to transfer some money into my account just so my direct debit for kickboxing didn't make me go overdrawn. I was planning to buy some new work clothes, but that's on hold for the moment. Plus the fact I'm probably going to have to sort out and pay for my new railcard before the current one runs out, which will probably be before I get my first paycheck. Unless I just pay the individual fares until I get paid. There's so much to think about. I probably am going to have to transfer some money from my ISA though. Plus I'm meant to be buying/building a PC at some point. Still, I am happy to be earning and working though, and I'm happy that the job's going well.

(I couldn't figure out the phones, and first I ignored a call because I thought the girl who trained me said we didn't really do much with the phones, and then I answered a call and couldn't figure out how to transfer it, so I kept them on hold for about three minutes. But I'm pretty sure that guy was trying to sell something to one of our executives. And he never called back. So maybe it was fine. Everything went pretty smoothly after that.)

So the Jobcentre finally paid me. They paid me £600. I was only really looking to see if the £140 I was expecting had gone in. Part of me's worried it's a mistake and I'll have to give some of it back. If not, all I can think is that they decided to backdate my claim like I asked them to, and haven't let me know yet.

But yeah. Wow. I had £10 in the bank last week, and this week I have £1000.