Since everyone is doing it, I might as well join in. Blogging, that is. Not sure where this will go or if I'll even post that regularly. Regardless, I find I now have a lot of spare time on my hands having been made redundant on December 2011 - on the Sunday before Christmas.
To be honest, I probably could have started doing this earlier, but there are many excuses... ahem, reasons why I didn't. One of them would be I went through a phase where I couldn't be bothered doing anything. I couldn't be bothered with the soul destroying act of looking for work. I couldn't be bothered thinking of alternate ways to make ends meet. I couldn't be bothered doing much other than be a couch potato.
Yes, I agree it's not the best attitude when you're out of work. I guess I allowed it to happen because I wanted to make up for those lost evenings and weekends and generally bum around.
As for what I did, I worked as a 3D Architectural Visualiser in my last job in Hong Kong. At first, it felt good because when people asked me what I did, it was far better than saying I'm a banker, or I fill in forms all day - the latter being the job I did before becoming an 'artist'. I fared pretty well for a couple of years. I was motivated, driven to succeed and all that. And then I wasn't. It became a daily grind afterwards with very little in terms of recognition and reward.
December 2011 was when it all ended. It was the worst month I ever had in my life at the workplace. Things came thick and fast, from clients who were unreasonable, unforgiving and expected things to be handed in the next day (usually with other projects on top of that). Having kept it up for almost a month, I burned out completely. No sympathy from 'the man' either.
It came to the point where I realised it just wasn't worth it and I was about to hand in my notice, but the decision had already been made. I'm quite adamant it's really a decision based on my performance during that month, even if they said they observed me for a while and it seemed like I was going nowhere and stagnating. They also said it was due to a change in vision for the company and I was no longer to be part of it. It certainly felt like a release when I got made redundant.
Still, something must have bothered me because I found it hard to sleep for a few days after. I guess maybe I wondered where my next paycheck was going to come from and subconsciously, I started to worry.
Maybe my termination was justified and maybe I could have put more in, even if it meant I had to stay overnight, but when you burn out, you... well, burn out. You barely have the energy to even think coherently.
So for now, my Blog title is Post Redundancy. An account of all the the things I get up to and think about while unemployed.
