Altona 7 May 2022
Hi Marlis,
I hope you are keeping nice and warm now that the cold snap has arrived. I saw the weather for Canberra and those temperatures are getting way too close to zero degrees.
The past 2 months, where did they go?! I honestly don’t know, but here we are, 2 months since the last letter! At first I didn’t think that much had happened, but when I started listing everything, the list became longer and longer, so without further ado, here we go.
New job and other work things
Last time I was still in the interview phase but soon after I said yes to a short term contract with Swinburn University and I just finished week 7 of being a project manager for a total of six projects. It’s actually not at all like the roles I had at Deakin university, but the language, topics and processes are very much the same, so it feels very comfortable and familiar. I get to work from home 4 days out of 5 and so far I’ve not had an ounce of stress. I could work from home all week, but I find I enjoy being on campus just as well, even though the office is really boring and quiet, I make my own fun, go for walks and leave on time. I am not at all challenged but I think it’s good for me to just have a job for a while and I do learn new and useful things in the process, so good enough is just good enough for now.
It's my job to look after a number of projects all aimed at giving students and teachers a better university experience. In normal people speak that means that I:
1. organise for 20 classrooms to be fitted out with new technology
2. arrange for 150 teachers to get training in a new way of teaching
3. help install new software that will help students write better quality papers
4. create a series of 100% online workplace simulations so students can practice without the stress of doing it for the first time in front of a live person
5. make money and support available for 10 grants to be awarded to staff for new teaching ideas
6. oversee the delivery of 750 classes to international students outside Australia
I have a colleague who is an academic developer and she looks after all the smart stuff while I do the doing. After working together for 2 weeks, I think we make a pretty good team!
My dream job would have been to work at CSIRO and they DID call me back for an interview, but by then I was already 4 weeks into my contract with Swinburne, so I had to tell them no. Next time perhaps.
Teaching at Deakin still continues and this week I am also doing a 1-day strategy session for a client I worked with for Purpose at Work, should be fun and the pay is good, so it’s a nice bonus.
Yumi’s work
Yumi’s been preparing a number of work things to land pretty soon. It’s been a quiet two months which I think was a welcome break from being busy-busy. Now there are three things coming her way which will keep her very occupied until well after winter. Together with her colleague Caroline they landed a big piece of work with the largest disability service provider in Australia and if that works out, it’ll be an even bigger follow up. Then there’s a smaller job and a very cool job with a client she always wanted to work with, so as usual, Yumi’s doing great.
Paddy the bulldozer greyhound
We said goodbye to Paddy two weeks ago and the dust has finally settled, haha. He was a lovely young man, just turned 3 and probably the most fun we’ve had with a foster since the start. He was also the heaviest at 41kg and he looked like he went to the gym 7 days a week for 3 hours a day. Seriously, his muscles had muscles. But not an ounce of sense in him. He just ran into us, walls, trees, doors, furniture, people, cars and everything else in his way out of sheer enthusiasm. Hilarious, but at times painful and even a bit costly as he managed to punch a hole in one of the walls. With his head… Didn’t seem to bother him at all, he just kept on playing with his chew toy.
He still has a lot to learn, but he’s a quick study and once he found out how stairs work he would just be up in Yumi’s office all day and snooze. He was also the first (and last!) dog to sleep in our bedroom next to the bed. Not that I wanted that to happen but locking him in for the night guaranteed a howling concert for 45 minutes. We know sometimes you have to let them be but this was crazy, so we let him in and within 1 minute he was down and out. He’ll probably be placed with a family that can work on his separation anxiety because that’s his only issue (aside from being a bulldozer…).
We tried to go for walks a few times and turn on a camera to see what he does, only to see he was in a full-blown panic from the moment we left until we returned. Not great, so he’ll need a doggo friend to show him how being at home by your doggy-self works.
Other than that he was so funny, cuddly and lovely, always up for a walk, super curious to investigate everything around him and he even went for a dunk in the bay nearby, even though he doesn’t know how to swim…Greyhounds aren’t built for swimming, but fortunately he was still on the lead and I could guide him out, after he almost pulled me in, hahaha.
SES activities
SES has been quiet aside from a few small jobs. One involved a crime scene with human remains but by the time we got there to provide some lighting in the house everything was gone and we only had to be there for 90 minutes. Short jobs are good jobs and even more so if there’s nothing to see. I have been busy trying to get the Awards Night organised and I can honestly say I will NEVER do that again. It’s been going for 5 months and getting completely ridiculous, but leave it to SES to turn something simple and fun into a hard and unpleasant slog. Anyway, on Saturday 21 May we’ll have a nice dinner and evening with the team and their families, some people will get a shiny pin or medal for 5,10,15,20 or 35 years of service, which is a nice way of recognising their efforts. It doesn’t do anything for me, so it’s not at all a problem that they forgot I am also due for a 5-year pin and I am not planning to bring it up. I always want to kick myself after putting my hand up, telling myself I will never volunteer for this again. Only to then still do it the next time people ask for help.
I had a lot more fun doing a big clean-up of the SES unit building over the Easter break, when I had a 5-day mini-holiday. In just a few hours across two days I managed to sort, shine and straighten us back into a semblance of cleanness and order, which works better for all of us and is also a lot safer with all the heavy and sharp tools and equipment we have laying around. Our upstairs area is now a clean room, which means no boots and overalls up there and I think it’ll stick because lots of emergency services have that setup and it’s just neater overall. We’ve also done 20 interviews for new members but unfortunately less than 10 have decided to go for it, so we’ll have to keep going to bolster our ranks a bit because we’re supposed to have 30 active members and we’re down to 15 at the moment. Reading all this back I realise it was actually not ‘quiet’ at all!
Yumi’s trip
Yumi is off on a trip to the Netherlands for a week by herself. I had other work things I needed to do and with the new job it wouldn’t look great if I left for a week already. Also, the main reason she’s going is for her and her older brother to speak to her parents about the next 20 years of their lives and what that might look like. We had a bit of a scare with her mum who got quite ill and hasn’t been eating well. That’s not something to joke about when you’re 73 and in reality she hasn’t been looking after herself for a longer time. Her dad is mostly fine aside from diabetes which he manages really well, but the kids realised they honestly have no idea what sort of care arrangements their parents want in this stage of their lives and the future. Turns out that her parents didn’t know either and now that we can travel again, Yumi and her brother decided that there was no time like the present. It’s a strange experience to enter that stage of our lives, where looking after your parents becomes a thing. Then again, they looked after us for the first 10-20 years so it’s only fair to return the favour, right? I consider it a luxury to have all four parents still in our lives, hardly worth complaining about!
It's not all serious business of course, she’s also getting a new passport, plans to do some serious shopping, will meet as many friends as possible, going out for dinner and stopping by my parents to spend some time with them as well. She’ll be back on Sunday morning 5.30am after I dropped her off last Friday morning at 2am. Even though we’ve been together for nearly 25 years now, I still miss her and count the days until she’s back again. Good thing I’ve got a busy week ahead and the days will fly by .
Chameleon Cards and Bad Change Book
All the way back in 2019 I visited and brought you a box of the Chameleon Cards. Three years later and we’ve just reprinted another batch of 100 cards and sold 60+ already. The proceeds go to charity for this one too. Last week we donated the $6,800 in profits to the National Homeless Collective and you can imagine they were very happy to get those much needed funds. We’ve been supporting them for a few years now and I couldn’t think of a worthier cause.
The Bad Change Book is almost ready to go online via Amazon, but it’s been taking a long time because my co-author Peter has been stuffing about for a bit. I’m quite annoyed with the unnecessary delays and tell myself it doesn’t matter, but for me punctuality and delivering things when promised matters a lot. He keeps telling me that he’s annoyed with himself too, but not enough to make a change, so I am laying low for a bit until I am less grumpy and then will tell him how his actions make me feel. We’ve been friends for years so it shouldn’t cause an issue and I think I need to get it out of my system before it becomes a problem in our friendship. I now find myself not sharing ideas because I don’t want to work with him on them, which is not a good place to be or stay for too long.
Small things that also happened
• I got my final grade back from the director’s course and passed, yay! Another shiny certificate to put in a box and never look at again, haha.
• Yesterday I did a big clean-up of the house. Mostly just putting things away, repacking and restacking a few boxes, getting rid of some of things Yumi hoards (empty boxes and chewed on pillows), cleaning the kitchen and Yumi’s home office. I really need to get a career in this because I always feel great after a good clean-up!
• We did a very rare shopping trip to Melbourne City last weekend, shopping for toys and gifts to bring to the Netherlands and it was good fun. I secretly still want to own a toy store, even though I don’t know how people earn a living with everything being online nowadays.
• I’ll be guest speaking online at a conference in Canada in a few weeks to talk about the Bad Change Book and Career Change, at 3am in the morning our time. Ouch.
• I’m also still quite involved in organising a Change conference in September, working with a team of smart and fun change professionals just wanting to do good things for the profession.
Like I said, the past two months have flown by and reading all this back it’s really no wonder.
Well, that’s it for my life, you’re pretty much up to date again. I’ll be in touch early July again with new adventures and stories.
Stay warm and be well,
Gilbert
