Altona, 8 September 2020
Hi Marlis,
Spring has finally arrived and it’s started sunny and well over here in Altona. We had 23 degrees yesterday, not complaining at all 😊. I hope you’ve been keeping well too; it’s still strange times and I hope you’re staying safe and healthy. It’s been a very…interesting 2 months, so it’s about time I brought you up to date on the latest.
Work at Mason Cabinets
I got fired for the first time in my life! Well, I got
close about 22 years ago, when I still worked at McDonalds (I know…don’t ask…),
but this was a life’s first. I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just that the
business dried up and my boss had been struggling for a while to pay everyone
(I always got paid) and two weeks ago I got the faithful news. I am a bit conflicted
about losing that job. For my studies and future career, it would have been
better and easier if I’d remain employed. But at the same time, the atmosphere and
team spirit was so poor that I don’t really mind. There were so many things to
be frustrated about. No work or job planning, dozens of last-minute changes,
everybody getting blamed for my boss’ mistakes and material shortages. In the
end, everyone was just angry all the time and I had to manage my way through
that. As Australians say: “Too hard”.
I did learn a lot and got to work on many different ‘real’ work projects, but in the end, there was just not enough to do. I got told on Thursday night after a very long and frustrating day and a 4-hour trip to Bendigo with the truck (my 12th by that time in as many days). Then my boss decided that he either didn’t need me or that I was too much work because he called me that same night on a very bad line and told me he had to let me and my colleague Barry go. I was still a bit shocked, although the writing was on the wall. But me being me, I showed up the next day, did a good job n finishing the last bits, cleaned the whole factory and packed up my tools by lunch. He did say that when work picks up again, he’d gladly take me back, but he’s lied so many times about so many things, that I will probably decline and it will likely never happen anyway. That’s chapter 1 of my apprenticeship done.
I’ve worked there long enough to know I really enjoy
the work, even though it’s not building houses (yet). My supervisor thinks I
can become a really good cabinet maker and I hope he’s right, because I really
do enjoy it. I’ve started applying for new jobs straight away and enrolled in an
apprentice support program, but that’s government-run, so I am not holding my breath,
haha. There is work out there, more than I expected actually. And people are
interested in mature age students more often than I expected as well, so I am
trying to be positive and not worry too much. Yumi and I discussed that we
should give it at least another six months before we decide if this experiment
is going somewhere or that I move on to something else.
I’ve had a few positive responses, but everyone in Victoria is waiting for stage-4 lockdown to be lifted and things to re-open, so I am guessing I’ll be home for a few more weeks. We’re very fortunate to not have to worry about paying bills or things like that, I can’t imagine how stressful that must be for many others right now.
SES activities
It’s been quiet and busy at the same time for me and
my buddies in orange. Our area has had a few storms and a fierce one is visiting
right now. This always happens when the weather changes suddenly and most of
the times the trees stay where they are, but when they don’t it gets very
exciting. We’ve not been back to face-to-face training at the unit since March and
it’s been okay with the online meetings so far. People are trying to make the
most of it by doing presentations and training online, including myself. It’s
okay, but I am starting to get over it because no one but the trainer really speaks
up. We just all sit there and listen and then in the end we all say bye and
that’s another week done. Some weeks are better than others and last week was quite
full on. Not so much for our area, but a storm had gone through the bay area and
we’d gotten about 3,000 calls (that’s a lot) for help, mostly in the East
suburbs. So, on a beautifully sunny Friday we went to help in the Dandenongs/Lilydale
area, about 60 kilometres away and that was something else.
Trees on and in houses, cars, yards and driveways everywhere! And so many water mains broken and powerlines ripped off and tangled that it’s a miracle there weren’t any major fires or more than 3 deaths. And these are not small trees, but what we call home wreckers, shed busters and car crushers, the really big ones. My team and I did about 10 jobs from 8am to 8pm and were then stood down, along with some 10 other units. It’s terrible for the people involved, but we had a great time using all our skills and tools! The first job was a big tree in a house that the occupant and his five friends had started on already with chainsaws. It’s before 11am and they are drinking beer and working saws without any protective gear…righto! We sat the six of them down and let them watch me work. I must have impressed them because there was lots of applause and cheering when the tree parts fell as planned and they could get back in the house.
It’s always hard to disappoint people when we arrive on any street that has multiple incidents like this street where there were trees literally laying down everywhere you looked. Everyone urgently wants your help, or even worse, are doing things themselves that just make matters more dangerous. In reality, once it’s on the ground/fallen, it’s not that big of an emergency anymore, but try telling that to someone when there’s a tree in their living room or passenger seat. There are many safety things we have to consider (they really don’t) and we have to say no so many times. But people are generally very good and so very appreciative it’s almost embarrassing. We only had one job where the lady was just so fussy! There’s a big tree/shrub blocking her driveway. She wants it gone. It’s crushed a lot of other plants and items. It’s a simple enough cut-and-drag job but she just made it so much harder by continuously stepping in, pulling on branches and telling us where to stand. I play dumb most of the time, just ignoring them as long as they stay out of my way. That’s the great thing about loud saws and earmuffs, haha!
We fixed a few skylights, liberated a car from under a tree (total write-off), cleared some driveways, roofs and paths and called it a day. Then that Saturday I was out in our own area doing a few more jobs and then on Sunday again for the final clean up. Well, I can’t say I never get to play with the chainsaws. Last night at 11.30 we got called out for a tree across a major road, but just as I walked into the unit we got stood down because it was actually more of a branch and not that big a deal for the police to solve themselves. This happens quite a lot and is always a bit annoying when you’re just about ready to go, but at the same time, I’d rather be in bed anyway 😊.
Yumi’s business
Yumi has had a bit of a break, which I think is great
because she’s been going non-stop for six months now. New clients are still
finding them and the ones they already have could not be happier with their advisory
work. Good times for Purpose at Work indeed! She’s also going to do a training
and certification program in ‘Semco’ style as the first cohort for Australia. I
won’t bore you too much with the details but the concepts and ideas are very
much in line with her principles and values about how people should be allowed
to organise their own work and how businesses can be a fun place to be as well.
She gets along really well with the guy having set it all up for Australia and I
expect good things to come from it for her personal and professional
development. I’ve always been a fan of Ricardo
Semler from the day I read his in 2002. He used to run Semco, a South-American
business that was doing things differently in the 80’s already, allowing staff
to get involved in every part of running the business and it worked really well
for most of them. I think she’ll gain a lot of new ideas and perhaps even some confirmation
that she is a leader in her field and should really get going with that
movement for better workplaces. All in all, she’s doing wonderful things as
always!
Things I’ve built
I’ve been practising my new carpentry and joinery
skills as much as I can with the limitations we have to deal with. Yes, Bunnings
is open for pick up, but it’s not quite the same as going there and looking
around. I use what I have/can find and make the most of it, which has resulted in
a doghouse for our (hopefully) soon-to arrive foster greyhound and a very
sturdy workbench that holds most of my tools and allows me to tinker a bit. Doesn’t
cost a lot of money. The doghouse probably $100 and the workbench was all
pallet wood. Not the best building material, but good enough for this kind of
project.
Obviously, I cannot keep building things just for the heck of it, but it’s just so much fun! My next project will probably be a book cabinet, which I’ve been planning to do forever. I just never felt confident enough to do it and trust I will get a good outcome. Now I know that it’s all about doing it and it doesn’t have to be perfect as long as I enjoy it. This is the doghouse; the roof is a lid and opens up for cleaning. It’s so big we had to take it in through the front door as it didn’t fit through the door in the back by just 3 centimetres, great…
And this is the workbench I made last week. Definitely
not a masterpiece, but it does the job and is 100% level, which is quite the
achievement as basically all the timber was warped or bowed. I’ll happily admit
I was quite proud of myself that day! I might still put it on wheels as
originally intended, but then I’d have to saw off a good part of the legs too
or it will be too high. 😊
School and training
My schoolwork for the apprenticeship is going well. Or
should I say, very, very well?! All of the theory stuff can now be done from
home, on my laptop via e-learning which is a fancy way of saying that I get to work
through dozens of presentations on topics like screws, glues, joints, safety,
more safety, different kinds of timber and so on. Most of it is quite
interesting and a good confirmation of what I was doing at work every day. When
I started on 7 August, I think I must have misunderstood my teacher. I asked
when it needed to be done and he said by 28 August, so off I went, powering
through all 50+ online modules. After 3 weeks I was done and quite impressed
with the amount of work I had to do.
To keep myself busy and entertained, I also started a training in Training and Assessment, which has been on my mind to do for the past five years. It’s at the Cert-4 level and always good to have. It teaches things about how to design, deliver and assess training and it never hurts to have a bit more of that, whatever I do next. SES got a bit of grant money for skills development and now I am doing this with 3 other team members. It’s not anything new really for me, most of this I’ve been doing when I was a consultant, but that only helps to get through the boring bits a bit easier.
Very much like my cabinet maker school stuff, we’ve got 6 months to complete it and I finished all the theory in about 6 days. It was mostly just a lot of looking up and referencing. I don’t think I learned all that much, but if someone hands me a free $2,000 opportunity to get a qualification and learn a few tricks, I will not say no of course. The practical part should be fun, as it involves delivering a few training sessions to our own crew members at SES, easy done!
Lockdown week 5
It’s almost impossible to miss all the drama going on
in Victoria with our stage 4 lockdown going into its final week. Oh no wait, we’re
getting 2 more weeks or 4, or 3, or…. well no one really knows. Yumi and I have
been mostly unaffected. It’s a bit inconvenient to wear a mask, but that’s
about it. We go for walks, I go to the shops, every now and then I go out with
SES and because I was working until end of August, I got around quite a bit
still.
I really do struggle with all the panic and fear the media is trying to rankle up every 24hrs. I get it, they have to draw attention to sell advertising, but the bar is set so low now that all the experts and the non-experts, plumbers, bakers, dog trimmers and aunt Betty from Karingal have now been on the news to share their story. There’s very little actual news, every story is a disaster, a crushing blow and a devastating set-back. Sure, it’s not fun at all and a lot of people are doing it tough in many ways but the media and all those ‘influencers’ missed a great opportunity to be a guiding light and calming voice, but they just couldn’t resist the opportunity to make it about themselves and their ill-informed views.
We’re all bored, we’re all worried for ourselves or others. We all have opinions about how it should be done differently, but no one seems to be volunteering any real and viable plans. I get so sick and tired of all these people telling the premier and his team what to do, while they themselves can’t even follow a simple set of instructions and point to a few exceptions to discredit how the vast majority is trying to do the right thing. To stay positive and sane I am off social media, don’t listen to the news and only read a few unbiased sources to stay informed. In a few weeks from now things will probably start opening up again and by the end of the year, we might even be allowed to leave the state if not the country 😊.
Getting out of Change Management
My move away from change management is progressing slowly but steadily. I’ve stepped aside from a new community group that I helped set up and that’s now in the very capable hands of people still working in the profession. I’ve done my best work setting up some things, creating a few documents and sharing ideas and now it’s time for me to fade even further into the background. I am pleasantly surprised by how many people still keep an eye on what I am doing as an apprentice, I wasn’t expecting that at all. I do the occasional guest appearance in online sessions and am always happy to help a change friend if they have a question or concern, but that’s about it.
When I was in Berlin last year November, my friend
Sarah and I discussed how it would be very cool to get the same Change Days
concept that we were going to in Berlin over to Australia. It proved really
hard, too hard for me, but she persevered and will be hosting the very first edition
of the Australasian Change Days this weekend. I bought a ticket to support her
and the team and gave it away to a very talented newcomer because I didn’t feel
like going myself. But then Sarah gave me a free ticket all the same and I
decided that I can make this the last thing I do as a change manager. After this,
I’ll start to politely decline requests for appearances and redirect requests
for help and support to people still practicing. I’d like to think that I ended
on a high note and don’t want to become ‘that guy’ who keeps coming back and
going away.
The big move North
Yumi and I are cooking up a big new plan to move to Queensland and live mortgage free in a few years from now, maybe as soon as 2022. We’ve been reading up and watching a lot of videos and documentaries about how to make that happen and we think we can do it. We’ll have to find either a piece of land and build a simple home which I can then finish off myself or we buy some property a bit more remote and make that work somehow. It’s not much of a plan just yet, but we’ve made a budget and for us that’s always the first step. Once we have the budget, everything else always happens more or less as planned.
In the ideal scenario we’ll have a small 2-bedroom
home, on a bit of land with a good internet connection and bunch of animals.
Yumi will do what she does now and I’ll find a job as a cabinet maker and/or
diving instructor until I have enough experience to become a teacher or until something
equally interesting finds me. Like I said, it’s not much of a plan and we might
get there in unexpected ways, but we’ll make it work somehow.
Going vegan
A few weeks ago, I decided to give the vegan lifestyle
a go after being a vegetarian for nearly 15 years. That means I now avoid
animal products and food/clothes made from animal products. No real reason other
than that I can feel I can do more to prevent cruelty against animals. I
thought it would be really hard to give up cheese and eggs, but it’s actually
not that hard. There is a vegan variety for most things and although it’s not
the same, it’s good enough. Well, maybe not vegan cheese, the smell is just terrible.
But not the good kind of terrible that cheese can have, but really nasty almost
making you puke kind of terrible. Then again, the vegan feta is pretty good and
coconut milk-based yoghurt is not so bad.
Don’t worry about me not getting enough protein, fibre, calcium, iron, zinc or vitamin B 12, D and E, the answer to all of that is…broccoli! Well, not really of course, but I did my homework and it turns out because we have a very diverse diet and eat lots of fruit and veggies with every meal, I get more than enough nutrients to stay healthy. I’ll see how I feel in a few months from now, so far, I don’t feel any different at all.
Small stuff
· Yumi is turning into a real fitness buff. She’s worked
out this schedule for herself where she does a routine with online videos 5
days a week and 2 big walks on the weekend. I am so impressed! It’s like living
with Jane Fonda, but without the hair and leg warmers, hahaha. She never used
to want to do any kind of sports, but this is her thing and she’s clearly
enjoying it. She’ll come out of lockdown super fit!
I have so much time on
my hands now, that I get to play a lot of video games. I get them cheap online and
play the stuffing out of them. There’s different kind of gamers and I think the
label that fits me best is ‘completionist’. Those are the gamers who go to
every spot on the map, do all the quests and find all the secrets to get 100%.
It’s totally pointless, I know, but it’s a nice way to relax and have a good
time while everyone is asleep or at work. I’ve been diving the oceans, fighting
zombie hordes in Russia, time travelling to solve mysterious puzzles and right
now I am surviving in the wilderness while trying to find my missing wife 😊.
Depending on if and
where I find work, we might be moving to the East of Melbourne. We’re quite
happy where we are, but the lease for this rental is coming up in 2 months and that
always makes us consider the options, so next time I write, we might have just
moved or we’ll be here for another 12 months.
· I’ve hurt my right elbow muscles and it’s not going
away. I hope these next few weeks of unemployment give it the rest it needs
because it’s quite unpleasant. I know I have a high pain threshold and I am
trying to be smart because I’ll need that arm for at least another 50 years. Obviously,
the cabinet making work and SES chainsawing is not much help…
That’s it for now, you know all there is to know about
the past 2 months. I hope to find a new apprentice placement from the few
things I have on the boil and plan to just keep a positive mindset while we
move out of lockdown slow and steady
Be well and stay safe
Gilbert
