Altona 9 July 2022,

Hi Marlis,

I hope you are doing well and that you are staying warm. It’s been getting a bit nippy here in Victoria so I can only imagine what the mornings in Higgins are like, brrrrr. We even had one morning of frost! Hadn’t seen that for a long time and I hope not to see it again for a while.

The last couple of months have been strange in the way that lots happened, but none of it very exciting by my standards. Then again, often when I read back these letters I find that a lot DID happen, I just didn’t stop to think how busy things have been.

Work

I’m now nearly 4 months into the job and still kind of bored. The project is not moving as fast as it needs to (everybody agrees on that) but making that happen is a whole other thing. I just mind my own business, which is 6 projects that are well on track, or at least as well as can be expected. I get along really well with my colleague Anne-Marie, who is very smart in the way of how teaching and learning works and she’s also a big fan of dogs! What’s not to like, right?! She’s one of those people who always finds a solution for any problem, but good solutions that actually work. We make lots of good things happen together and our boss thinks we’re the best too. Everybody’s winning, yay!

I had a bit of drama with the Program Lead, Vicki, who looks after the whole project, but mostly concerns herself with paperwork and schedules and sending emails. She’s good fun but gets really stressed about reporting and spends heaps of time on things that are just not that hard or important. We got along very well and at some point I shared with her my plan to find another job because I am so bored. Bad move on my part because she almost immediately told my boss. My boss was super cool about it and asked if there was anything she could do to help while I was still around. She found me some extra work at the university, which is still not enough to fill my days, but she’s very happy with the work I do and let’s Anne-Marie and I run the show, so I won’t complain. 

Vicki and I are no longer speaking in person, everything is just emails now and that’s the best I can do. I know it’s not very big of me, but I am just so disappointed that she broke my trust that I really don’t want to be near her. I also felt a bit embarrassed that I had been so naïve, but then again, Anne-Marie also knew and just kept her mouth shut. Vicki did apologise and explain that she just panicked and thought all the work would end up with her (it won’t), so it was all about her really. Nice one Vicki! I wrote a plan and schedule for my boss immediately, so she knows what needs to happen in the next 6 months and how much time it will cost. If it comes down to it, Anne-Marie can do it by herself, because she’s awesome, but it’d be hard work.

I am also involved in another project which is quite interesting and all about how different parts of the University have to share available spaces for teaching and working and how that decision making works. Oh my goodness, the egos and little kingdoms I encounter! In the end they are all lovely people individually, it’s just that as a group they’ve been used to fighting so long, that to them everything becomes a battle or competition, so the dynamics are a bit challenging, but so far so good and I’m getting some input while I read massive reports that don’t say much but have very nice pictures and ideas, haha. The goal of the project is to come up with a decision making and priority process, which someone else has already done. The real challenge is that they don’t know how to share and access information and then communicate it to people who need to know. People make up their own rules, occupy spaces for a few years and then don’t want to leave. Yes, that’s exactly like bad renters, but what do you do, you can’t exactly fire them for wanting a good place to work and teach. We’ll get there and the solution will make no one happy, but they’ll accept it and if they are smart they’ll take up my recommendations because at the moment I am the only neutral person in the whole group with nothing to gain either way.

I did another side-project to help a team that had been operating for 18 months without any meaningful project management and made some recommendations that I doubt the leader of that team will take up. After talking to the team for 30 minutes I knew exactly what was going on and after reading all their (half-finished) documents I had a pretty good idea of how to fix it. The team were very appreciative, the leader felt a bit attacked I think. Which was weird because I absolutely praised them for doing so much with so little and then provided a detailed plan that costs no extra money and will make everyone’s life much easier. I think she just felt because I did it in 3 days it can’t be good because the solution needs to be harder to find. My boss read the 4-page report I handed in and she thought it was spot on, so I am pretty happy to leave it there.

Job search

Due to the drama with Vicki I felt that my hand was forced and told my boss I’d start applying for jobs. She’s telling me she’s firmly in denial and hopes I will change my mind, so then I had to tell her about Queensland in November and she understood better why I accepted the job and wanted to stay busy until the end of the year. I’ve put out heaps of applications, a few rejections so far and yesterday I heard that I didn’t get the job that I interviewed really well for. They were right though, I was overqualified, but I was willing to make it work and have a go! It was for the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service and it would have been so cool to just be there, given it’s something I always wanted to do since I joined SES. During the interview they already thought that I might be too ‘heavy’ for the job and they did end up hiring someone who was less skilled, but more suited to the level. Good for them, I’ll just keep my eye on them, in case something else comes up again.

Next week I’ll interview with the Queensland State Government and with University of Queensland for more senior roles and they both seem like things I will enjoy; I’ve got 6 more jobs lined up to apply for this weekend, the one I like most is for CSIRO, an innovation program manager role that just has everything I like. By the time the next letter comes around you’ll probably read the outcome of all of this and I’ll be writing from Queensland perhaps!

The Queensland move

We’ve been steadily making decisions and preparing for the idea that in 4 months from now we’ll be on our way. I look forward to stopping over in the ACT and dropping by your place for a short visit before we travel on to wherever it is we end up. It’ll be a strange couple of months if I go first for work and then return to help Yumi with the move instead of the other way around as we originally planned. I’ve been packing up some things that we didn’t use for ages and of course that’s exactly when you all of a sudden need everything you just packed away, haha. Story of my life!

We also tried to sell some of our furniture and it was such a hassle. People trying to scam me over the internet (didn’t work), people saying they’ll drop by and then stand you up, twice and so many random people just asking weird questions. After one week I was totally over it and just this week we decided we’ll just bring most of it and leave the rest along the side of the street. Sounds weird, but it’s a real thing here and generally things get picked up by some in a few hours. I build a bench out of pallet wood and leftovers and that didn’t last for more than 2 hours before it was gone. A weird vase with fake flowers I never really liked but moved from the ACT to Brunswick to Altona anyway, didn’t even make the 30 minute mark. Good riddance! We’ll see how it goes, I am not sure it will all fit in the truck, but perhaps my packing skills are as good as Yumi thinks .

Fraser and Danger

We’ve had one more Foster Doggo since my last letter, named Fraser. He was a lovely dog whose coat was what they call brindle (bit like brown marble) but we thought he had more of a hyena kind of colouring. He was a very cheeky 5 year old and so much fun to be around, super affectionate and 100% certain the smartest of the 9 we’ve had so far. He figured out stairs in a matter of minutes, got that sounds came out of the tv and not the room, knew how to open doors, recognised his own reflection (I think) and understood that if he jumped into the car he’d get chicken, so he’d jump out again once he had and then look at you like “Where’s the chicken?!” The 3.5 weeks we had him flew by and it was hard to drop him off, but he’ll have no issue getting adopted as he’s just a lovely and friendly fellow.

It's funny how I would never consider myself a person who would let a dog on the sofa (when clean) or let him sleep next to the bed. Yet there we are, with him lying in the middle of the sofa, snoozing happily with his humans and just following us around and then contentedly sleeping next to the bed. Not a peep all night and even when I got up at stupid o’clock, he’d just lie there and wait for Yumi because he knew that was the actual start of his day. It also helps that he was super lazy, haha.

And now we have a 7-year old 40-kg giant called Danger who is anything but dangerous. Who names these dogs anyway?! He’s very affectionate, a bit shy and a total tank like Paddy. He just boulders into everything and wants to be petted all day if you let him. He got handed back by his previous foster after one week for being very strong on the lead, which was a bit sad for him. Yumi trained that behaviour out of him in less than 4 days with lots of snack and clear instruction. Now he (mostly) walks calmly on the lead and knows what to do when he’s out with the humans. He picks things up really quickly, doesn’t whine or bark and generally snoozes through the day. He does have this thing where he’s so curious that if he sees a bird or movement in the trees or on the fence that he’ll jump 2 meters straight into the air, so it’s probably good that our fence is 2.20 meters high!

This morning we took him to the beach and he really didn’t know what to make of the water. There were very small waves coming in and he just couldn’t figure out how it worked, so he looked at the bird and sniffed the sand instead. Try to imagine never having seen so much water in one place! I can imagine it can be overwhelming. That’s the added bonus to being a dog foster, you get to see the world in a different way through their eyes and reactions and it reminds us that there’s lots of magic in the world still, as long as you remember to look for it. 

I’ll send some photo’s next time, but will get them properly printed so they are not as vague as when I print them on my home printer.

Yumi’s job

Yumi has been keeping busy as she always does and managed to land some new work that’ll keep her occupied well into October with different clients and things she enjoys doing. I am very proud of her selling a workshop-like product with some advisory connected to it that we created last year but never really promoted. This third year of her running her own business has been quieter than the first two but she’s still bringing in a healthy income and gets to be her own boss, which is just the best. It also allows her to do some more volunteering and spend time with the doggos while we’re still in Victoria. She’s slowly warming up to the idea that we might be leaving earlier than planned, which won’t impact too much on her work, or so we think.

SES

It’s been quiet when it comes to request for help with SES for the past month at least. No big weather events and no major things in our area fortunately. There was the possibility that I’d go to NSW once again, but as it often does that got downgraded pretty quickly the same day and no help was required. There were also requests for more crews next week but I’ve already got too many commitments to go and help out. Doesn’t matter that much, there are always more than enough people who can go.

We did go and attend a job that involved a ‘person versus train’ and I think you can imagine who won that confrontation. We never really know if it was a suicide, confused or drunk person or a tragic accident. All the same we screened of the scene and helped get people of the train (it was almost in the station anyway) and then helped with making the scene accessible again by carrying the body out. Sounds more exciting than it seems. There was almost no blood and we didn’t really see that much, thank goodness. The coroner moved the body into those big black recovery bags, strap it down on a stretcher and that’s when we pick up the load and carry it to their vehicle. It’s all very respectful and quiet work, but at least that person gets some dignity in their final moments. We always get offered counselling and do multiple debriefs, but these ones don’t affect me too much. I didn’t do anything wrong and consider it a privilege to do my bit in putting this person to rest, that helps me to deal with any of the more unpleasant things anyway.

I also ran a training last week that everyone there seemed to enjoy a lot. We got to play with sand and water and build some fancy constructions, which is what we love doing most anyway . I also made a new training schedule until end of 2023 that I will probably never get to experience myself, but that’s fine. I will probably also not see all those new recruits we interviewed in April come in because it just takes forever to get that done in SES. Ah well, not much I can do about it, I hope the schedule keeps everyone trained up, but of course they have to show up, which has been an issue for some the past few months. I don’t always feel like going too, but afterwards I am almost always happy that I went .

Bad Change Book, Chameleon Cards and Purpose in Practice

The book is still going really well and we’re up to 155+ sold via the internet so far. That brings the total to 450+ and I think it’s just really weird when I realise I wrote that and then people bought it and talk about it on social media. The Chameleon Cards are also still selling, but we’ve only got about 25 boxes left and then they’ll be out of stock for a while again. That workshop I mentioned earlier, the one Yumi started selling now is also becoming a bit of a thing this year. We’re organising an event in October, where we get the Dutch guy who wrote the original book and then have some fun with the book, cards, videos and all the other things we’ve built around the concept of working in more purposeful ways. It’s just the best to see something I’ve created get used in real life by the people I imagined would get a lot out of it! Next week I’ll be talking to a group of people at Telstar about the book and maybe also to a big consulting firm in Melbourne to inspire their thinking about Change. Happy to do it, as long as they buy the book and support the cause!

Small things

• My parents bought a new car because my dad’s back isn’t great and the old one was a bit lower. It looks pretty cool and I think he got a very good deal out of.

• Only 9 more weeks for the Change conference I’ve been helping out with to start, getting a bit excited, but a lot of work to do still.

• I finally bit the bullet and got reading glasses and I really wish I had done it sooner. It’s so strange to now know how bad my eyes got when I take them off! We shopped around a bit and what I thought I wanted was like $500. Turns out that $12 reading glasses from Big W work just as well. Ha!

• Yumi had an adventure a few weeks back when she was on her way to dog training with Fraser and got a flat tire. She got it changed with the help of a 70-year old Polish named Roman. Whoever said chivalry was dead? 

• We’re getting a bit more deliberate in meeting up with Yumi’s parents every month now. They are not quite at your level of 85+, but they are in their 70’s and not always making the best health choices when it comes to nutrition and general wellbeing. So now we tell them to eat more and go to the doctor on a regular basis and they mostly ignore us, which is fine, they managed to get this far after all!

• Just did my taxes this morning and am happy to report that I will make a sizable contribution to the wellbeing of this country, which means that I also made good money this year 

• Yumi’s going to see a neurologist and physio for her headaches. There’s no real concern for a brain tumour or anything else nasty, but having headaches all the time is no way to live, so we’ll keep looking until we know more.

• We’re on our way to the National Homeless Collective in a few minutes. They are doing a donation day for the period project I have been involved in since 2019. They get all the proceeds from the books and cards we sell and that’s become more than $13,500 by now. Will be nice to see the team again before we leave for Queensland. 

I think that’s most of it for the past 2 months. See, lots to share still. I’ll be writing again in 2 months’ time and hope that there’s lots of news to share again.

Be well and stay warm,

Gilbert