When I began this blog a year ago, I didn't think at the time that it would be nearly a year before I would write on it again.
But now I'm feeling ready to, and what has helped is finding something I want to write about.
Before I do that though, I think it's right that I remind my future self of what has happened since my previous blog.
At the time, I was still a shift worker, and working ad-hoc for a local solicitors firm, and I was part way through my first module on my LLB with the Open University.
The temporary "pin" I had put in my career was gone, and I knew 2024 was to be the year I was aiming to do my career change; from a SCADA operator to...well, whatever really, so long as I was working full-time in law.
But then came Boxing Day.
Dear dear Boxing Day 2023; you weren't what I was expecting but you sure fired me into action.
Let me explain. I had 3 days off from work that festive period; Christmas Day, Boxing Day and the 27th. I was the one doing most of the cover shifts, and that was fine because we all did that one year or another, it is what it is (or was).
But on Boxing Day, I got a phone call at lunctime, asking me to go in and cover.
On one of the very few days I had off, I'm getting called to go in and work?
No.
And I sure as hell stood my ground on the engineer team leader, who was his usual jokey self with his "oh I had to ask." Never mind that he didn't have to ask as nothing was going on, and as I was to find out...that wasn't the question he was supposed to ask (which still would have been a no) but that one phone call was it for me.
Game over.
I'm done.
I don't need a phone call on Boxing Day from an industry that is only running an automated warehouse "for the sake of it." There has never been an obvious business need, but heaven forbid there be an automated warehouse not running for 48 hours whilst people actually, you know, have a few festive days off?
Anyway, that's in the past for me now.
But it was my tipping point.
That evening, I sat at my computer, rejigging my finances around until the next payday in next 6 weeks time, finding the money I needed to get a professional legal CV overhaul.
The final draft of my new legal CV came back New Year's Eve and off I went.
I sent it to a few agencies I had already ear-marked, as well as a few law firms with roles I was interested in, as well as researching and making a list of who else to keep an eye on, whilst I monitored legal jobs online.
I set 4 weeks as my own "park it, move on" time frame so I didn't let myself get caught up in a loop of "why haven't I heard back yet."
That was my plan. Apply (but only to the roles that properly made me go "ooooo"), wait, monitor, add to the list, cross off the list.
I then got an interview, for a Private Client legal secretary role, at a firm that's about half hour away from me, and I got down to the final two.
A newbie, me, in the final two? Blimey.
I didn't get the role, and I understood their why; they ultimately felt they needed to go with the experience because of their business needs.
But I was chuffed as hell that I got that far, and I still am. I got to the final two in my first proper interview in, how many years? Boom. Well done me!
I decided to give myself a few weeks off from applying, simply because there wasn't much else around that was making me have that "ooooo".
But then, out of the blue, I got a phone call.
Shakespeare Martineau (along with Irwin Mitchell) had been the first firms I had applied to with my new CV. I didn't get anywhere with Irwin, but I did have good feedback on action I could take from my rejection email. But with Shakespeare, I had an offer of an interview.
And then came an offer of a second interview.
And a few days after that second interview, right when I had just pulled up onto the drive at home, I got the phone call that changed everything, and I sat cheering in my car.
That was the Monday. An agreed start date was organised, and the contract was signed on the Tuesday, and I resigned from my old role on the Wednesday, and I started working my 4 weeks notice.
When I left my old role, I absolutely bawled my eyes out. I may have hated that job, but the people who were around me made it tolerable. More than tolerable to be honest.
And hand on heart I was scared; because making the career change leap is scary.
It didn't stop me though, because ultimately, I was more scared of that SCADA role being "it" for me, until the end of my days. And the idea of that, was genuinely more petrifying to me than trying. It still is.
And as from April 2024, I've been working at Shakespeare Martineau.
I've actually managed the career change, I'm actually working in law full-time, and it's brilliant whirlwind of many, many tasks and nose diving and laughs and food and tea. And I know I'm only just scratching the surface of what there is, and I'm definitely just scratching the surface of what I'm actually capable of.
And that's how things have changed for me since my last blog post.
But as to this blog, and what to do with it. It's actually an idea that's developed from something my colleague Gavin suggested. Granted not as a blog, that's just something I've decided on.
For the Open University LLB, when you get to W112 Civil Justice and Tort Law, you start practising summarising. And Gavin's suggestion was to literally open my module text book, pick a case from the page that's opened and summarise it, simply for practice.
Excellent idea Gavin!
So that's what I'm going to do once a month; open my module text book, pick a case, write a summary and post it on here.
There'll still be the occassional blog post like this, but for now, it's for the summaries.
And if you have an insight on how I can improve, let me grab a cuppa tea so I can sit down and listen. I'm all ears.
All I do ask, is for you to not be too brutal in your feedback.
I am still learning.
But then aren't we all?