PICTURES BELOW. SORRY, COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO RE-INSERT THEM ALL AGAIN
Springfield Lakes, 13 November 2022
Hi Marlis,
I hope this letter finds you well and looking forward to Summer and warmer days. I am sorry this one is a bit later than usual, I finally got Covid and have been coughing away while not getting much done. I am fine now, but it was quite unpleasant and I wonder how bad it would have gotten if I didn’t have all my shots. I’ll be sure to get the fourth one in a few months, just so I don’t spread it any further. This letter might be a bit different than normal. I don’t feel like a lot has happened over the past 2 months, other than our whole lives taking place somewhere else and everything being different 😊.
Work at University of Queensland (UQ)
It’s been a very, very good experience over the past 2 months. I’ve done so many different things already, met wonderful people, feel like I am making meaningful contributions and still don’t have to work really hard. My management team colleagues are just as friendly as they were at the start and despite not really understanding what I am doing, they try to help me which is all I can ask for. When I don’t feel like doing work for a bit, I put on my walking shoes and go for a stroll across campus or through the neighbourhood to get some air. Because I spent the first 5 weeks in St Lucia by myself doing most things on foot, I feel like I know the area quite well and so far I have not gotten lost! I believe that’s an achievement worthy of a medal, but apparently there are no medals to be had (yet)! 😊
When I am not cleaning kitchens, having coffee or walking around I am working on a project that aims to get us all working on a new system to better manage risk and other boring but important stuff. I get to play with words and pretty pictures, build some websites, write a few documents and generally enjoy myself however I want. The project team and I get along really well and the wider team (we’re just 25 in Governance and Risk) is also starting to find me more and more. I get to talk about change management and even got invited to speak on change and how to do it a few times already. I just saw the results from the staff survey and let’s say that with a 51/100 score for how we manage change, things could be better. Enough to do I’d say, but I am taking it easy. I get paid well enough, but not so much that I will go 100%. Also, like any university I’ve worked at, right now the organisation can maybe handle 30% of Gilbert, 40% on a good day, but if I really step on the gas I’d just lose them and run too far ahead. See, I do learn, just a bit slower than others!
I’ve put my hand up to be the treasurer for the social club for my team at work, which is really just a small job looking after the money and in addition I’ve also put my hand up to be on the committee for the UQ Professional Network who create events to connect more people across the very silo-ed organisation. I might end up in charge of events and that could be a lot of fun! Finally, to keep my mind busy and help the university build their change capability I’ve been writing a plan with two colleagues to set up a change management office at UQ.
Right now, everyone is just doing the best they can or the minimal they can get away with. At the same time everyone is saying that we need to do much better, yet no one seems to have a plan. Well, step aside everyone, I am full of plans. It’s now waiting for one of the co-authors to come back and then we’ll make some final edits and send it to our boss. If he decides not to go for it, I’ll just stay in my lane and do what I can for my team and probably leave UQ somewhere next year because there’s a lot of ‘burning the candle on both ends’ and I don’t want to be part of that. Then again, if he does go for it I might end up in charge of the whole thing and stick around for a bit longer.
Book and Communities of Practice
The Bad Change book is still getting sold more and more and I’ve also handed out some free copies to strategically placed people around the organisation. Peter and I keep getting invited to come and speak to teams and groups of people and it’s all very enjoyable. The other day we got invited to talk about the book and the cause on a Change Management podcast. I am not sure if you are familiar with the concept. A podcast is essentially a recorded conversation that gets shared across the internet and some get millions of listeners all over the world. Not the ones we go on, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. It’s always a bit cringeworthy to hear myself speak but I will say that this time I actually sounded quite sensible for a change.
One Wednesday a few weeks ago I had the weird experience of being in three communities of practice on Change Management (bunch of people talking about change in practice) in one day! The first one was at the University which was fun because Peter (from the book) was there to do a 45-minute talk on how to use images and visuals to bring your change to life. Then the second one really blew my mind with 250+ people, all from universities and from all over Australia talking about change and what does the presenter put on the screen? The Bad Change Book! She didn’t know I as the author was on the call as well and it was both really cool and a bit weird at the same time to hear her say all these nice things about the book. Then third and finally I was a guest for one of the large consultancy firms and their community of practice where another change friend (Anna) and I talked change again. I left the office that day humming with energy and full of ideas and it took me 2 full days to calm down a bit again. I do love that part of working in change management!
Change Management Institute (CMI) volunteering
I still haven’t heard back from SES and decided not to wait any longer. If it happens, it happens, but in the meantime I’ve returned to CMI once again after leaving twice because the leadership team was so amateurish when it came to how they treat volunteers but I am new in the city and it won’t hurt to make some new change friends. The lady in charge is a friend and she has some fun ideas. It’s an easy commitment with low expectations so even if SES decides to wake up and give me a call I could do both without too much of an issue.
Dash
The doggo is doing really well. We’ve got him on new kibble, he’s got his own pyjamas (loves them) and his own raincoat (not impressed) and he’s as energetic as always. He’s still very careful when we go outside at night. The other day we were out walking before going to bed and he almost stepped on a frog and leapt off the ground with all fours at least 1 meter, hahaha, he’s such a Muppet! But I’d rather have him be too careful than blundering through the bushes and getting bit by a snake or something else with teeth or stingers, it’s Queensland after all!
It’s a lot of fun to have him around and see him live his best life. The biggest worry he seems to have is how close he can follow Yumi around and when the next meal will come. The rest of the day he snoozes in his different spots and gets super excited when it’s time to go walkies. Yesterday evening we had a bit of excitement when we found a very old chocolate coloured Labrador wandering the streets, with no lead or tag. We took him in for the night and then basically didn’t sleep because Dash just kept running up and down between the bedroom and the garage, howling and barking because there was another dog in the house. After 2.5 hours of semi-sleep I just gave up and went for a walk with the lost dog.
We shuffled around the neighbourhood (it gets light here around 4.30, perfect timing for me!) and I could see that he wasn’t in great shape. He had multiple lumps and growths on his body and his hind legs didn’t work too good anymore. All the same his tail kept wagging, even when we carefully introduced him and Dash in the back yard, which went pretty well. We ended up driving to the local vet and they could read his chip. We found out his name is Ollie and they offered to keep him and contact his owner. I really hope they didn’t abandon him because he’s old and not doing well, maybe he just wandered off as old dogs sometimes do. That’s our good deed done for the week!
Yumi’s work
Yumi’s had it quiet in the sense of paid work, but she’s been networking and building new relations like a boss. But then she also got Covid and those plans got side-tracked a bit. After this weekend we should be good to go again, I’ve been testing negative for the past 3 days so I think it’s all behind me now and she’ll be three days behind me again. We knew business would be slower if we moved over here, now it’s just a matter of getting things back up and running which will take a few months. Of course it doesn’t help that the Summer holidays are in there too, but I hope she’ll take the time to enjoy herself a bit and relax. The end of November sees her flying all over the place again, so the respite might be short-lived anyway😊. She’s organising an event for February 2023 with a Dutch guy who they’ve been working with and whose work I translated. It looks like a very colourful group of people will be joining them so that’s something to look forward to as well.
New table
After weeks of thinking (mostly by Yumi) I believe we’ve finally landed on a decision about what dining room table to by. We want something custom made that will last us a long time and we’ve found just the person to do it. We visited his workshop a few weeks ago and liked the quality of his work and with my short career as an apprentice furniture maker as a reference I think I know quality when I see it.
The picture below shows you the idea, just the legs will be upside down to this image. We’ve looked at so many options, visited quite a few stores and we just didn’t like what we saw. You can buy a decent table for $1,500 or so, but if you pay more you get something that just feels and looks like it was made by someone who loves what they are doing. I am placing the order this weekend, so it’ll be here somewhere mid-January we hope. That should give us time to find some chairs, because that’s even harder. I am still looking for chairs we had in the Netherlands and they were just the best, but very heavy and the fabric was ripped to shreds by our cats back then. Haven’t found that model since and we could have them made, but that’d be crazy money per chair and I don’t think I care that much. Maybe in the next letter I’ll be able to tell you that we’ve found them.
Living in Springfield Lakes
Life is pretty good, living in Springfield Lakes. Our street is quiet, except for when the kids come home from school for 30 minutes every day, ha-ha. Our street is a dead-end street so we don’t get much traffic and even at the busiest times, the highway that sits about 100 meters away isn’t all that noisy. We’ve got the local wildlife, mostly lizards, frogs and brush turkeys (big black chicken-like birds) to keep Dash entertained and lots of parks and, you guessed it, lakes!
On the weekend and on days when I work from home I go for walks and take my trusty litter gripper. It’s fairly clean already, with container recycling in place which makes a big difference! I’d say that at least 75% of what I pick up is McDonalds cups and packaging. Well, you can’t expect people who willingly put that ‘food’ in their bodies to care too much about the environment I guess… I ride my bike to the station and am now more used to the hills and slopes and it really is an easy 7-minute ride. I’ve replaced all the brake blocks on our bikes so things stay safe when going downhill at 40km+ an hour.
There are a lot of different routes I can walk and because it turns light really early in the morning I can get a walk in before the day has well and truly started. Like in Altona, there are always a few people around, but it’s mostly me, some random people kayaking on one of the lakes and the 1 million spiderwebs I walk in every few meters! It’s all very green and organised around here. I learned that Springfield Lakes is the largest completely designed and planned city in Australia. I am not surprised, everything about the town just makes sense. Aside from the main road that runs outside our neighbourhood, the Arterial. They are now in the process of doubling it, as if they couldn’t predict how busy traffic would get. Well, we don’t go out by car much, so let them have at it I say 😊.
Here are some pictures of the lakes and our house/street. That house on the right is ours, but the black car out front isn’t, our car now gets to live inside the very spacious garage. I hope the picture gives you a bit of an idea of our street on the hill. People have now moved into the house across from us and the neighbours to our right are installing a swimming pool so it’s all nice suburbia!
This lake is just a 10-minute walk from our home and one of Dash’s favourite sniffing spots
This in the sister lake from the picture above, to its left. There’s a road between them and a small area where people can get into the water with their canoes for some peddling adventures.
This is another area not more than 15 minutes away full of birds and wildlife and the occasional human too 😊.
Small things
A lot of small things happened that still deserve a mention
• Keeping busy on public transport is going well. Sometimes I work, other times I read, listen to podcasts, play a game on my phone or come up with new ideas. The 45-minute commute is over before I know it!
• Teaching with Deakin is still ongoing but the numbers are low and things are slow. I am playing with the idea to create a new training package with Peter in line with the book, but that’s going to be a lot of work, so maybe 2023, or 2024, ha-ha.
• We went to have dinner with friends that we already knew from Melbourne and they moved to Queensland six months before us. It was a lovely evening and good to hear their experiences moving to a new part of the country.
• I’ve found out that Yumi is really good at mowing the lawn! As you know I really hate gardening so when she offered to help keep the front and back yard neat, I didn’t think twice! Now she uses the manual mover (save energy, no nasty fuel and a good workout) while I cut the sides and pull weeds. After 2 tries we’ve now got it down to less than an hour for both yards, so after a few more months we’ll be done in 40 minutes, ha!
• We’ve got no real plans for the Christmas Break, but we might go to the coast for a few days or laze around the house and relax a bit. It would be nice to not do anything for a bit.
• I’ve picked up doing some exercises at home three times a week and am enjoying it again. I have all the weights and gear, but the motivation comes and goes. This time around I decided to just let it be what it is and not stress too much about progress and going fast. So far so good!
• I had to get my teeth fixed at the dentist, again, and I think this time I’ll just have to be an adult and stop drinking soda. I don’t need crowns or veneers which would just crack with the teeth grinding I do but it gets a bit old and silly to hear the same thing from 3 dentists over time.
• I’ve now got my prescription glasses and they do make a difference compared to the $12 cheap ones at Big W, but I am not quite convinced that they are $220 times better. Oh well, let’s see how I go after a few months.
Okay, that’s all the big and small stuff going on in our lives. We’ll slowly coast towards Christmas and then you’ll read about the new adventures we had in January.
Be well and stay cool,
Gilbert
