I regret loads
- Listening to my anti-academic parents who failed to realise that the world had moved on and paper qualifications in a work setting would be crucial.
When I was unemployed, they were utterly confused by my inability to find work because I didn't have the right qualifications. They couldn't understand why I couldn't just walk into a job.
Or why I didn't want to be a nurse.
- Not trying harder for my A Levels - I'm dyslexic, I was in a comprehensive, where, although we were streamed and set, no one noticed the discrepancy between my obvious intelligence and articulacy and my only average written work and I failed my A Levels miserably.
- Not learning to drive when I had more free time when I was younger.
- Not progressing with my singing. I loved music but couldn't read it (dyslexia again) and was put off studying after CSE Level.
Just recently, I had an offer of a singing group but had to turn it down because of this daft night shift job.
- Not finishing the science HNC that I was studying on day release during my first full time job. Severely depressed for decades, I had no idea how good I had it and that funding for such training would no longer be routine after I got myself back on an even keel.
- Resigning from said full time job in a fit of boredom/ennui/depression with no job to go to and nothing on the horizon.
- Completing an HND in Media Studies in a college not approved by the NUJ. They run a closed shop, meaning that although I passed the college course, if I want to be a journalist, I would have to get onto an NUJ approved training scheme, pay for the course and do it all over again. Two of the most miserable years of my life wasted.
- Accepting a job at the FSS. Nine years of mismanagement, a job I hated, colleagues who drove me nuts and nothing, not even a reference to show for it. Because it was a job. And as far as my parents were concerned any job is better than none. I was 27 at this point.
- Failing to realise that a new line manager was a total narcissist and walking into every trap she laid for me. She passive aggressively destroyed any chance of continuing in a new career (NHS) and left me jobless and casting about for a new job, any job to keep the bill money coming in.
I was rehired by the same hospital trust and she was eventually 'let go by mutual arrangement'.
Even though she also has no career either now (small, strange, clique-y career where reputations are crucial), I feel extremely bitter towards her and the line managers who sucked up to her to stay in her good books.
- Buying my house. It's in a poor area of Wolverhampton, the neighbours are horrors, it's falling down, no builder will touch it, it's worth less than the amount needed to put everything right and without the work it can't even be rented out.
And, four doors down, a neighbouring house (absentee landlord, natch) has Japanese Knotweed. I'll never sell this bastard.
- Being diagnosed so late with asthma. I never smoked but came from a family of heavy smokers. I was only diagnosed at 26. It explained so many things and would have transformed my early life.
- Spending so much of my life caring what people would think. Friends, family, colleagues, total strangers passing by in the street.
They don't care. They have their own lives to be bothered by the minutiae of someone else's.
- Paying attention to criticism. I still mix with people who didn't know why I am
going on evening classes
trying to lose weight
trying to get a good job
and put me down in covert and overt ways.
"You've lost a load already, you don't need to lose more weight" - I still qualify as obese and I've still got three stone to lose.
"Why are you paying that much and going to evening classes? The internal course is free" - but the GCSE equivalent internal course is not recognised outside this trust and I want a GCSE certificate I can show another employer.
I've always had this over the years. It's like they're trying to keep me down at their level.
- Not tackling my weight issues earlier. I've been obese my entire life. My wheeziness as a child meant that I never got into sports and my screwed up childhood meant I never got the hang of proper nutrition.
I feel I've wasted every chance I've got.