Berberis' World

Friday, 25th December, 2015.

I left Dr Parker’s consulting room in 2004 with a ‘prescription’ for a course of acapella singing. It was part of an NHS initiative (then) that sent people to places other than home to do something other than just take antidepressants.

If someone had told me that, 11 years later, I’d be part of a group who’d beat everyone else to have the Christmas No 1, I’d’ve told them they were mad.

But that’s what happened.

It’s a funny old world.

Tuesday, 19th July 2011.

The time has come, the walrus said…

There are many, many quotes about failure to be found on the exponentially increasing fount of all knowledge good and bad and ugly, this being but one. This post’s title comes from one of Churchill’s.

I have to admit to more than a slight loss regarding something I’ve resisted writing about since it happened. However, time is indeed a great healer. New readers start here…

I joined the London Philharmonic Choir on 23rd July 2008, following a somewhat hurried audition by Matthew Rowe. Choir rules are that you must reaudition either every year or every three years, so I should have reaudtioned in 2010. At that time, the committee were way behind on their scheduling and each time I found out someone had been called to reaudition I breathed a sigh a relief for this… and began to panic anew. Inevitably, though, the committee finally got up to speed. Following a failed first attempt (when I didn’t get the summons until after a joint performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana) on February 21st, following a rehearsal of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, I steeled myself to (literally) face the music that was my reaudition.

Short story shorter: I failed. I was told afterwards, by genuinely sympathetic choir members that Neville let those who didn’t get through reaudition perform whichever piece was currently being rehearsed and, for a while, I did consider doing this. In the end, other commitments and a great deal of horribly wounded pride prevented me from doing so.

(Ironically, Dream of Gerontius is the piece I didn’t get to sing with LCS as I left before they started work on it. My score remains, as yet, unmarked.)

It was about a week before the realisation fully sank in. One evening, with the rest of the family out at the cinema (I hadn’t wanted to go to what was a techo-noise fest) I settled down with a bottle of wine to watch ‘Anchorman’. I had a good laugh before repairing to the study to listen to some music. Having the house to myself for the first time in ages, I intended to listen to some VERY LOUD music (or is that some music VERY LOUD?) probably to try to convince myself that, whatever I’d been told, I could still belt out a tune. Everything was going fine until I tried to get my PC to play music through the main speakers (via some little gizmo currently hanging innocently over the radiator). However, no matter what I did, this bloody thing would not work. After about an hour or so of changing settings, unplugging and replugging, rebooting and rebooting, I had had enough. A week’s worth of anger and embarrasment and frustration and, yes, grief at the loss boiled up and over and I retreated to bed to howl and cry like a wounded animal for what seemed like forever.

Immediately after this, I lost all interest in singing as well as all confidence in my ability. Even remembering the words of a much respected singing teacher didn’t help me, and I don’t think I sang anything (not one note) for about a month. Singing had been a major emotional outlet for almost 7 years and its loss was nothing less than a bereavement.

To be truthful, what hurt most is that I felt – still feel – that I simply capitulated. Whenever I think about what happened during that reaudition, there is a HUGE temptation to start every sentence with either ‘if only…’ or ‘what if…’

If only I’d said I had a sore throat… what if I’d actually read that book on sight singing?… if only I’d taken singing lessons… what if I’d done what I was supposed to do and wait to be invited in?… etc etc etc etc… The fact was that I hadn’t, I hadn’t, I hadn’t, and I hadn’t. The only person I can blame – if blame if the right word – is myself. I was responsible for what happened, and it hurt like hell. It still hurts, but less and less.

So, that’s it. I’m no longer a member of the London Philharmonic Choir. This means I will miss the Proms again. I’d been otherwise engaged previously – ironically, not this time – and was really looking forward to singing Verdi’s Requiem, as well as the Xmas performance of Beethoven’s 9th. (I may try to find a way to do the latter…)

I’ve not been completely idle, though. I recently sang in the 1000 voice choir for Karl Jenkins Peacemakers at Abbey Road, performed Carmina as part of the Really Big Chorus at the Royal Albert Hall and have (provisionally) joined another choir.

Nevertheless, I miss the challenge of working with a world class choir. Although it wasn’t the same after Steph left, I really do think I was up to the task; I practised at home, knew a lot of the pieces from memory but, on the day – when it really mattered – this obviously wasn’t enough. Maybe there’s a hidden agenda. Maybe whoever makes the decisions just want the choir to be the best it can be… I don’t know. I can’t know. And, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter now. I sang Brahm’s Deutsches Requiem on stage at the Royal Festival Hall under Yannick Nezet-Seguin, one of the most inspiring conductors I will ever work with. And it’s on CD. I’ll take that… with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Saturday, 4th December 2010.

It’s difficult now, having unexpectedly seen ”My Boyfriend the War Hero’, to complain with any real justification about how awful my job is at the moment. (I say unexpectedly, as I just clicked on a link and it started playing… somehow it didn’t seem fair to not watch to the end). However, in that feeling guilty about how horrible others are having it is pointless (as well as a symptom of depression, for which I was signed off by my GP last week), and that nothing about young Vicky or Craig’s lives are changed by my feeling guilty, I am going to complain anyway.

Once upon a time, the work of my department was done by three people; two in the office, the third a gopher. Rationalisation eliminated the post of gopher, and then there were two. When I started this job 3 years ago, it seemed as though I would never get to grips with the seemingly endless permutation of clinic codes and theatre lists and procedures. Eventually, though, I did, and work was good. For a while.

Since those heady days, however, the workload has increased to the point that a third member of the team is, once again, essential. Despite numerous requests, this need has not been properly fulfilled by the upper echelons of management, which leaves the two permanent staff members struggling with the workload. And it’s not as though it’s more of the same; a fairly straightforward job is becoming increasingly difficult following the introduction of an increasing number of restrictive and inflexible guidelines.

We’ve coped… until now. If one of us was due to go on holiday, the work was prioritised for the duration; what needed to be done was done, what could wait, waited. The one left holding the baby juggled two constantly ringing telephones, random googlies thrown by both staff and patients, as well as the day to day routine. 45 or 50 hour weeks weren’t unusual.

This pared-to-the-bone staffing method does not work (pardon the pun) in a crisis situation. If one person is off – both unexpectedly and long-term – the one left has no chance. Since the beginning of November, that ‘one’ has been me. I have worked both above and beyond but, with the best will in the world, you can only put an individual under so much pressure before they crack.

And, on 22 November, I cracked. After three weeks of not knowing when (or if) my colleague would return to work following an unexpected bereavement, I dragged myself to a rehearsal of Faure’s Requiem at the Indian YMCA. It finished earlier than planned (it’s a fairly short piece, so I might reasonably have expected it to do so) and I was left to pace around outside the building for 15 minutes or so until my other half arrived.

In that 15 minutes, as I tried to figure out how I was going to manage the week’s workload, my mood plummeted as I realised I couldn’t. Following numerous sleepless nights I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, and simply couldn’t put anything into perspective. Everything seemed massive and insurmountable and hopeless. I started crying – and I couldn’t stop. I was whisked to the GP the morning after to be signed off for a week with work related stress and depression.

I can’t recall a time (recently) when I’ve done so little. I managed to catch up on my OU studies, sleep a lot and generally relaxed. I felt capable of dealing with work again.

Shame, then, that this feeling has only lasted until today. It looks like I’ll be the only permanent staff in the office until January. A meeting is scheduled for Monday to determine how best to deal with the workload in the absence of my colleague. I can make a list of ‘what I do that can be done by others’ which might help to reduce the pressure, but no-one can replace someone who knows what they’re doing except someone who knows what they’re doing. And there is, currently, no-one.

I don’t know how much longer I am expected to manage. January seems a long way away, and I have other commitments. I have a life outside of work. Or I thought I did. What sympathy I had is rapidly being eroded by what appears to be an abuse of my goodwill. My husband blames my late mother’s work ethic – she would have worked until she died, had the NHS not made her retire at 65 – and says that it’s not my problem. I can’t seem to make him understand that there are problems at work which are my problems simply because nobody else is there to deal with them. I know he is worried for my health – with some justification – but I’m a grown up and I have to learn to say ‘no’ in the same disinterested tone of voice that everyone else seems to use.

Right now, I’m tired and fed up and pissed off. I vacillate between being completely apathetic and really angry. I know that a lot of people have a much worse time at work. I realise that by even having a job I am better off than many. There are people who would be happy to do my job if I was to decide I’d had enough. That’s not the point, though. I do what I do well; external factors make it difficult. The problems is the internal factors. That-which-dare-not-speak-its-name – work-related stress – threatens to derail any tidy plan management can concoct.

Public sector workers are not always looked upon with sympathy; we are seen by some as under-worked and over-paid. But public sector workers can be disciplined. They can be sacked. If you’re working like stink and end up getting signed off because you simply can’t function, you could end up being fired. Whereas, if you’re off for weeks on end, you’re more or less left alone.

Cultivating a more positive mental attitude might help. Hmm. I’m going to read that sentence again and try to work out what’s wrong with it. As long as I do that before Monday – I’ll be too busy otherwise.

Every now and again, I get obsessed with something. Right this minute, this something is barbershop. I could listen to this all day. I’m at the very least an agnostic, but even I get teary at these guys’ rendition of “It Is Well With My Soul”. They are truly awesome.