Thank you…but not goodbye

Today is officially R day. My P45 was waiting for me when I got home for work yesterday. I have less than three hours left at work and I really shouldn’t be writing a blog post but I have things to say.

 Back in September I was considering writing a blog to help me manage my feelings about the whole public sector debacle and my own small part in it. I didn’t know any bloggers except my two lovely sisters-in-law, Miss Melancholy and Stray. When they visited us to help cerebrate Mr R’s birthday, I talked to them about starting a blog and they persuaded me that this was a Good Idea. ‘You’ll make friends!’ they said. I scoured the Internet for similar bloggers and tentatively made some cyber friends.

 I wasn’t convinced that anyone would read my ramblings but I set them down anyway and discovered that people did read and respond. Even The Guardian, the paper I’ve been reading since I was teenager, read and enjoyed. I was even an ‘expert’ on the Guardian redundancy Q&A. Memorable for not only being an honour, but also for being in the middle of a bout of Norovirus. I wrote my responses, threw up and lay down for a few minutes in a repeating cycle for the three hours of the live chat.

 I’m convinced that if I hadn’t written the blog I’d be sitting in a corner rocking by now. So a big shout out and a huge thank you to the blog massive especially, Ellen, Guerrilla Mum, fighting for the rights of children with special needs; Tim the Armchair Sports fan who is forever Slouching Towards Thatcham; Citizen CW, my cyber mentor and friend; Andrew Brown, Someday I Will Treat You Good, who I actually met in real life although we didn’t realise it at the time and the Redundant Public Servant who has retired temporarily from the blogosphere but who wrote a blog far more dignified and less indignant than mine. And of course Miss Melancholy and Stray who set me on the blog path and my friends, family, colleagues and tweeps who have been there. Also a huge thank you the brilliant Patrick Butler and very funny Judy Friedberg from The Guardian. Thank you for seeking out the truth.

 I felt like a I wanted to protect my employers so I’ve been anonymous until recently but sod it, I’m on my own now so I’m out of the closet. If you didn’t already know, I manage the Healthy Schools programme across three SW London local authorities and I support schools with all aspects of health and wellbeing (teenage pregnancy, healthy eating, gang crime, mental health etc). My friends call me the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll guru.

 But it’s not over!

 I will be blogging some more here. I’m still a victim of government cuts, I still have friends and family in the public sector and the story is not over. After all the title of this blog is- in homage to bad B movies- I was a public sector worker and a bit like being an president of the United States or an alcoholic, I will always have been a public sector worker.

 Thank you, TTFN and as an actor with biceps the size of small children once said, ‘I’ll be back.’