Update 16 Jan 09

I’m still here. 

I still don’t have a job of my own. 

The office restack work was completed by the end of October, so I was declared surplus (again) at the beginning of November.  Since then my boss has been giving me ‘meaningful tasks’ to do while the office reorganisation is under way and it’s surprisingly easy to keep occupied.  One task I have been assigned is managing the vacancies in my division, drawing up job descriptions for new posts and arranging interviews for candidates.  The irony of this is not lost on me. 

As part of our job cutting exercise we’ve had another early retirement/severance scheme and I did consider applying for that, but in the current economic climate I have no illusions about how difficult it might be for me to find another job, and I would need another one even though I could have been on a full pension if I’d been successful.  Sixty one staff from a complement of about 350 applied to go and 40 have had offers, but not all of those will actually go.  Even so, there will be more job opportunities once the jumpers have jumped. 

The other encouraging factor is that another government agency is moving here from London, and as not all their staff want to come up here there will be quite a lot of new jobs available with them. 

In the short term I’ve just been offered a temporary job for a couple of months to fill in for a manager who’s leaving in a few weeks.  His job will go into the vacancy pot, so having the opportunity to test drive it will give me an idea about whether I’d like to do it permanently, and the divisional boss a chance to see if I’m suitable from their point of view.  I’m just waiting for a start date, but I’ll probably get a month’s hand over with the outgoing guy, which is unusually good.