Brisbane, 3 September 2022
Hi Marlis,
Happy Springtime, I hope winter is already on its way out in Canberra and that the flowers are making a come-back! It’s already 20+ degrees during the day in Brisbane but it can still get to 6-7 in the morning. Good thing I walk uphill to work so I am staying warm all the same. A lot has happened and will happen in the next few months, so make yourself some tea and have a seat because this might take a while, haha. I’ve written parts of this letter in the city while waiting for fireworks, parts on campus over the weekend and most of it while lounging at home, so if it’s a bit disjointed, it’s just because I have so much to say in different places. 😊
Finishing up at Swinburne
I had my last workday at
Swinburne University on 5 August, which sounds like a lifetime ago already. I
got so many lovely thank you messages from people and even had an opportunity
to meet my successor who is doing really well in the role, as expected. I had
written her a 20+ page manual on anything she could possibly need to know to
get the job done, but she seemed very smart and ‘switched on’ so I am sure
she’ll do fine. The last few days I had literally nothing more to do so I spent
most of the time just reading, playing video games and doing some move
preparations. It was a strange end to a strange project, but I feel I did good
work and fortunately everyone else thought so too. I got a message a few days
ago from someone that I had a long conversation with after our project meeting
had ended and I advised her to start looking for jobs outside Swinburne. She
just wanted to let me know that she felt very inspired by what I had said and
took my advice. She will soon start with SES Victoria and enjoy life once
again. It always makes me very happy when people back themselves like that!
Leaving Melbourne
It was a very surreal experience in the last few days before I got on the plane on 19 August. On Monday I said goodbye to my SES buddies and that was very hard. They had prepared a whole ceremony and even created a special award to celebrate my trampoline demolition skills. I got my 5-year pin (It’s SES tradition to do that almost a year late, don’t ask), lots of certificates of appreciation and a very heartfelt letter of recommendation. It could not have been better. The das after I would still see the messages of incidents happening but to then not respond was very strange. Then again, I had handed in all my gear so it wasn’t like I could do much, haha. I do miss it, but at the same time I put so much in it and got so much back that I have no regrets or loose ends, it’s okay like it is. I’ve already started looking at the volunteering possibilities with SES QLD and with the Fire Service, but I want to wait until we’re actually in the new place.
I went to walk the streets of Melbourne one more time, just to visit some of my familiar places where I used to work or hang out, shop or eat and had lunch with my friend Peter one more time. Rode the train and trams once more, did NOT visit Brunswick 😊 and buy the time I got back to Altona I was ready to say goodbye to Melbourne. I had one more coffee date with my friend Fiona and walked the streets of Altona one more time with my trusty litter gripper and then it was time to pack my suitcase and leave on Thursday Morning to live separate from Yumi for 5-6 weeks.
I got to enjoy Melbourne a little longer still because my flight was 3 hours delayed so by the time I arrived In Brisbane after an uneventful flight and waiting there another 90 minutes for my contact at the B&B to get home I was well and truly cooked. I finally got there by 4.30pm, after leaving home 6.30am. That was long enough for a 2.5-hour flight.
Temporary accommodation in
St Lucia
My room in the share house is okay, considering I pay $500+ a week for 12m2 and a shared bathroom. My housemates are very friendly and super, super clean, which is great. We’re all very considerate and polite and I spend most of my time either at work or out and about. It’s safe, dry and my bed is not too bed. It IS a big adjustment after living with only Yumi in one space for 25 years to now share a house with random strangers. After two weeks Rodrigo (Chilean, 29) and Rita (Vietnamese, 29) feel like friendly neighbours, which is more than I was expecting so it’s all good!
St Lucia is very beautiful, and I can walk to work in under 10 minutes or take longer because there are so many ways to get there, all of them uphill, downhill for 50+ meter height differences but with some gorgeous homes and trees to look at on the way. There is also the most wonderous supermarket across the road. It has literally everything you can think off and I am sure if you ask for something ‘off the menu’ they’ll have it the next day, ranging from illegal firearms to protected species of animal or classified technology from Taiwan. Everyone who is from the neighbourhood and who I talk to about this store (and I tell everyone I meet) all say the same thing, it’s amazing and makes you never want to go back to Coles, Aldi or Woolies, haha.
Just a few more weeks and
then Yumi and I will live together again (more on that later) but after two and
a half weeks I have my routine of get up, go to work at around 7pm, come home
at about 5.30-6pm, chat to Yumi, eat something, watch a movie, sleep, repeat.
On the weekends I keep myself entertained and at work there’s so much to do
that I will not be bored soon.
New job adventures
Okay, on to the new job. I am now the Senior Manager Change and Communications for the Governance and Risk Division. Sounds a lot fancier than it is, but they have to call me something, I guess! The first two weeks are done, and I am feeling very good about this one. I’ve already met so many people, had so many lovely chats about everything we can do and even met ‘my people’ in the Change Community of Practice, which is basically a group of colleagues with the same interest chatting for an hour about things we can do better. Can you imagine being paid for that?! 😊. I’ve met nearly everyone on the team, which is a total of 25 people, so we’re not the biggest outfit, but because my area looks after all the policies, procedures, insurance, risk and project management, we have a lot of influence.
My boss is very relaxed, all my colleagues are nice or even super nice and I have my very own office. That is actually a bit strange because I have not had my own office in a very loooooong time. Not even sure that I like it, but most people do, and it comes with the role, so I plan to just visit with other teams in their area every now and then. I do my best work around other people, so I will naturally gravitate to where they are.
I won a lot of points with
colleagues in my first weeks by completely cleaning the kitchen, fridges,
cupboards and microwaves. It’s an experiment I do everywhere I work, just to
see if I can influence people’s behaviours and so far, it seems to work very
well. Also, if I am going to put my food in anything, it better be clean! I got
rid of the biscuits from 2015 (not kidding) and the various food and drink
items from 2019-2021 too for good measure. It only took about 3 hours over ten
days, but of course the trick is keeping it clean. I’ll have to see how I go
after Yumi joins me, maybe I will not be in the office every day all week, but
so far, I really enjoy being on campus because it is amazingly beautiful and
enormous. The pictures below don’t do it justice, but it gives you a sense of
the sandstone buildings and open space I hope 😊.
I am not exaggerating when I
say it’s a town of its own. It has multiple bus stops, a few banks, a few
libraries, a hairdresser, 50,000 students, 8,000 staff, many restaurants and
coffee places, museums, a doctor, all the sports facilities you could possibly
want and a cinema. I am probably forgetting half. And that’s not even counting
the 200+ buildings and the great court which is a sandstone square archwayed
lawn that is at least 2 football fields wide and long. Did I mention it was a
wonderful place to work?
With all that space there is also an app for my phone, so I don’t get lost but so far, I have been pretty good at finding my way. Normally I rely on Yumi for that, but I know how to do it if I have to! Another great thing is that my boss was very good about letting me just take off for however long if I needed to get something organised for our new house and the rental cars are literally right outside my window. I can just get up from my desk, get in, take care of business and come back, doesn’t get much more convenient than that!
My boss has only been in the role for 6 months and totally understands change, so as soon as I find my feet and adjust to the (very slow) pace of the university, we’ll be on our way, which I think will take a few more weeks. That’s good, because I can’t think very well beyond the point where we move house and I live in my own place again.
Exploring Brisbane
Because I’ve only ever seen parts of Brisbane on our few visits to the area and because I have nothing but time on the weekends, I got to explore a lot of the city and surrounds in the past 3 weekends. I’ve been up north to the beaches, walking 20-25km each day and just looking at houses, people and the landscape and I’ve been down southwest where we will end up living in a few weeks. That walk was actually really cool because I got to do it with one of my SES buddies, Michael, who is thinking of joining the Queensland police force and we might even end up living in the same neighbourhood. His wife and 2 kids would join him over summer, and we can become even better friends than we already were at SES, which is unbelievably cool.
I’ve also explored the city
on foot from top to bottom and left to right, but I am sure it’ll be a bit like
Melbourne, where new and strange things will keep appearing unexpectedly. My
very first meeting was already at 9am on the Friday morning after I arrived. It
was a lady I met online (wait, this is not what it sounds like….) who is
opening a community space with very cool ideas and concepts, and she got
donated a bunch of books for her lending library. I offered to donate a copy of
Bad Change and when she asked if I would post it, I said I could do her one
better and drop it off in person when I arrived, which I promptly did. We got
along really well and ended up chatting forever. Just this Thursday I went to
the official opening, and it was lovely to see all her friends and supporters
there. She even got the local Member of Parliament to come and say a few words,
that’s pretty cool.
So far, I really like Brisbane. Even when it rains it’s not cold and people are just as friendly as everywhere else. It’s big enough to feel like a real city, but not so big that it takes 90 minutes to get from one end to the other. There are some different trees, different birds (so many kookaburras!), lots of new areas to explore and strange one-way traffic situations that will take some getting used to, but it feels like we made the right choice.
Our new home
This is our new home, with 4 bedrooms, lots of space, a very nice kitchen, a huge master bedroom and a yard for the dog to play in. Yumi and I did the acceptance inspection together this morning and it just felt right immediately when I walked in. That was 1 minute before I smashed my head full force into the laundry rack that was just low enough for me to hit it. Ouch. We have solar panels, lots of light, those sliding doors that open up the whole house to the outside and it’s on a crescent in a quiet neighbourhood so not too much traffic.
The image on the next page
shows where are (the big red dot below) and where Brisbane is, that’s about 30
km away.
It’s 30 minutes by car from work and about an hour door-to-door by public transport which is probably what I will do most days. We’re just a 5–10-minute bike-ride from the station and there’s a huge shopping centre a few minutes away by car, all very convenient!
It’s the fourth time now that people told us it would be very hard to get a home and we’ve got it all sorted within 2 weeks (again). I just applied on Tuesday thinking we’d not get it but what’s the harm? 24 hours later we’re signing a lease and making it all happen. What I forget to mention is that we’ve been looking at homes for months (Yumi really, I just nod and say yes…) already, so we knew the areas we’d be interested in. After talking to some of my colleagues we ended up here: 11 Gelu Court, Springfield Lakes, 4300 QLD. Technically, we’re not even in Brisbane anymore, it’s Ipswich, but whatever, same difference!
Moving to Brisbane-The
plan
Now that we’ve got a new home, we’re hoping to move 1 week earlier than planned, but let’s see how we go. I am attending an award ceremony on behalf of Yumi’s business (they sponsor the award) on September 21st and could fly back that Thursday morning, do some work and then pack the whole truck later in the day. We’d then load up the final things on Friday Morning and make our way to Canberra, sleep there and hopefully make a quick stop with you before we drive on to NSW on Saturday, sleep again and then drive on to Springfield Lakes. I’ll call you a bit closer to the date once I know for sure what days we’ll be travelling, and I hope we can stop by because it would be good to see you again 😊. Once in Springfield Lakes, we’ll unload the truck and make sure we have a place to sleep set up and then I’ll be back at work on Monday while Yumi sorts out the final parts of the unpacking. It’s all a bit up in the air still, but shouldn’t be too hard, after all, we’ve done it a few times by now and know what to look for and think off. Also, Yumi will have a spreadsheet I am sure 😊.
Lots of dog news
It has been a bit of a roller coaster in the dog department since I last wrote. We had dog #9 Danger, who was not dangerous at all stay with us and he was lovely, but a bit of a free spirit and we thought (correctly) that he’d fail his final test. In the end it didn’t matter because the owner who put him up for adoption was happy to take him back. That’s a bit strange but according to the adoption team this happens quite regularly. All the same, he’s going out of the kennel and back to a good place, so yay!
Then there was #8, Paddy, the tank-like dog who bashed his head into the wall so hard he made a whole. Yes, that one. He had been in the kennel for quite a while, waiting for a new family, but there was an adoption day on Saturday that Yumi volunteered at, and Paddy now has a home waiting, which is super good news. He’s such a lovely boy and will make good friends with the other dog his new family already have for sure.
Next up was Suzy, doggo #10.
A very shy 8.5-year-old lady who was just adorable and quite cheeky near the
end of the three and a half weeks we had her. She was gone to a family even
before she was up for adoption, and she’ll be so very loved in her retirement!
And then we’re back to #7
Francis! Francis failed his small dog test completely and they were so
concerned that they were considering putting him down. We were not too pleased
with that and immediately offered that we would adopt him ourselves if that was
the only way to keep him alive. He got some more training, and they retested
him, but he failed again, only less severely this time. They agreed that we
could take him in and now we have a dog since this Saturday. It’s all a bit
surreal and we didn’t even really want a dog, but to put a 4-year-old healthy
dog down because he was too good at what he’d been taught was just not
something Yumi and I could stomach. So, now we’re the proud owner of Dash! He’s
just not a Francis and his name doesn’t matter to him anyway, so Dash it is.
He clearly remembers the
house and neighbourhood and is happy to be back with Yumi, who is also very
much in love. I look forward to seeing him again too when I get back to
Melbourne for the final move. Let’s see if he remembers me too 😊.
Yumi’s work
Yumi’s been keeping busy too
at work. Finally being able to get back out to clients and deliver some of the
things she’s been waiting and working on for quite a while now. Some of her
clients are still impacted by Covid and that’s understandable, but sometimes it
gets a bit frustrating to have everything postponed again at the very last
minute. Ah well, the life of a consultant, haha. She’s got some cool things in
the pipeline and I am curious to see what she’ll do once she’s landed In
Brisbane as most of her network is in the ACT and Victoria. Whatever it is, I
am sure she’ll do it very well, as usual. One of her two business partners,
Caroline, is going to Germany with her partner an academic specialising in
Syrian history and diaspora who was offered a position at the Max Planck
Institute at Max Planck institute in Munich. It will be interesting to see what
her absence will do to the business and how they make that work.
Small things
As always there were also lots of small things happening, here’s a quick overview of the most outstanding ones:
1.
The Amsterdam
family (Yumi’s brother) went to New York for a week and had the best time ever.
We also went there a few years ago and it was great to see their pictures and
relive our own trip again as well
2.
Yumi’s mum is
doing a bit better, but still coughs a lot and isn’t eating much. We were very
supportive of her going to Japan for a few months to just eat, be with family
and regain her strength, but she doesn’t want to travel so long, so, that’s no
longer happening. Unfortunately, that means they will also not be visiting us,
which is a real shame, we were really looking forward to that ☹.
3.
My good friend
Just is starting a new job after another 5 years with a consultancy firm. He’ll
do well for sure and one day I hope he just makes the leap and becomes self-employed.
Or even better, make the jump to Australia and be self-employed here!
4.
My mum and dad
are going away for a short holiday (in the Netherlands, nothing fancy) and are
thinking of buying a caravan somewhere next year. That was always the retirement
plan and now, after a few years more than expected it looks like they will still
make that dream come true, very cool indeed!
5.
It was very sad
news a few weeks back when the lady who runs the homelessness charity very
unexpected lost first her 28-year-old son (Covid) and then one of her staff.
It’s been a really tough year for her and now this. No one deserves such things
happening to them, but she really doesn’t!
6.
Yumi’s finally
getting her headaches looked into and is visiting a neurologist and other
specialists. We don’t think it’s a tumour or anything else nasty, but it’s also
not a good sign when you have headaches half the time you are awake. Hopefully
they’ll come up with a treatment plan quickly.
7.
I had to get my
tooth fixed again because it chipped and just a few days later it chipped
again. I should probably just get a veneer done, but it seems so invasive. I’ll
wait until we’re settled into the new home and then get it sorted. I think.
Probably. Maybe 😊
8.
When I was at
that opening earlier this week, I ran into someone who runs a community group
for Change management for Change Management Institute, CMI. You’ll have heard
me talk about them before in the letters from 2017/2018 and I probably did not
have much good to say. She leads the Queensland chapter and tells me that CMI
is now a much more relaxed and fun organisation so I might consider
volunteering for it once again. I’ll have a good think about it because I
already left twice, but maybe three times is the charm, haha.
9. The coming weekend will be very full of all the regular things I need to do and then there’s the Australasian Change Days Conference (ACDC) that runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so that’s my weekend sorted. We’ve all been working towards it for 6-8 months and I’m proud of what we’ll be delivering, but also happy that it’s done. What a big job!
I think that’s it for now, we hope to see you soon on our way through. I’ll call you as soon as I know what the final plan is so you can decide if it works for you.
Be well and enjoy the warmth that Spring will bring,
Gilbert
