beckity

On Thursday 16 January 2020 I was having a quiet word with my team leader at my desk in our open plan office, before a meeting. I'd been feeling the strain and wanted to talk about moving from full time to 4/5ths. She knew it was something I'd been considering. "How are you doing at the moment?" she asked. I tried to answer, but let out a big sob instead.  After moving to the stairwell to dry my tears, we headed to the meeting. As my finance colleague showed us slides of graphs, I couldn't hear a word she was saying. I was sitting in a room with the entire office and all my energy was on stopping the tears sliding down my face. I was trying to slow my breathing, stop myself crying. It didn't work. A colleague across the room caught my eye. Her kind questioning look broke through my efforts. I got up quickly and excused myself. The HR person followed me out of the office and we went to a meeting room on another floor. For an hour, I let it all out. The frustra