We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do...

I mentioned a while back that after years of toying with the idea, I started looking for a new job in earnest a while ago. As much as I love the work I do - and I do - the reality of life as an employee in the NGO sector means that one is always going to be at the whim of a volunteer Board of Directors.

Their interference involvement with staff and the org's operations can range from 1. astute professionalism to 2. well-meaning incompetency to 3. petty tyranny and conflict of interest, and I've seen a little of all three in my 16 years in the sector. Lately, however, for reasons I'm obviously not going to get into here, we're dealing with a large helping of #2 with a hearty side of #3, and things have gone beyond difficult to impossible - as in, it's impossible for me to stay there and keep my mental and physical health. I'm depressed and anxious - solely because of work. After I finish for the day I just want to go home and hide - I've barely gone outside in any kind of social sense since New Year's. I've seen C. perhaps twice in that time and gone to the gym maybe half a dozen times. And unlike the mild pre-spring depression I like so many people get every year, the work problems aren't going to change with the season.

On Wednesday last week I had an interview for a position with the provincial government which is a political junkie's dream... The interview, the second part of a two-part process that began with a written test, went very well, I thought - very well indeed - but it sure felt funny being on the other side of that table getting grilled after nine years in the same job.

Now I wait with fingers crossed so tight they hurt...

ronnie