A few months back there was a warning at work of impending redundancies and invitations were being accepted for consideration on a voluntary basis.

I work in an office of three and we all do the same job. Firstly, one of the chaps was due to retire next year anyway and secondly, the other was planning to emigrate in the not too distant.

Which leaves me. Little old, desperate to find something else to do with my life, me.

Needless to say the other two put in their applications for voluntary redundancy (and a big fat cheque to leave with), no surprises there. The boss wasn't prepared to accept the loss of one of them, until he discovered his intent to emigrate anyway, and so both applications were eventually accepted.

Leaving me. I had mused with the idea of taking the money and running if they would accept my redundancy – and, ho ho ho! How I wish with hindsight that I had ignored my better judgement now.

In light of losing two members of a three man team, the decision was taken to outsource our roles because finding replacements with the skills would be seriously expensive and training cost-effective replacements would take too long.

That's right – I'm redundant! Only, I'm not.

Some bugger apparently has decided to retain me anyway – bravo for the vote of confidence! If only I believed for a second that I had been kept on merit alone.

So that is part one of the explanation behind why I am and have been for a couple of months a walking ball of fury and hatred ...and after a couple of months it is not abating, more like intensifying.

However it continues... I am vaguely told what I will be doing in this new situation by my boss – who has his back to me and is telling the others in the office at the time. I am neither happy about the content of what he is saying, nor the fact that I am not even so much as told eyeball to eyeball.

It gets worse too... During the transition into outsourcing a lot of work and preparation is needed and it seems the boss is more than happy to discuss this with those who are actually being made redundant rather than the poor chump left to carry the can between the outsourcers off site and me with the kit, onsite!

The boss is an ignorant shit at the best of times – this near total blanking of my existence is just a more pronounced version of the status-quo. I.T. Manager my arse, to do that it would be advisable to know something about I.T. and maybe have some people skills?

Frankly, I don't know if I could rip his head off verbally without losing it and actually ripping his head off. The stress of the situation makes my blood boil and is pushing me back over the edge again – only this time it feels like all that pent up energy is not going to be contained and directed inward. It feels, well, its just total rage.

I don't really know how to direct it. If I keep it in, I could end up back where I was two years ago and I don't think I can express it without running the risk of just losing it and thrashing a man twice my age out of his spectacles. I can't quite put my finger on just what is cutting so deep here: its all of the shit plus something that's probably a bit off-centre with the way I am I guess.

Part of me is just saying leave it, find something else and just quit. The other part of me tries to muster some enthusiasm and sense opportunity – some way to benefit from this situation before my attitude screws up the potential to gain something from it.
And then I stump myself with the notion that that is what I've always tried to do, make the most of it and see where it gets me. In short, nowhere. And so I'm back to walking about with a thundercloud hanging over me and the burning desire just to walk out and damn the consequences – and it can be very hard some days persuading myself to stay rooted in my seat! And that's after convincing myself to go in in the first place, I came so close to making the decision not to the other morning that I'm almost disappointed that I didn't bite the bullet and say 'screw it'.

I want to drag the boss into a head to head and walk out of it with better hours and a bigger salary but I'm not sure I can do it without taking in the thundercloud too. To be frank I'm the youngest person in the department and to the boss, I get the impression that I'm just the office junior; I can't be trusted with anything important or be expected to know anything. Thanks a bundle – I've been here since 1994 and I turn thirty in a few weeks... and as for being talked down to by that halfwit of a boss... I think its about time he discovered just how fortunate I was in the IQ department when nature made me.

And then there's getting another job – I am so scared of making that jump its almost stupid. That and the fact, that I would have to take a pay cut to get anything else. Somewhere along the line I've been kicked in the teeth one too many times and have scarcely any self-belief left - this job has a lot to answer for.

I've barely even scratched the depths of anger I'm carrying with me at the moment but at least I've managed to write a brief account of it all at long last. Now all that remains is to find a solution that can bring some tranquillity back to my days – I have to think of some way to fuck them up the arse for a change! Something that plays out in a truly poetic and gratifying manner...