Brace yourselves, it's a post about me, and my professional life, for a change. I've decided not to return to work at the BBC Pronunciation Unit, and will be starting work for Oxford University Press as (ahem) their new Head of Pronunciations in January. This means working across OUP’s English dictionaries to ensure good and consistent practice on the implementation of print and online pronunciations, both as phonetic transcriptions and audio sound-files. I've been doing occasional freelance proofing and checking for OED and other dictionaries for a couple of years, but this presents many more long-term opportunities, and it's very exciting.
At the moment, it also fits in well with family life (not just W and P being small and needing me, but also wanting to be available for mum and dad), as it is part-time and almost entirely from home. In a year or two, when the boys are older, I will work more of the week and we will look at moving nearer Oxford, but for now it is extremely flexible. This set-up is one of the reasons that I was sure this was the right move.
My field as a pronunciation specialist / phonetician / orthoepist is tiny and specialized, and in many ways the Pronunciation Unit is a dream job, but after several years and a lot of thought, as I refocus on my career a bit (emerging somewhat from the haze of early motherhood perhaps), I feel ready for a change too. The saddest part will be not going back to work with my wonderful colleagues Martha and Jo (right), I will sorely miss them both and can't quite believe that they and the Unit will finally be moving from Television Centre to Broadcasting House without me - although I will be pestering them for consultation far too frequently for them to pine for me too much.