financial

Hello COVID Year 3

/ Tony / Leave a comment

R**s came home for the weekend on Friday. We have not seen him since 30th December. He likes to be in his flat over the New Year as fireworks upset him, and at his care home, they are able to minimise any startling noise. So it’s a lot calmer for him.


The home went into ‘lock-down’ on the 2nd of January, when one of the staff tested positive. As per the Government guidelines (sic) they were not allowing home visits until there was 28 (?) clear days without any new infections. That changed about a week ago to 14 days, and so he was able to come and visit for the weekend

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Leeds Civic Hall

We had his assessment on Wednesday, which was very traumatic. The Social Worker went through everything with us, and noted everything about him. This should have been done before the funding meeting, but there was nobody available at such short notice, except for the Duty Social Worker. He had little or no knowledge of R*** or his case, so could only go on what he was being told.


The case now has to go to a panel, who will decide if it is an appropriate placement. If it is, and I think we all made a good case, then it goes to a Financial Assessment to see if some of the funding needs to come from R***’s benefits, before going to yet another panel for financial approval.
It’s just more worries on top of more worries, especially as this is likely to happen every year.

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Work is turning into a bit of a chore at the moment. The Assistant Manager left, and it seems that people are jockeying for the position. To be honest, I don’t think any of them are capable. There is more to a managers job, than simply telling others what to do. The boss has her favourites though, so it is down to her as to what happens.


I’m still half-heartedly looking for something else. This job is getting a little too strenuous for me these days. But I don’t want a job that has any form of responsibility. I had enough of that over the past 50 years. I’d love a job, where I can sit at a desk and tap details into a computer system. I wouldn’t want a phone as I’m not very good with people on the telephone. In fact, I’m not very good with people full stop.

From Then to Now … Decisions, Decisions

/ Tony / Leave a comment

It’s the end of March and things had not got much better. Our usual whole-team meetings were now bi-monthly and there were rumours flying around about possible job losses. The head of our service had called a special meeting as he put it “To discuss certain issues!” He was quite up front from the start. The department had to save £XYZ the next financial year and that there could/would be job cuts. But there was good news too. The Early Leavers Initiative (see this post) that I had been rejected for was now looking at every application with a view to acceptance. The caveat was that it was a time-limited offer and we would have to work fast, because after the offer finished, the early link to the work pension would no longer be available.

My initial reaction was not a very positive one. I took the view that I was too important before, so I was too important now! After my initial thoughts had calmed down a little, I talked it over with my wife and decided that there was no harm in applying again, especially as I was no longer IT ‘king-pin’ that has been before my heart operation. And of course, if I was not happy with the offer I would be getting, I could always refuse it and carry on.

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The offer came through at the end of April and it was about what we were expecting. So after more talk and lot of soul searching, we decided it was the best thing. We decided that I should carry on until the end of October as this would give us more time to make any plans we needed. My idea was that I would take about 6 months off, doing jobs around the house that I had not had time to do, then start to look for some part-time work. I knew that after half a year, I could possibly apply for my old job back in a part-time capacity, but that thought never got off the ground at all.

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So after about 1 year of jobs and taking it easy (sometimes) I started to look for something paid to do. This wasn’t going to be easy. I had applied certain conditions to the job search. I could not work weekends (my wife worked Sundays, and Saturday was our ‘family day’). Evenings were also out as I just didn’t want evening work and I only wanted to work a maximum of 14 hours, over a 2 day period. This did limit the kind of work that was available. I also did not want a managerial/supervisory responsibility which limited it even further. It was nearly another year before I was successful.