Supercalifragiliciousexpialidocious

I'm finding it hard to title my posts.

The weekend is almost done, and I'm going to bed early so that I'm fresh for the working week. There's something wrong about this, exhausting myself from Monday to Friday and then recuperating over the weekend. I'm not the first to say this, but the balance is wrong.

My parents had no real money when we were growing up, yet we had food, clothes, our own home and a (cheap) holiday every year. My Mum didn't work and there were us three kids to look after. How did they do it? I know they were frugal, but they are the first to admit that it would be harder today, particularly with the long hours we have to put in. I made a decision to work less, although it's still over my contracted hours. I get marginally less work done, but it's probably better. When I leave, I feel as if I'm skiving.

How did this happen? I'm a public servant, I haven't got anyone looking over my shoulder to see if I should get a nice fat bonus this year, there isn't one. I don't get as much as a Christmas card from my employer. When we were inspected by the Social Services Inspectorate we were rated excellent, only one of three London boroughs to achieve this. What did we get for all this? A standard letter from the Director.

I was feeling a bit demotivated as I kept seeing and hearing in the media about how crap Social Workers are. Apparently we're complete incompetents, but we should be able to stop any child in the UK being killed by their parents. This stuff makes me feel so angry I had to write to the Sunday Times today. It's one email, but it's the beginning of a new militant attitude. No longer will I tell people that I work for the council, I'll hold my head up high and say:

I am a Social Worker.
I help families.
I protect children.
I work hard for little reward.
It's something to be proud of.
I would like to be independently wealthy so I can hand my notice in.

Mrs McMuffin