It’s hard for me to describe just what an absolute abomination of a year 2012 has been. Anything that could possibly go wrong, has gone wrong. For instance, after staying in the same job for nigh on 11 years, in 2012, I’ve had three, and at the end of 2012, I lost my third. However, two of them at the same place, but we shall touch on these as we go through the year. If you’re a regular visitor to this blog, you’ll pretty much know how this works. If you’re not, then I blabber on about that’s happened in the past 12 months. 6 in this part, 6 in the other part. Along the way, I’ll add photos where relevant…

So, let’s start of with January….

JANUARY 2012

And what a sodding month that was. Most of you know that I was one of the unfortunates who provided outsourced technical support for a rather large computer games company. Well, I found out in January of this particular year, that after over 10 years, they were terminating the contract. It’s fair to say, that when we found out, it was in the top 5 most devastating moments of my life. This was confirmed by the fact that I pretty much disappeared for a couple of weeks. I didn’t tweet for 10 days, eventually breaking my silence with…

No longer giving a fuck (@ The Ward Jackson (Wetherspoon)) http://t.co/yf4ROVMP (2012-01-14 23:24:52)

I wasn’t fooling anyone. I quite clearly did give a fuck. This was the perfect start to a devastatingly bad year.

As for the photos, well ,it wasn’t just me whose future was in doubt, as the local branch of Ugo close its doors…

A good friend worked there, and with sights like that, the only news can only be bad news. Thankfully, she was safe, as Poundstretcher took over the store. My job, however, never looked more doubtful.

FEBRUARY

I’m struggling to find anything that actually went on in February that’s worth discussing. There was a night out on the 2nd. It snowed a bit on the 5th. My life was collapsing around my feet, and I decided to close this blog. I’d thought about doing it for a while, mainly down to the fact that I knew what my posts were like on the dole. Plus, if I was to be looking for a new job, an online presence such as this probably wouldn’t help. I’d also needed to cut corners when it came to money going out, so when Andrew D informed me he was no longer interested in having the gallery on the site, there was a saving right there. There was actually more to the closure going through my head than I made out. I may discuss it one day.

Dick Brown, at some point, gave me a winning lottery ticket. I cashed it in and made £2.60 Woooo.

Although we had been informed that we were definitely losing our jobs, due to a bug in a certain product, we were to have our busiest month in the entire history of my 10 years there. The atmosphere was, as you can imagine, frosty.

In fact, most of us were trying to work out what TUPE meant.

MARCH

All things considered, it wasn’t that much of a bad month. The game bug had fixed itself, to a point, so work went back to normal levels. I went for one of only a handful of walks in the year, to Osmotherly. March was the best month of the year for weather, as odd as that may seem, and was quite surprised I managed to get the most out of the good weather. The rest of the year was to be cloudy, in more than one sense of the word.

The highlight, pretty much of the entire year, came at the very end of March, as I went to see Chris Rea at the Metro Arena. I almost lost it when he began to sing “Stainsby Girls”, which just happens to be one of my favourite songs ever.

I didn’t write that… wish I had.

APRIL

April was to be the beginning of the end, as on April 8th, I was to lose my job. It was the first time I was to be out of a job since I was 21. Needless to say, there was a piss-up to end all piss-ups, and for that very reason, we all wore an iTeddy on our heads…

It’s a long story why we still had it. Probably one which will be never be told in text. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff that I can tell you about the way I was made redundant that will never make this website.

My job disappeared down the drain. That bit was inevitable. We all knew that. A small bit of redundancy would help temporarily, but for how long for?

MAY

Almost the whole of the month was a write-off. I was on the dole, so actually doing a load of stuff wasn’t possible. My boredom turned to addiction, as I’d stockpile CDs wherever possible, as all of the free time meant I could easily rip them and catalogue them, safe in the fact that I really didn’t have anything better to do. It wasn’t until the 22nd of May, that things would change. I’d been to Middlesbrough, with Jamie S, and thanks to a strange argument about who was going to order the food (we take turns, y’see, as petty as that sounds), I end up staring at my phone for a bit.. Suddenly, a text message pops up from a former colleague who had left Employment Palace several months before all of this shit kicked off. There was a job going.

No sooner had I got home, my CV was winging its way over to their HR department, who also featured someone who I used to work with.

A few days later, and the shortest interview I’ve ever had, meant I’d got the job. Good lord. I knew it would only be temporary, but with a chance of it becoming permanent.

JUNE
At some point, I did indeed begin work at “that place”. I don’t remember the exact date. This is because I systematically purged this place from memory, and any historical records I may have happened to keep.

I do, however, remember I didn’t like many of the people there. Some of them I got on with, and would quite happily give the shirt off my back for, but some, I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire. Unfortunately, one of the people from the latter category happened to be my “boss” Oh dear. There was also the safety equipment…

Things were about to take a horrible turn for the worse. I know I’ve walked about this in previous blogs, but the worst bit was…. the medical.

A load of things came back clear. I can breathe, see things with my good eye, but fuck all with my bad one. Some things didn’t. Apparently, there was glucose in my piss, and my blood pressure was through the roof. Fuck’s sake.

The doctors would be my next call. It’s the first time I’d been to the doctors since my tonsillitis outbusrst in 2007. Three blood samples were talken. THREE. I didn’t know I had that much in me.

I didn’t know where these samples were going, but hours after leaving my plasma in three equal-sized portions, my mobile rang…

“Get yael doon the One-Leefe, pet, a think ya liva’s fucked or soomit.”

I can’t remember if she was Geordie or not, but it came from an 0191 number, so to me, she was. I’m trying to shed light on one of the lowest points in my life. Oddly, at the time of typing, December 2012, I still don’t know whether I am or not. In fact, I don’t even know if I’m supposed to be breathing… Either way, I do know that the tablets (Metformin) were taken off me immediately, I had to fast for a bit, and since then, no doctor has mentioned diabetes to me. therefore, let’s raise a glass to my pancreas… oh, wait….

Part 2… coming right up…