Once upon a time there was a young woman called Linda. She was really creative. She made stuff and the stuff she made was good. Her buddy bought her a load of labels (see above) to sew into the stuff she made but soon afterwards her creativity went AWOL.

The going AWOL coincided with me changing my job and spare time going flying out of the window at a rate of knots. I went from a fairly cushy job into one that required so much effort that I soon ended up working 12+ hours a day, seven days a week and it was tough work that needed so much concentration that thinking creatively went out of the window. Even though the job was “cerebral” it was also like a sausage factory. The pace was relentless. I’d finish one thing then have another deadline crashing down on me like there was no tomorrow. And there was no tomorrow. I could only ever deal with what was immediately under my nose and could never see further ahead than the next few hours.

It didn’t help that the company I worked for was groaning at the seams. The expansion of computing technology meant that we were suddenly producing vast volumes of data but we were using systems designed for coping with a small fraction of what we were being expected to generate. We’d gone from producing once every two months, to monthly and in some cases weekly in a ridiculously short time frame. We doubled the client servicing occasions with the same number of staff and the production teams couldn’t keep up with the schedules so data was always late...and sometimes late and wrong. We were constantly fighting fires. We’d get some data the night before a big meeting, spend half the night correcting it then have to stand up and deliver a pithy commentary on what was happening in the “bloggos” market on four hours sleep (because of corrections and presentation preparation) and a five hour drive. Looking back, I’m amazed I stuck that job for as long as I did. I loved its location and my friends at work but I loathed the work ethic of the company. Oddly, the turnover of staff, although high, was strange in as much as people often went and did something else for a few years then went back. Not me!

After a few years, something really deeply disgusting happened within the company and the upshot was that I left to seek my fortune elsewhere. I’ll not go into the detail, but suffice to say it was an American company and their reputation for being brutal with their staff was well-known. You could say I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire and perhaps I did but I won’t go into that now either because anyone who has been reading this over its ten year span will already know at least some of it. The awful thing is that I eventually came to realise that what I’d spent countless hours doing over the preceding thirty years was basically morally corrupt and as time went on, I found myself struggling every day with the ethics of what I was doing, hence the self-made moniker “corporate whore”.

Strangely even though the pressure of work didn’t ease over a nearly-twenty-year-period, I still decided to try for a PAD in 2003. Somehow the creativity that had gone AWOL came back in a different way. Now I’m not saying every day here at “Relight My Fire” is creative genius…to be honest I’m not even sure that there is a single day here that could come anywhere close to that but then neither was everything I made in the early 80s. For heaven’s sake – I spent time making ra-ra skirts and such like. There was no genius in that either.

Today I have been for an interview for something that could change my life if I’m successful. I got “dressed up” for the first time since I went to a wedding of some good friends last summer. I even splashed out on a new frock for the occasion and that’s something as rare as hens’ teeth in my world. And do you know what? Not only was the frock a style I really liked (v.v. rare) but I also felt good in it and if me liking an outfit is rare then me looking good is super-rare. The interview went well I think so now it’s fingers crossed – I’ve been told I’ll hear in about two weeks so now I’m on tenterhooks waiting for that to happen. If I’ve pulled it off, then I’m going to get to use my creativity every day for the rest of my career! Maybe I’ll be able to use my “hand-made by Linda Alstead” labels on something a lot more worthwhile than a ra-ra skirt.