I want to be a cat psychologist

The advice I wish my career advisor had given me when I was sixteen

Dear friends,

It’s finally February and it’s already so much better than January. For one, I have a new car and no one has driven into me on a roundabout yet. For another, half term is coming up in a week. I’m also finally starting to achieve some consistency in my fatigue management and my sleep inertia is improving. Things are mostly better… except for the work thing. That is still an ongoing saga.

So, here’s an update on that saga and my decision to become my own career advisor.

If you missed the details of the work saga, here’s a link to my previous newsletter: Sickness Shaming

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I want to be a cat psychologist

So, here’s how my formal Stage One Absence Disciplinary meeting went:

Firstly, I turned up to work and logged on to SIMS to find I’d been put on lesson cover for the exact time I was supposed to be in the disciplinary meeting. Excellent. Had the meeting been cancelled? Was this a test? Sorry, I’ll be absent from the absence review meeting because I’ve got to cover the absence of an absent member of staff.

I pointed out the issue to my HOD and he hurried off to get the cover cancelled. This is what happens if you don’t put formal meetings in the SIMS calendar.

Secondly, just before 11:30am, I went down to the HR Manager’s office with my HOD for the meeting. There was no one there. We waited around for a bit and the HR Manager finally turned up with a fresh cup of coffee and a confused look on her face. “We’re meeting at 12.30, aren’t we?” she said. I explained that no, I would be teaching at 12.30. The letter she had sent said the meeting was at 11.30am—presumably organised for that time because it was during my free period. She had set cover for my HOD for this very lesson, so that he could come to the meeting at 11.30am. Because the meeting was scheduled for 11.30am. She said she would check the letter. I said okay, because the letter she had written and sent out said the meeting was today, at 11.30am—the time she had arranged for the meeting to happen. The time for which my HOD had been granted cover for his lesson. 11.30am. The only time at which I was not teaching today.

She didn’t check the letter but we did, finally, establish that yes, the meeting was supposed to be happening, right now, at 11.30am. So, my HOD and I went to the business manager’s office whilst the HR Manager went to find the Business Manager (who also, for some reason, thought the meeting was at 12.30pm and not 11.30am).

This is what happens if you don’t put formal meetings in the SIMS calendar.

By the way, my colleague, who also had to attend the same type of meeting the following week, also got put down for cover at the same time as her meeting. You can not make this stuff up.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T PUT FORMAL MEETINGS IN THE SIMS CALENDAR.

Outstanding competency and communication skills all-round.

Turns out the HR Manager wasn’t leading the meeting—she was taking the minutes, by hand in the end, because the laptop she brought with her wouldn’t turn on.  

The Business Manager (who had not been mentioned in the letter as one of the participants in the meeting) actually led the interview.

Anyway. The meeting commenced. I was told how much money I had cost the school in order to cover my absence last year (money that is, by the way, covered by their insurance policy). Then I was given the opportunity to explain my absences and my recent doctor’s note. So I told them about Long Covid. You know, about how it’s the result of a virus that caused a global pandemic… the virus I caught working at school, after they lifted the restrictions on mask-wearing, hand-sanitising, ventilating rooms etc.  I told them about what happens to your body and brain when you have Long Covid. About how it took a year and three referrals from my doctor before I heard from the post-covid clinic. About how it was a bloody miracle I’d managed to get myself back in to work with no medical intervention or support when I was suffering from fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, anxiety, sleep inertia, joint and muscular pain and a dramatic loss of my previous strength and stamina. I explained how I’d just had my diagnosis from the post-covid clinic and I now had appointments coming out of my ears for all the different types of support I was about to receive to finally treat my condition. I told them how I’d had to completely change my life just so I could be in work three days a week. How I’d moved back in with my parents because I couldn’t cope with looking after myself and work at the same time.

The Business Manager said she didn’t know any of this stuff.

Considering the outstanding communication skills demonstrated so far, I was heavily unsurprised.  

Of course she didn’t know any of that stuff because:

1. I’d told most of this to the HR Manager before Christmas.

2. No one had bothered to catch up with me since then, before deciding to initiate the formal absence disciplinary procedure.

Then it was mentioned that I had an Occupational Health assessment the following week, and maybe it would be best to wait for the OH report before any decisions were made about how to manage my situation? Which, okay…. but why didn’t we just do that in the first place?

Anyway, after all that, I’m thinking about a career change.

To be fair, I’ve been trying to get out of teaching since my NQT year, so now might be the time to try it for real.

Not because I don’t love teaching, by the way. I adore teaching. Who doesn’t want to teach Shakespearean tragedy or the correct use of  a semi-colon to fourteen-year-olds? I just hate the British education system, and only the fact that I happen to love where I teach has kept me in it for all these years. I was fully prepared to stay put and stick the insanity out until the chance of dying in front of a class, period five on a Friday, became a solid ninety-percent. And then I’d retire and work fifteen hours a week at the local library until I keeled over in the Young Adults section.

But now my job might be in jeopardy, I’m going to seize my chance and work in anything other than a government run and funded sector. One of my colleagues told me that she knew quite a few former teachers who has successfully become civil servants. Yeah. No thanks.

So, here’s my list of jobs I’d rather do instead. In fact, these are jobs I wish my school career advisor had suggested as viable options when I was sixteen and making choices that were going to influence the rest of my life.

Disclaimer: a lot of these involve cats.

1)      Cat hotel: We recently had to put my sister’s cat into a cat hotel and when we dropped him off, I had an epiphany: I could totally do this job. In fact, if I managed to rope my sister into a career change, we’d have the perfect partnership. She has a qualification in animal care, I have enthusiasm. Not to mention my cat-whispering skills are pretty top-tier and I’d say I probably understand cats better than I do people. All we’d need is our own property with a big enough outdoor area to build the hotel. Or, failing that, my flat comes with a garage that never gets checked during property inspections. What the landlord doesn’t know won’t get me evicted.

2)      Cat psychologist: this would require quite a bit of re-training. I’d need a whole new degree in animal behaviour, but I’m a fast learner and studying up on topics for which I harbour an obsession is one of my specialities. I didn’t even know this was a real job until I watched a documentary on Netflix about cats and this expert popped up on screen with the title ‘Cat Psychologist’ next to her. This woman literally spent every day watching cats, playing with cats, performing adorable little behaviour experiments with cats. She’d probably never had a bad working day in her life. I’m extremely disappointed this was not on one of the career cards we were given in my GCSE year when we were making A Level choices.

3)      Cat café: I’ve been to a cat café and it was awesome. I could run one of these. Cream tea and cats? Yes, please.

4)      Florist: If I can’t work with cats, I’d love to work with flowers. I have horrible hay fever that tries to brutally kill me every spring and summer, but flowers are pretty and they smell much nicer than teenage boys do after they’ve run around a field for an hour and eaten spicy sausage for lunch. Rom-Coms have also taught me that this job would increase my chances of finding true love by about 200%.

5)      Voice Actor: I watch a lot of anime and the VAs just sound like they’re having so much fun. There’s a certain anonymity to it too that appeals to my audience-shy introverted self.  

6)      Film Extra: I actually did this once. A famous director was filming locally one summer, so my family and I applied as extras, just for fun, and I somehow got selected. I spent an entire day in period costume, doing the same thing over and over again for about eight hours. You’re basically just a living prop, and get treated as such on set, and there’s a lot of waiting around, but you don’t have to have any acting skills and you meet some really interesting people. One of the best experiences of my life.

7)      Karaoke Bar: I reckon I could get my neighbours to sponsor me on this one… anything to stop me performing karaoke alone in my flat. And there really aren’t enough Karaoke Bars around. The closest thing to a karaoke place anywhere near to where I live is a dingy little room in the back of a bar where you have to compete with the sound of people throwing axes on the other side of the door. And they didn’t even have Sk8er Boi on the playlist. It’s also pretty expensive for a set up you could easily recreate in your own living room. £8 an hour, per person. So if you go as a group of eight, most of you only get to sing once, maybe twice if you do a duet. That’s £8 to sing ONE song. I’d be better off busking; people would pay me to stop. I could save the money and start my own reasonably-priced Karaoke place.  

If only I could go back in time and be my own career advisor, I’d tell my sixteen year old self: Look. You’re a much more competent person than you think you are. You’re a fast learner when you’re passionate about something. You could do anything you wanted. Other than teach in the British education system. Please don’t do that. Do literally anything else. Go and teach English somewhere else if you must. As a foreign language abroad or in an international school, or online. Or specialise in cats. Have you heard of Cat Psychology? You won’t regret it. In a couple of decades, when your job is on the line because you caught a virus in a pandemic, you’ll thank yourself for making that choice. Those who can, do. And those who also can but weren’t given adequate career advice when they were in school, teach.

… until they end up pushed out of their job and have to make new career choices in their late thirties.

Unfortunately, time travel has yet to be invented. So, until Elon Musk or someone gets on with it, I’m going to keep an open mind on the possibilities and opportunities out there and imagine for myself a different life. Whatever happens, there’s one thing that will never change: I will always be a writer. Fortunately I don’t need any qualifications, business loans or a career path to do the one thing I love most in the world.

Speaking of writing. I AM working on a fiction project at the moment. Promise. I’m in the planning stages right now, but I hope to be finished soon and then I can start with the actual writing. I’m used to writing novels, so writing a piece of serialised fiction is going to be a new experience. I’ll up date you once the planning is done.

I’d love to hear from you, so let me know:

• Which of the above career options should I pick? I also welcome other (cat-related) suggestions.

• What would your dream job be? Or are you already doing it?

• What career advice would you give someone starting out (or restarting) today?

Whatever your job, career or employment plan, take care and stay in touch!

PJ