Tag: work

  • Redundancy Review: Day 208, “Back Two Reality”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning workers and parasites, welcome to Day 208 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Tomorrow, I return to work.

    Wah.

    I cannot be entirely upset, there are several things that benefit from me having something to wake up to in the morning: taking my medication more regularly and at regular hours rather than whenever I wake up, the ability to groggily drag myself over to the kettle in order to make a lovely cup of “wake the fuck up” juice, also known as coffee, and getting the opportunity to technically have a longer day by being out of bed at a more reasonable hour.

    Of course, there is still the main benefit of “they pay me for something I am rather good at”, which considering my invoice pay should hit sometime this week, I have even more reasons to keep myself going.

    There is a harshness, though, of returning to reality once more, especially having been off since the 23rd sans for coming in on the 29th and 31st to help out some old colleagues who are working on a project. During my time off I have indulged in a lot of good food, a number of fun games, and somehow too much yet not enough sleep, it was everything I could have asked for and more.

    But now I need to bring myself back down from my peaceful cloud and get back into the work mindset, however hard that may be. One of my goals this year is to find a new permanent and full-time job, be that in my current lane of QA or continuing the push to be employed in some formal capacity for creative writing or digital content creation.

    Part of me wonders if I can achieve the high I have experienced through this time off in more frequent periods than just at the end of the year with the obligatory Christmas break, though I feel I am asking for the impossible without a sheer amount of socioeconomic changes in the world… it is too late for me to start getting political I am so tired and under several duvets right now.

    Something I have started saying to myself recently is that my biggest strength and my most fatal flaw is that I am capable of being very lazy. It is something that enhances my point-of-view on a piece of software I need to test, having a similar amount of patience as a standard user who would get frustrated at the smallest inconvenience to their user experience, along with finding my own version of the golden path that might influence the overall design or expose edge-cases that could become serious issues later on down the line.

    On the flipside, unless I am in the exact perfect mood to get something productive done, there is very little that can compel me to move other than a set deadline to get something done or the spectre of an extremely imminent deadline to light a fire underneath my ass. This is possibly what helped me in my interview a month or so ago, the practical task was to create a presentation for a solution to a set problem within half an hour – something that could be intimidating to others, but for me and my ability to rapidly produce presentations on the fly in my old role, it felt like second nature.

    There is a certain amount of ADHD that contributes to that part of me, and given my dad has talked about these exact traits in himself from time-to-time combined with certain things my mother has said about her behaviour that I can see in myself, it is almost certain that my family is riddled with neurodivergence that has never been diagnosed up until now.

    I hold a certain amount of pride in how I hold it all together as someone with a very much non-functional brain, addled even further by female hormones that make me happier than I ever have been but also completely destroy my ability to function sometimes. Given the several directions I could have gone, it is incredibly lucky I found myself in places where the weird ways in which my brain work not only benefit me, but also I have had the pleasure to work with people who have known how to direct my energy in the correct directions.

    “I know you are an overthinker, that is why I do not give you an opportunity to think”

    The above is a quote from my old mentor, who said that in response to when I mentioned I had caught myself overthinking on a task she had given me, accurately surmising something about me that I had not yet seen at that point. 

    Part of me feels I should write more, but another part of me is enjoying the comfort and security of my current situation, layered under three duvets, and wanting to make the most of a quiet brain before the storm inevitably kicks off again tomorrow.

    Need an appropriate thumbnail though, and this image I have swiped off Twitter definitely seems to match the current theme.

    That should cover everything for today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to reach a similar level of relaxation to myself currently and that the impending Monday blues do not bring you down too much.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 25, “The Call of Yesterday”

    Redundancy Review: Day 25, “The Call of Yesterday”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning knights and squires, welcome to Day 25 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    A later start today, but it feels nice to be relaxed for the first time in a while. This whole experience I am going through puts me under varying amounts of stress day-to-day, so having an afternoon yesterday and a morning today where I do not feel that as hard as I usually do is an incredibly liberating feeling.

    I do not think I have used that word enough in regards to some parts of this journey: “liberating”. It is a weird one to use considering how redundancy has completely upended my life, but it has also brought benefits to me.

    There was no denying I was going through some degree of burnout in my old job. I was still delivering what was needed of me on the daily but I also struggled to get out of bed some days in the lead up to the end times – dragging myself to my desk and putting on my best face.

    It was honestly the people that kept me going a lot of the days, I worked with extremely talented and personable people who made even the hardest times go by quicker. The culture, even with all of us working remotely, was what kept me in till the bitter end.

    (god getting woken up at 3am has thrown me off today, struggling to keep my mind on track)

    But now that I am out of work, there definitely is something positive from being away from the tech sphere and doing my own things. I have struggles but I also have runway, leading to me existing in this flip-flop of zen and panic, but ultimately letting my mind recover from the experiences I have been through.

    Writing every day is helping with that too. Being able to sit down and express myself through the written word is a peaceful feeling even on the days where my brain does not want to co-operate with me, and I remain ever thankful for anyone who takes time out of their day to read my words.

    The dream is still to be able to make some form of living off of writing, be it being hired as an in-house copywriter for a company or freelancing my way around, always finding something new to work on. Is this a lofty goal in the age of AI? Of course, but what I am building for myself is an identity of human creativity, what I aim my “brand” to be in a way.

    If you are looking for someone to write something thoughtful and emotional, consider hiring me. This project is but a fraction of what I am capable of, I would love to prove my worth against a wide range of works.

    Eating my way around Shrewsbury

    Yup, that is right. Welcome back to another exciting edition of talking about somewhere to eat in Shrewsbury!

    With my redundancy payments coming in, and after putting money into both bills and savings accounts, my partner and I resolved that we would go out for a proper meal at a restaurant. We tour cafes and small eateries pretty frequently, but it had been around two months since we had last gone “out out” as it were – for obvious reasons.

    Considering I was going to pay, it was my choice as to where we would go, and I picked one of the best places for burgers in town: The Beefy Boys.

    The Beefy Boys is a small-scale chain restaurant with only four locations across the UK: Hereford, Cheltenham, Bath, and of course, Shrewsbury. Very good going for a group of four friends who came together over a love of cooking, a wholesome start that reflects in the quality of their food today.

    After we got seated by the extremely friendly staff, we got to work on deciding what we wanted. Beefy Boys is one of the few venues I have seen today that offer free refills on soft drinks, a very good offer considering the asking price of £4.25 with both myself and my partner getting three glasses worth out of it.

    With food though we decided to be a little more indulgent. One of the main differences at Beefy Boys is that you can decide what kind of burger patty you want:

    • You can go for a standard smashed patty, which comes with two thin patties on the burger
    • You can go for a thicc patty, cooked pink in the centre
    • You can go “Oklahoma-style” smashed patty, which has onions pressed in during the cooking process
    • Or you can go for “Cali-Style”, which is a thick patty grilled in mustard – mimicking how the fast food chain In’n’Out do their “animal style” burgers

    Everything beyond a smashed patty incurs an additional charge, but having the freedom to upgrade your burger however is a very nice touch on the menu.

    For myself I got what is known as the Pizza Boy with smashed patties. This is a burger topped with pepperoni, marinara sauce, a big lump of breaded mozzarella, and served with a garlic and herb dip on the side. I am a lover of all things cheesy, and this hit the exact spot I was looking for when coming back to Beefy Boys.

    My partner got the Bacon Boy with the thick patty and an egg added on top. Unsurprisingly, this burger contains a large amount of bacon, coming loaded with crispy bacon strips, bacon jam, and baconnaise. A solid choice for any porcine purveyors out there.

    When it came to sides, we know from past experience to only order one portion of fries, as doubling up with the absolute majesty of these burgers leads to feeling extremely bloated… that said, an old special has now made a permanent home on the menu in the form of chicken kyiv fries – fries topped with chopped chicken strips, garlic mayonnaise, and garlic butter. 

    These are an extremely indulgent treat, but are oh so worth it. We finalised our sides with an addition I specifically wanted in the form of mac and cheese balls, which came with a little side of chipotle ketchup. These were crunchy, creamy, and absolutely divine when paired with the sauce, perhaps a little overkill considering everything else on the plate.

    To finalise, we decided to get milkshakes as our dessert, which is where “indulgence” started to slowly eek into “overkill”. They were absolutely delicious, extremely thick and a very generous portion, but I had to stop at least twice during mine to contemplate what I had done.

    Now, for the price breakdown:

    • Two refillable soft drinks: £4.25 each for a total of £8.50, where we both got three glasses each out of it
    • Pizza boy with smashed patties: £13.70
    • Bacon boy with thick patty and an egg: £16.15
    • Chicken kyiv fries: £12.50
    • Mac and cheese balls: £7.70
    • Biscoff milkshake: £8
    • Banana milkshake: £7

    Total cost of meal: £73.55
    8% service charge: £5.88

    Total cost overall: £79.43

    A very expensive meal overall, but hopefully the price breakdown shows the general impression of what you get for your money at Beefy Boys. Additionally, the service charge is discretionary, and you are able to remove it from the bill if you want.

    But you should not. Not only because service staff definitely deserve the extra boost where possible, but also because every time we have gone to Beefy Boys the service has been immaculate. Staff are friendly, the food comes out promptly, and the overall atmosphere inside is fantastic.

    It was a worthy date night out after two months of stress, and whilst the current situation prohibits doing it on the regular, I will definitely be returning to Beefy Boys.

    Thank you for reading today, hopefully I have not made you too hungry – but if I have, I hope you can treat yourself to something indulgent today too. It is Saturday after all, and the week has been a long one.

    For more information on Beefy Boys, visit their website here: The Beefy Boys – The Burger Experts