Endings and beginnings

One of my friends asked me this week if I’d blogged about my resignation from adland. I hadn’t, mainly because I thought it was pretty self indulgent to do so and not of particular interest.

However I’ve decided to write a short post on it, mainly because I see my blog as a bit of a personal diary, about endings and beginnings and new experiences and for me, resigning from adland was quite a big deal.

In the words of my favourite film (Sound of Music) - "when the lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window". THe Lord aside, i feel like my window is opening!

It didn’t quite come about as intended, I wasn’t due to resign for another 3 weeks but working with my boss had become slightly unmanageable and having been miserable in the agency for quite a long time, it felt right to cut it short and get out. I’m now really excited to be working out my notice and moving onto something that I feel passionately about.

I got some interesting responses at work, mainly asking how I’d decided to make such a drastic change and one funny email “Social work! A real job! You make me feel bad, I hate you!”. Fair enough.

So as I write, things are changing all around me. I’ve sent in my placement request form, I have my 2nd shift in the homeless placement on Monday, I have 4 weeks left in adland, am hoping to secure a couple more weeks of voluntary experience after that and am gearing up to my first day at uni, Sept 20th by trying to make important decisions such as what size files to buy and whether being back at uni calls for a pencil case!

It’s quite odd being at this point in a profession changing so fast – reading about recommendations ie from the Munro report and the Dilnot report that may or may not affect me in a few years or even about BASW and College of Social Work in their will they, won’t they collaboration. One of the most difficult things is reading so many posts on Community Care from people who are leaving or trying to leave the industry, some after only a year after feeling burnt out or frustrated by having to give news to service users that they didn’t feel were the right decisions. It feels like a scary time to be joining but I hope that there will be some more positive change over the next few years and that perhaps in the future it will be something I can contribute to.

I’m hoping to look into London SWAN as something I heard about at the student social work conference – campaigning feels like an important aspect of the advocacy role of social workers, but I won’t comment further until I go to a meeting.