My new job requires me to study again. As I don’t have an MBA (9 years studying is more than enough for 1 person), I’m having to read lots of business books and teach myself things. Thankfully my education and also lecturing experience has given me a great insight into how to teach yourself. However, it does come with a background problem of having to spend time and effort (out of the office learning) and of course that means you have to get up to speed with things quickly (as you are already behind the curve). Thankfully, I find the subject material really interesting if not a little bit bewildering as to the breadth of it. Last week it was strategy, tonight it has been branding.

I rarely get stressed to a point where I wake up in the morning (or middle of the night) with things in my mind. However, that has been what it’s been like for the past week or so. I did manage to relax at the weekend, but come Monday morning I was in the office at 7AM working away. Thankfully I’ve gotten through a reasonable amount today. I hate feeling like this as it makes me hate work. The past few months has made me think that maybe I need a career change as life is too short to be doing something that you don’t feel energised each morning to do. Actually, I just feel that I’m burnt out. 13hr+ days for weeks (years) on end take their toll on you. I’m also someone who has to be interested in something in order to work on it. I find the current work really interesting, but a little stressful given the urgency of things and that I’m out my comfort zone.

So why the title ? Well, the past week I’ve been working in the evenings listening to Margherita Taylor on Classic FM whilst studying away, finishing the evening off with a glass of Talisker (good Scotch). What’s amusing is that when I was a student I used to wake up on a Sunday morning and she’d be presenting T4 (I think it still exists on Sunday mornings on Channel 4) I’d be badly hungover and then have to study.

That’s maturity for you- bad hangovers on Sunday morning getting up to study after being in some club listening to dance music, compared to weekday evenings sitting a nice glass of Scotch listening to classical music !