Skip to main content

Stop the Press!

In my time as Production Manager of a newspaper printing site, now stretching back more than fifteen years, I have indeed called, or more precisely phoned people to exclaim "STOP THE PRESS"!  However, I am now faced with a metaphorical stop the press situation.  Our site in Birmingham has been placed into consultation for closure alongside our Luton press site.  Around 150 jobs are at risk, including my own.  The question is regularly voiced: "Are you alright?"  It's not a question I know how to answer two days after I was given the news.  I tend to say that I am, but I don't really know to what extent I am alright.  Is there are measure of alrightness?!  

For me, this enforced situation isn't a total surprise although it was only one of a few scenarios which I believed may happen.  Additionally, I had been considering the future and making plans for a long time, but not actually doing something about it!  As I'm in my mid-40's I knew that newspaper printing would probably not sustain me for the rest of my working life.  I have been making background preparations for that move for at least the past year.  However, when it happens and you are given your letter, it doesn't stop it being raw.  I am not primarily concerned with the basic needs of security and finance because I have been fortunate in this area.  However what is hitting hardest is the loss of my 'printing family' whether it is the colleagues from the office who I interact with on a daily basis, the superb team that we have across the Birmingham site who now face a period of uncertainty and upheaval, or those hundreds of occasional contacts across many business areas.

This is a great opportunity for me.  However, with opportunity comes risk and big decisions, especially in the midst of a pandemic.  I was speaking with some colleagues; for most of your working and personal life, you don't have to make many life-changing decisions and at the time you may not know how crucial those decisions are. To make a change of career-path from one you've followed for your working life to something different is one such life-changing decision.  To say that is daunting is perhaps an understatement.  Perhaps this is the measure of alrightness I'm looking for - yes, I am alright, but daunted by the decisions ahead.  I am extraordinarily fortunate - I have qualifications and I have contacts.  I have a supermarketful of opportunities.  I have a shopping list, but am not sure which aisle to go down.  I know that I will work it out and I will plan a new path; how I get there will be the focus of the next few months.  The time to make those plans is now, so I better get on with it!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The CCG Project!

In order to find out the situation around the country for Libre prescribing now that the national policy has been published, I have made the decision to contact many of them to find out their plans.  I have arbitrarily chosen to contact all English CCGs that in December 2018 prescribed Libre via Primary Care to less than 5% of their population (and one specific request from a group member).  I had hoped this would be a small list, but there are 135 CCGs on the list.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but I'm committed to doing this and feeding back.  It worked before and hopefully this level of scrutiny will bring similar results. Below is a screenshot of the base document I am sending to each of the CCGs - it has some fields that are merge fields, so don't worry about the brackets and codes in the document (I found a typo, which has now been corrected too) .  The major piece of work with respect to this is finding the right person to contact.  However, I have s
9 comments
Read more

August Libre Update - Data, data and more data!

This month's update will be dealt with in two parts, both focusing on data; the first part summarising some data about the prescribing policies across England, the second my usual update on prescriptions fulfilled across the UK. Libre Prescribing Policies and Implementation in England There didn't seem to be an easy way to compile this.  I used the Diabetes UK Map  to link to the policies and then I cross-checked this with a Google search to see whether there was any more information.  I had to do this line by line for each of the 195 CCGs in England - quite a lengthy and tedious process.  However, I am pleased with the information arising from the data. Firstly, the headline figures - how many CCGs were funding Libre, how many had denied funding and who were still undecided?  There are differences of opinion about these figures as some CCGs have not been clear (Staffordshire CCGs), and some have agreed to fund, but are yet to actually fund due to implementation difficulti
3 comments
Read more

Finally an Update!

So, I have finally got the motivation to update my blog. There's probably nobody reading it anymore, but just in case...here goes. What has been happening? Well, I am still honeymooning in terms of my diabetes, so need less insulin than previously. It is proving a bit difficult to judge and I had a bad hypo last week. Basically, I was almost unconscious and Claire had gone out for the evening! Luckily I found some wine gums and came out of it eventually. Last weekend was Josh's thanksgiving. Our church doesn't really approve of christenings of babies whose parents are not both confirmed. As neither of us are, then a thanksgiving was the choice. It turned out to be a lovely service and the small group of people that we had meant that it was a great day. The sun even shone for most of it. This weekend is the Open Day at work. I have helped organise it, including getting a person to create a special newspaper for the day and be there to add pictures and make a live n
3 comments
Read more