Not with a bang but a whimper

My job at The Splat Centre started off well, I enjoyed the buzz of being involved in something new in my community.  It was fun being part of setting something up.  I loved the part of the job that involved interacting with the kids which, too be honest, I had anticipated being a much bigger part of the duties than it ended up.

But I didn't like the level of disorganisation  that persisted well beyond "teething problems". And if I'm honest I never really felt like I fitted in, I felt like I didn't always get the jokes, and wondered at times if the jokes were at my expense.  I was told initially that I would get between 10 and 20 hours a week, and I ended up with 15 and a half.  It wasn't enough, but I hoped once we had been open a while and the need for more staff hours became evident, that I would be given some more.  We all realised pretty quickly that we needed more staff members, and I was one of the ones at the forefront, saying we needed more staff if we were going to be able to interact with the children, read them stories and lead craft activities. 

So we got a new staff member and I promptly lost one of my shifts and an hour off the end of another.  From 15 and a half down to 9 hours in one whooshing move.  I was upset and disappointed and also rather angry.  I discovered that the new staff member and all but one other of the existing staff members were under 21 and therefore their minimum wage was a pound an hour less than mine, so actually for Splat it made better business sense to give more hours to those who cost less.  But obviously for me it made no financial sense as all.  So when the opportunity came along, at about the same time, to become a host family for Home Language International, I jumped at it.  (More about HLI in the following post)

I handed in my notice at Splat, and got a surprisingly disappointed response - I had thought that they would be happy to see me go as I had felt so at odds with everyone there - but they were sad to see me go and wished me luck.  I was very relieved to not have to work there any more.  Not because I didn't like the place, not because they were horrible people.  Just because it was SO disorganised, and I do not like to have somebody else's poor organisation skills reflect badly on me!!