Today I have to be back at work. Yesterday I was still ill with fever (fell asleep as a wreck at 9pm!). But I really don’t dare being off any longer.

I am certainly much better since the surgery, but the girls on ‘Geek with Fibroids’ are right; It takes a long time to recover from this. Every night I get a fever despite taking some strong painkillers. I suppose I’ll just have to put up with feeling a bit weak.

During my time off I kind of got this blog up and running which was one of my objectives. My sister was here visiting too, which was very nice, if unplanned.

Now, on to some whingeing!

God, I need to get out of London. The commute on overcrowded trains, the lack of real nature, the consumer madness, the cheesiness of professional life; It’s all slowly driving me crazy. Today I’ll experience it again.

I stopped worrying about performance at work and what collegues think of me quite a while back. It’s very hard to affect these things; too much effort on it can actually backfire. The ideal is a bland medium, really. I am finding that hard to live up to; I ne

If you are too good you attract backstabbers. Too ‘girly’ is just plain dangerous. Too tough will lead to revolt in the team.. I just go there without any expectations, give it my best effort for about nine hours and then get home and try to forget about it! Too bad I am completely exhausted and spent by then! Also. if one of the senior people wants to be rid of me for any reason, I am well aware that this could happen at any time.

Being a tall, blonde, busty woman I am aware by now that guys at work have their eyes on me from time to time. I am ‘highly visible’ as an ex manager put it. This feels dangerous; I am worried that any mistake I make will turn into a big laugh. I am not good at being “one of the lads” and feel like an outsider.

I try not to worry about the bigger picture (which is unclear to me), or my complete lack of motivation. I am truly grateful for the success I have had on the career side, despite not actually being particularly talented at either IT or management… Thank you God, I have to admit it was what I was praying about. Too bad I didn’t realise what I should have prayed for!

Growing up, I thought that having a career was the best and most fulfilling thing that could happen to me. Now I know that it is fairly hollow and certainly not fulfilling. Once you’ve experienced a shopping spree at Selfridges paid for with money you earned yourself, you realise that there is so much more to being a woman.

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Update: Despite my negative ramblings above, the day actually went well. The people who have desks around me bought flowers for me! That really made me happy!

I discovered that I had hardly been missed in terms of my workload. This is very odd, making me have to ask “why exactly was I hired? I haven’t been doing any proper project management yet!” I had some pain and fever starting late in the afternoon. Hence I left at 5.15!
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