Midnight caller.

KfW2 sent me a message late last night. Was I awake?

"Barely," I replied.

I was awake, and reading a book, but it was near midnight. What did she want?

I eventually drifted off to sleep with no further contact. When I woke this morning, WhatsApp was silent.

So I replied to her asking what was up. She immediately called.

It turns out that she's looking for a new job, and not within the company. It was funny, cos even though she was recently promoted, I had a gut feeling she was looking for change. She wanted me to proofread something for her, but she decided that as I had said I was barely awake, she wouldn't bother me. It put me in mind of CH, who asked something similar of me a few years back where I effectively filled in an application form for her and got her an interview. 

Back to KfW2 though. Looking to a brand new company is a big thing for KfW2. She suffers (or at least suffered) from the same type of anxiety that I do regarding interviews, so moving jobs was a big thing for her. This is an extension of that. This time, though, I don't think the desire to move is about money. It has been almost solely her driver in the past, despite her protestations to the contrary.

This time, it's about work/life balance. Traditionally, our company has been at the forefront of WLB in the industry in my city, but the pandemic and lockdown have seen that advantage eroded as other companies have been forced into adopting similar policies, probably much quicker than they might have done ordinarily.

KfW2 is adamant that other places now offer much better WLB. I'm not entirely sure that she's correct, but she won't listen. Plus, this is about workload more than anything else. I don't know that moving to another company is going to make her workload any less.

She admitted that, when she first moved into a new job back in 2018, she took some time off for stress because she didn't feel that she had any direction and was left to figure things out for herself. This is news to me. It seems that she's recently admitted, more than once, to taking time off due to mental health reasons, but never shared that information at the time, and I never picked up on it.

I think part of that is the ever-growing distance between us that started when she took that first step away in 2018 and has steadily grown wider since. I've no insight into her life any longer. We've seen each other three times in the past 12 months, and one of those times was a write-off as she had a complete mental breakdown in front of me. The others amount to a total of a couple of hours, with her kids in tow.

I'm concerned. If she's been stressed and has current mental health issues as well as confidence issues, I'm not sure that looking to move to another company is going to be good for her. I don't know if I should bring it up. She knows I care, but she's also a very stubborn woman when she's made up her mind.