What kind of salary premium should I put on my job in a semi-state which has in many ways turned out to be the dream semI-state role?
I was laid off towards the end of 2024 from one of the big companies we all know and love. I had a senior position there that paid very well but the lay off couldnt have come at a better time, I was on the point of breaking down and was a physical and emotional wreck. I was overeating and chain smoking, both of which I stopped while I was off.
I applied all around and somehow got a job working for a semi-state - think An Post, Irish Water, Dublin Airport Authority - not one of those three but similar. The job is great, good hours, interesting work, very flexible and I leave at 17:30 every day. I do not have to manage staff. There has never been a compulsory lay off from my organisation in its history.
the only thing is that I’ve basically reached the ‘max’ of the pay potential just when I came in already. It will not grow further beyond occasional 1 or 2% bumps. I have spoken to friends from the industry lately and they’re on a lot more than I am and I have started to get a little jealous.
What kind of premium should I put on my current situation? what % of pay is the security, pension and good working conditions worth?
My reading of the scene was Ned coming upon a tortured and dying Lyanna who wanted him to lie about what happened to her so that her memory wasn‘t damaged, and people wouldn’t know she was assaulted. I pictured it similar to the way Rust Cohle found those children in Reggie LeDeux’s trailer in True Detective.
Seeing his sister like that is the reason Ned is so ’weird’ and cold. Jaime seemed heroic to me in my first reading even with what they did in the first book, because they took down the horrendous Targ dynasty. Anyone who sided with Aerys looks awful.
Robert Baratheon looks a lot less bad. He had no personal ambition but just took down Aerys when he was provoked and his reaction was justified. Instead of a fool, he comes across like someone that did a great service to the regime by killing Rhaegar.
Jon is a nobody. Dany is sympathetic but I did not want her to return to power at all.
It‘s a very common narrative in other artistic pursuits, music, fine art etc. This idea of ‘giving it a shot’ and then giving it up after a while.
I’m talking about both people who have been trying to publish for a long time, or those who have self-published extensively, or those who had a trad pubbed career! Is it common for people to just move on to other things? It’s not really a narrative I’ve encountered in writing the same way I would in, for example, music.