It's tough
7 March 2026
I have not been posting much because this year has been pretty difficult. One of my cats has had some health problem or other since basically the first week of January. I also started therapy in January, largely because of how terrible I feel at work. Here we are in March, nearly a quarter of the way through the year already. I didn't see it.
The past few days it looks like we might finally be out of the woods with the poorly cat at least, the last health problem is showing signs of improving. Maybe by April I can finally relax about that.
With work though, I genuinely don't know. I look back at the blog posts I wrote in 2023 when I first started, and was so excited about the opportunity. I was afraid I wouldn't be good enough, that they were a well-oiled high power machine. Erm. No. Lol. I feel way too much pressure being put on me to carry the successes and failures. That might sound big-headed, but without revealing more than I am willing about where I work, I can only say that we're split up and work fairly independently, but the work that I am doing has become the most important, and instead of it being shared out among people I've been left alone. It all got too much this week and I asked for some time away for mental health reasons.
And so I think I've reached the conclusion I can't stay here. It's a hostile environment where uncertainty is met with passive aggressive responses. When I spoke to my manager on Friday about taking time off, the response felt like I was being attacked. I shouldn't have to feel like that. A few months ago I went with my wife to a local(ish) independent fabric shop so she could pick up some things for her crafts. It was a big warehouse full of crafty things, and the people working there looked genuinely happy. I was so jealous of them, they had a job where they enjoyed being there. I wanted that.
Retraining at this stage would be pretty difficult financially speaking, so I'm thinking of finding a different industry but still software development. It would be nice to think the work I do actually helps people, so maybe healthcare or education. The most important thing is that the team cultivate a positive environment. It can be difficult to tell if a team is supportive and friendly beforehand, but I think it'd be genuinely difficult to be any worse than where I am right now.
The two saving graces of this year, just to end on a positive, would be getting back into RuneScape and getting into photography. I've really enjoyed playing OSRS again and look forward to the next Leagues event happening in April. Photography has also helped me get outdoors more, which relieves a lot of stress. Reading has fallen behind a bit, I tried reading The Paradox Paradox which is a genuinely well written and funny book, but for some reason (maybe all the crap I just wrote about) I can't get into it. Might put it down and pick up something smaller, less sci-fi and more fantasy. Maybe another of the RuneScape books.
Anyway, there's a load of waffle nobody asked for but writing it helped. Probably.