It's all good

...is a phrase I've nicked from one of my fellow bloggers, Matty, to sum up something that's going on with me at the moment.

Well, it might come as surprise to hear me saying this, but what's "good" is the fact that I'm potentially going to lose my job.

Yes, after working in my current position for nearly six years, I found out last week that my department is going to be downsized and it's likely that we're going to have to re-apply for our positions. This news didn't come as a total surprise. We'd been told several months ago that a departmental restructure was on the cards; we just didn't know how it was going to affect everyone. In normal workplace fashion though, everyone had been speculating about what was going to happen and all kinds of rumours had been flying around including talk of redundancy, which put the wind up some of my colleagues.

And...well...some of the rumours have turned out to be true. Last Wednesday our sector general manager unveiled his plans for the new departmental structure. And with this proposed new set-up, at least a third of the existing jobs would go. New job profiles have been drawn up and as I said, we have to re-apply for these positions; they're not going to be given to us automatically. However, one positive aspect of this is that the new positions have been "ring-fenced" i.e. they are only available to people within my department, so this reduces the competition. Plus, we were told that if we weren't successful in securing a position within the department we would be "re-deployed" to another part of the organisation. I'm a bit cynical about this last point though. To be successfully moved to another position the job/s would have to exist in the first place - you can't magic new positions out of thin air! And in a consultation with one of the managers I found out that the kind of jobs I want to go for - Marketing, Learning and Development roles - would be available to everyone within the organisation, not just my department. Oh well.

But guess what? In spite - in fact because! - of the situation, I am feeling extremely positive and see all of this as a brilliant opportunity to make some changes in my life, most of all my job!! Anyone who has read my blog in the past will know that I'm less than enamoured with with what I do and have been seriously thinking about making some career changes for a long time. So it's almost like this was meant to happen.

Of course, I should add that I also found out what my redundancy package would be, should I not be successful in re-applying or decide to take voluntary redundancy. And...let's just say that it was pretty bloody impressive! When I found out I could barely suppress my glee!! Yes!! Naturally this has had quite a major influence on my thinking. I am sorely tempted to take the money and run. Also, the new job roles in my dept don't look very enticing and I feel in many ways they would involve doing the same stuff as I am now. Certainly the redundancy money would come in very useful for many things...a deposit on a flat (Gustavo and I are hoping to buy this year) or payment toward a course or re-training, for example! It's fabulous!!

Well we find out for sure about the redundancy situation mid-March but it pretty much looks like it's going ahead. Of course from my point of view, the wisest thing to do now is to start looking, and applying for, other jobs. Which is what I've begun doing today.

Having done the same job for so long I really feel that I've peaked in terms of what I can learn and do. For absolutely yonks I've moaned to my close friends and colleagues about wanting to leave and change my situation!! And now finally the chance to do just that has been handed to me. To some losing your job could be seen as a problem. But in the words of Will Powers, a problem can also be...a golden opportunity. Or to quote the wise words of another sage I know...IT'S ALL GOOD!!