Reading, discussing, & challenging class(ism)

I have ordered materials to clean off the walls more from ScrewFix (one of the items won't arrive until Tuesday, so I'll do what I can sans those items for this weekend and focus on cleaning what is currently in the house).

Jake's allergy shampoo arrived today, so I've given him a bath. I want to eventually get an entire dog grooming station set up in the back garden - shower station, grooming table (fold-able), hot and cold water tap, shampoos and conditioners, brushes, towels, nail kit, etc. Also a dog trolley, but that's less for grooming than for traveling on public transit if we're going to try to avoid having a car and just hire a taxi for dog sports. I've estimated a good set-up will cost about £1,000-2,000 (that's including installing a hot tap outside, and the allergy-specific lotions, shampoos, conditioners, ear-cleaners, etc. that seem to be helping him the most.)

With any luck between the immunotherapy, the allergy medications, and the bathing more regularly, costs will drop off. And the equipment side of things, I'll be able to utilise that with any future dogs. The trolley, stand, and bathing station should get many years of use, especially if I keep them protected from the rain.

Jake is weird with baths, he seems to both like and hate them, lol. He'll run away and rub against things and goof off, but then he'll come back up for more. He has also seemed to mostly come around on getting his ears cleaned - I think he's figured out it's what is helping them feel less itchy.

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No one seems to want to claim ownership of the land or trees out behind the properties on this street, so if I figure out who it belongs to, I'm going to find out how much it would cost to extend my plot to the riverbank. Might as well get that 20ft or so of garden space, and I'll take down the dead tree and maybe the other trees over time, exchanging it for fruit trees and blueberry and blackberry bushes.

So during lunch today when I was getting chips I got two pieces of news:

1. I didn't get shortlisted for the admin job at the place I'd applied (I'd expected this because it had been over a week since the closing date.) I'm actually really disappointed. It isn't even the not getting the job - it's that I've been working in Admin for 5 years (or we could even say 8-9 if we include my Health & Safety Coordinator days and bookkeeping) and not being shortlisted. What am I doing wrong? How can I have the highest stats for incoming phone calls (that might not be as accurate since I broke my arms and dealt with my sister's screening, but I suspect it's close), have made a better logging system for phone calls, etc. and not even get short-listed for an admin support role.

Now, to be clear - I like my job (mostly... sometimes it's rough, but so are all jobs). I like my supervisors (I suspect they don't really like me, but then again, I always feel that way. I think I'm right though because they're all way more sociable with the other two admin And I suspect I'm autistic, so I may be right because people typically don't like autistic people. So if that's the case, it can't be helped, but everyone keeps it professional! So whatever.) I like my colleagues (who I often get along with better because I communicate better over a written medium usually.)

Trying to get a job in this case is 100% about a combination of increasing salary, decreasing commute. If I were being paid the same wage and my job was 100% work from home, I wouldn't be looking for other jobs. If I didn't have to commute to work or my commute was less than twenty minutes by walking, I'd not be looking for other jobs.

See, the place I saw hiring, they would be paying about £3,000/year more than I make now. And are a 3-5 minute bike ride or a 10-15 minute walk from where I live. I didn't even care if they were hybrid or office-working, they are so close I don't give a hoot.

I'd literally save £240-310/month working there just not needing a dog walker and possibly also giving up my bus pass. I wouldn't need a car, ever, because even if they mandated RTO I'd be in short walking distance. It would technically be a just over 10% increase in salary, but the amount of money I'd save it would be like a 20% raise.

I told Patrick - I don't think I'd ever leave! Of course, I said the same thing about where I work now, but, in my defence, when I got hired, I was only in the office one day a week, and then they upped it to two days a week, then three. By that point I was basically haemorrhaging money each month. This place I could walk home during lunch (oh, and I'd probably also save a shit ton of money going home for lunch!)

So, I need to talk to someone and figure out how to network and get into this company.

2. Northern Ireland Water got back to me today to advise me the trees aren't theirs and referred me to 3-4 bodies that already told me the trees aren't theirs. No wonder my next door neighbour hasn't been able to buy the land behind their house. So. I have to write up yet another email, this time I'll try the council, and if they respond it isn't theirs, I'm going to start CCing the local councillors because the last thing I need is a tree to land on top of me while I'm sleeping (I take the back room facing the dead tree.)

Actually it makes me think maybe I should ask how much it would cost to extend my plot to the riverbank because if they're not going to take care of it, I might as well increase the length of my garden.

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Well. Off to all of that. I really do need to regroup on the job thing. I know the market is tough right now, so there might have just been a lot of people with that much better experience than me... But it really stings that I've had the same job almost five years and I can't even get shortlisted for an admin job when I live less than five minutes away by bicycle. It would have been amazing.