Life has been stressfull lately. I am not one to complain normally and we live comfortably then a lot of people in the world, however, we are going through a rough period in our lives and I vowed that I would document all components in our life to remember, even if it is something I would rather forget in years to come.
I began my Bachelor of Teaching; Primary and Early Childhood
at University almost two years ago (Jan, 2012), full-time and Benn, being the hard worker he is,
took on extra work to allow me to study and keep our heads above ground. He has
been a fencer, tractor driver, worked in metal fabrication, spray painting,
building, childcare, carpentry, cleaning – you name it, he’s done it. I work
with him three nights a week when he does commercial cleaning for a range of
offices where we live. Apart from helping him three nights a week (I don’t get
paid, however, by coming it decrease the amount of work he does and therefore
comes home sooner), I have not had more then a handful of days’ work in the
past two years, much to my dismay. I honestly don’t know how this has worked
for so long, but it has, until now.
Over the past few months Benn’s health has deteriorated due
to stress and anxiety levels at both work and home. He works SO hard, yet is on
such a small pay, that even with two jobs we barely make ends meet. And it has
caught up on him. Using up his sick days to investigate fainting attacks, chest
pain and possible epilepsy. He now has no more left and is stuck in a catch 22; He needs to take sick days to find
out what is wrong, but can’t due to no longer having enough hours and therefore
not getting paid and the stress/anxiety of money (lack of) is causing these
attacks. Thinking about money and having it consume your thoughts, yet there is
nothing you can do, is a very awful thing. Having people call you constantly,
asking to pay bills and demanding a payment (which you don’t have) is upsetting
to say the least. I feel like the words that forever come out of our mouths
begin with “When we have money we’ll….”. I am over it. We are over it. There is
only so long you can live by scrapping by. We make rent our number one priority, as a room and a home
is what are needed most. Next is food and petrol, as without both we cannot
work to continue to receive money. But after that, there isn’t much left.
Forget saving. Forget bills. Forget “outings”. We barely leave the house, which
doesn’t bother us to much as we would prefer to hang out with our babies, but
still, it is a hard time. Due to this, I tried to find a full time job before 31st
of August (census date for uni) and was going to take a break from my studies for
6 months to relieve the pressure off Benn and get us back on top. But unfortunately
I wasn’t hired. I didn’t want to just sit at home waiting for a job to pop up,
so I have continued with my studies. But it is so hard to get my head in the
game. I just want to work. Full time. Every day. I have since been applying for
EVERY casual job under the sun. But so far, have been left with nothing. I have
plenty of experience in a range of jobs, however, most employers these days are
looking for “highly experience” people; seriously, you want 5 years of waiter
experience for people to dish out food? 1 year isn’t enough? IT’S JUST A PLATE
OF FOOD?!
This current stress period has resulted in one very unhappy
Benn. He hates going to work and being treated like dirt, whilst working his
hardest. It’s easier said then done to “just ignore them and work”, when you
are getting blamed for other people’s mistakes, which results on your job being
on the line. The person he reports to the person making these mistakes, and
blaming it on him. Yet the next person higher up (who Benn wanted to take the
matter with further), is the first persons brother. So you can see how well
that turned out (read: not well at all). On top of this, the big boss/owner of
the company is currently “culling” out his employees (I believe due to the
recent election, Thanks Tony), and Benn’s job may not hold for much longer. He
is an extremely hard, reliable worker who always puts his employer first;
however, he is not always given the same respect in return. His boss interrogated
him this week, demanding he spill the “goss” on all the workers in the company
or he will lose his job. Yet if he “dobs” on the people he works with, they
will not be happy. He does not work in the most pleasant place and I can almost
guarantee that he will receive unpleasant “payback” from them if he spills the
beans. Not that there are any beans to spill, his boss just can’t be bother to
put up cameras to watch people work. It is so unfair. He had a fainting attack
yesterday due to this stress and then when asking for a day off today, his boss
informed him that he has no sick days left and can’t use annual because you
have to “apply” for it. Ridiculous.
Benn has applied for many apprenticeships for next year this
past week, in the hopes of beginning a trade qualification. Surely if we can live
on little play now, then we can do it knowing he is studying and starting a
career. Rather then working for a boss in a dead end company. I just want him
to be happy.
I don’t really know where I am going with this post, mostly
I just want to record this in our lives so we can look back and see how we
bounced back. Because I assure you this family will.I know there will be a light at the end of the tunnell, we just can't quite see it yet and my impatient personality is not enjoying waiting for it to appear.
