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2 December, 2009 Dear Diary, Today had not been the most successful day and was definitely a blow to my already deteriorating confidence. On the other hand, Claire had an acting promotion, an extremely amazing opportunity, which I’m really proud of. However, disregarding the fact that she’s my sweet little muffin, and that I love her dearly, I should be the one who is “wearing the pants in the relationship”, I should be the bread maker of the household, earning money at least. But the worst has happened, I’ve been made redundant and I’m now a jobless – a miserable, insecure and jobless man. If I am being honest, the job was indeed “dull and repetitive”, nevertheless it is still the only job I have ever been working in, the job I’ve been working in since I’ve graduated. They refer to people like us as people with low job mobility, implying how difficult it is for people who’ve only done a job to find new opportunities, such bollocks. It’s such a pity that all the effort, all the time and all the work I’ve put into FSR have all gone down the gutter. I have never realised (for so long) how much I treasured my job. Moreover, if you think about it, the £30,000 lump sum may be seen as quite decent, I mean, some people view this kind of situation as an opportunity – to reassess their lives and retrain to do something they really love. However, the main issue is that I don’t think this is a special opportunity, I don’t know what I love but I’d choose this mundane job over the £30,000 pay off any time. Oh, why do horrible things always happen to good people like me? As I was walking along Hyde Park, the scene of Julian making me redundant had been replaying over and over again in my mind, how he sat me down and informed me about the department outsourcing to Tanzania, then hitting me with the bad news. What if he called me in to tell me that I’m assigned to the office in Tanzania? What if my blunt statement about being settled in London ruined my chances? Would I still accept this opportunity, or would I reject the offer and end up in the same situation I’m currently in? I guess I would have rejected the chance anyways… I honestly can’t tell anymore whether these what if situations are actual queries I have or simply ways to comfort myself and make myself feel a little better. Disregarding the numerous attempts of self-comforting and cheering myself up, everything seemed to be going downhill after I was made redundant. Right after I left my office, for the very last time, I went to buy my favourite Krispy Kreme donut, which I accidentally dropped on the ground after being swarmed by the ‘devils’. Those annoying feathery pests didn’t just leave, they stole my last token of happiness and pecked on it like animals (well they are but that’s beside the point). After I got home at around 6 o’ clock, I was hit with the “good news” of Claire’s acting promotion. Despite how hard I was trying to be supportive towards Claire, a part of me still dreads the fact that I just lost my 10-year-old job, which is basically equivalent to the years of high school and college combined. I love Claire, I really do, especially when she is being the way she is but I am still contemplating on how I should tell her about the bad news. I don’t want to let her down…I don’t want her to look down on me. She will be working away

and won’t be home most of the time implying that I get to do whatever I want, or deceive her if I desire. I know that by deceiving her, I will be ruining the basis of a relationship that was supposed to build on love and trust and intimacy (which we definitely do not lack). It sucks that the redundancy not only lead to the loss of job, but also the loss of my selfesteem, daily routine, work-based social network and my sole purpose of working. I hate how I feel obligated to hide my vulnerability and my true thoughts due to these gender stereotypes the society imposes. It depresses me that I feel that these stereotypes are true to certain extents and I want to conceal my redundancy for my self-confidence and esteem. What’s making this worse is that I still cannot get the fact that Claire will be the bread maker in our relationship out of my mind, and it is infuriating and ironic how both job-related occasions fell upon the same day, upon two people in a relationship, the good upon her, the bad upon me. I’m still contemplating on how I should utilise the redundancy money, my two ideas currently are to either pretend that I’m still working and fly to Tanzania each week or maybe to fly to Peru and fake a travelling profile for myself. Meh, life is tough when you are made redundant....