Altona, 10 July 2021

Hi Marlis,

I hope you are well and warm and already looking forward to Spring! It’s pretty cold in the mornings here at the moment, but I still go on my morning walks despite the ‘near-Canberra’ temperatures. As usual, it’s been a busy two months, despite not having a regular job, so here’s what I’ve been keeping busy with. 

Work-Work-Work

In my restarted career as a consultant, I took the opportunity to focus more on the things happening in the boardroom and work with Yumi’s business partner Alan. Him (mostly) and I have developed a product around advising boards how to take more note of Human Rights, quality and safeguarding and we called it…Right on Board. Yes, we’re nothing if not creative, haha. It’s very well received and Alan has been able to sell at least 6 workshops already. From August on I am getting more involved in the delivery, with Tasmania and NSW on the cards later on this year. August will be busy any way, with the Right on Board workshops, public workshops (where everyone can join) and the third and last round of the Change Tools Masterclass I’ve been doing for Deakin University. They contacted me quite unexpectedly to work with my original team from 2017 to convert the Masterclass into a digital delivery model, which should be a lot of fun if it all comes together.

I am also developing a whole new workshop based on the work of a Dutch author you’ll have never heard of, but he’s doing really well for himself and has been a close work relation of Yumi’s for years now. Last year we decided to make this happen and it took until now to actually start the work. There will be a workshop, workbook, cards, worksheets and even his book. I’ve called it Purpose in Practice or PiP as a working title, and that seems to stick so far, so I might just go with it. I am about halfway through it all, but there’s heaps of things to do and design, so I am thinking it will probably take until September to have it all sorted. It’s good to work on it every day, even though I don’t always feel like it and on some days I don’t feel like it will go anywhere at all, but we won’t know until it’s out there! I am learning heaps again, which is always good for me and I am developing new tricks and skills with new software programs as well, which is a nice bonus.

There are some other leads slowly warming up, you know the kind. People who start out all excited and then you don’t hear from them for a while, then they come back and go quiet again. Then again, it’s been a rather challenging time for everyone, especially the care providers, so I’ll not judge them too harshly!

Yumi’s work

Yumi is as busy as ever working with her own and shared clients and seems to be enjoying herself running her own business. It’s already been two years since she started out for herself and I don’t think she’s regretted it for a single day. Some weeks are slow and then others are super busy, but she always manages to make enough money to look after both of us and allow us to put money aside. It’s a strange time to be in the advisory business because there’s a lot of work to get done, but you can’t do everything online and clients want her to come in and do the work, but every time we get things sorted, some COVID outbreak happens and plans get changed. She’ll keep herself entertained regardless and it’s a new financial year which always means that new funds become available in the sector. Just the other day she got a contact from at least 2 years ago on her work email from more than 2 years ago. Yep, work seems to keep finding her!

Fluffy and Maple the foster dogs

A few weeks ago we had foster doggo #4, Fluffy. He’s named after a huge 3-headed guard dog in the Harry Potter books and if there was ever a misnomer for a dog, this was it! He was such a fearful fellow. Sometimes it was a challenge to even get him to go out the door and walk down the street. But on most days he was such a character! He had just turned five and wasn’t very socialised, so he did all the jumping up to you, gnawing on furniture, barking and generally misbehaving. That went away after the first week when he settled down a bit and showed more of his own very fun personality. He is extremely clever, got most things figured out in no time at all and he loved his snacks, so we had quite some work on our hands. As soon as he figured out that you could run up and down stairs, he often spent hours snoozing on the landing, just so he could keep an eye on whatever we were doing and if there was any food to be had. Not that he needed to gain weight, he was fine when he came to us, but a little bit more blubber on the bones in winter is okay! After the three weeks it was time for him to go back for adoption and he got scooped up in a matter of days. We saw a picture of him with his new family and they all looked so very happy that we felt very proud of our good boy. 

#3, Bronn, had some misadventure and injured his paw in the kennel from which he needed to recover first, but he got picked up for adoption in that same week, so we were doubly proud! It’s a strange thing because we can only do so much and it’s really mostly up to the dog themselves to behave, but after 3 weeks we have a pretty good idea of what they are like and Yumi writes these really detailed reports that must be very helpful for the new family to know about when they adopt. All good work to make sure they get the best chance at a new life. This Wednesday, we’re picking up an old girl (11 years old) called Maple. She was part of a group of dogs whose owner passed away recently and she needs some medical treatment. No need to train and teach her all sorts of things, she’s basically just with us to gain some weight and get lots of food and love, the two things Yumi does best! She needs to get desexed in the time she stays with us, so she’ll be with us for five weeks or so and Yumi is planning on driving her to the clinic, spend a day volunteering and then bringing her back home from Seymour, about 100km away. It’ll be fun and different to have an older dog around the home/office, she’ll probably sleep a lot and only wants short walks. We might take her to the beach and the lake, which is something all the other fosters seem to enjoy enormously as well. We have no idea about their backgrounds, but for some it might be the first time they even see so much water and sand in one place!

    

    

    

SES

It’s been busy times for the people in orange and I am sure you saw something on the news about the weather events in Gippsland and the Dandenongs here in Victoria. I think it’s now the biggest event in SES history with more than 10,000 requests for assistance over that period of time. I put in a fair bit of time and so did a few other members of our unit which

Is always good for team spirit. 

The fun and games started with a 4-day deployment to Gippsland in our capacity as a land based swift water rescue team. We were supposed to save people from floodwaters and dangerous situations, but soon realised that the conditions were not suitable for our skills and so we basically did nothing more than evacuate some people from their houses and stand around. It was all so very unorganised and confused that after 4 days we were all tired, angry and frustrated, which is not cool if you do this as a volunteer. But SES is a bit different in that way that we do potentially very dangerous things and it’s not something you just walk away from. So we woke up at all hours of the night, drove with lights and sirens (that part was cool) to all kinds of places around Sale and Traralgon, to then stand around and do nothing. We might have saved one person’s life because he was actually considering walking through super-fast moving water which would have drowned him for sure. He seemed confused and distraught, but we managed to talk him out of his plan and back to his car to wait until the water slowed down, so that’s a win. When it was time to go we were happy to do so and get back to our own areas. The teamwork was great as always, working with teams from 25 different units, but the coordination was totally amateur.

To quickly forget about all that, I spent the next two weeks travelling up and down to Emerald and Lilydale who got hit the most by the storms. I had seen bad situations with trees, but this was devastation on a scale I had not seen before. It’s strange but it’s beautiful and terrible at the same time. We did a few very good jobs on trees we could handle, cutting access to homes, removing trees from roofs and cars and covering up smashed roofs. All the while you’re driving through a wasteland of fog, trees and powerlines and only afterwards did we realise how potentially dangerous it all was in the first few days. It’s hard to imagine how big a 40-meter tree is when it’s on the ground, even for people who live there but the worst one I’ve seen had completely bisected a house and completely destroyed it. The occupant was ‘fine’, but at 89 or so, this was something he didn’t need in his life of course. The most amazing thing was the gratitude of the community towards us just coming to help for a few days. If you ever need to feel good about yourself, SES is a good place to get that, haha. 

In between we also trained our latest group of new recruits, who are not really all that new anymore and some of them have really got the orange virus in their blood already. They’ll do this for years if we let them and why not!? A lot of my colleagues got their chainsaw ticket, which means I get to do less cutting because they need the practice, so now I just help them do it safely, which they seem to enjoy. I’d rather do it myself, but hey, it’s not all about me, or so I am told! We also managed to clean up all our clothing and gear and even run our first fundraising Bunnings barbeque in 18 months and with all the media exposure we got $1,100 in sausage sales and $1,200 in donations from the public (and Bunnings), so that’s amazing. 

We’ll put that money to good use when our new truck arrives this Monday after about 6 months delay. Well, more like 4 years, but who’s counting, right?! It’ll be really good to have more modern equipment and everything in neat drawers and behind roller doors. Our old truck still had its trays and lockboxes from 35 (!) years ago, so it was about time for an upgrade. Of course the best part of it all is that I passed my driving test for the Heavy Rigid truck license so now I get to drive it around for real. I was secretly already doing that on the depot grounds anyway, but now I can go out around town, which should be fun. Three others also passed their driving test, so we might have to take turns, but as I am generally one of the people who responds when the pager goes off, I like my chances of getting some miles in. Here are some pictures to give you an idea. The person walking through water supporting the lady with the dog is me, I only found out later it was taken or I would have put my mask on a lot better!

 

 

Personal development

Aside from getting my driver’s license, I also invested dozens of hours into learning more about physical and mental disabilities as part of the new career direction I took. I did a very good course online with the University of Queensland and got a fancy certificate that says I now know more than I did before. I also read heaps of articles and most of a book about learning disabilities and aged care challenges. After a year and a half of working with my hands, it was a bit of an adjustment, but it felt good to put my brain to work in different ways too!

To get even ore certificates and shiny awards, I enrolled in the Australian Institute of Company Directors course for Board Directors. It’s very expensive, so I thought a long time about it and did my research but couldn’t find any bad experiences, so I just closed my eyes and pushed the pay button, haha. I’ll start in October and do it all at my own pace and I hope to have it all done by end of December. Having that piece of paper adds to my credibility with boards and I genuinely hope to learn a lot more about what it takes to govern a business from a distance. It’s a bit like a driver’s license or another course I did, you just get it as a rite of passage. I hope it will open new doors and opportunities eventually, so it’s a bit of an investment is what I tell myself.

In the meantime I can practice being part of a board because I got accepted as a committee member (not exactly a board member just yet) for a disability service provider called Knoxbrooke. Yumi did some work with them, so I know they are solid. The chair of the board happens to be the director of the MBA at Deakin, who I know from the Change Tools Masterclasses. It’s a small world sometimes.

The health care corner

Lots of medical things going on the past two months, most of them good. Yumi and I got our second COVID shot yesterday and we’re lucky enough to have no real side effects just yet. A sore upper arm, that’s about it. It feels really good to know we’re now much better protected against passing the virus on to other people.

I also got my two front teeth fixed last week and that was just so weird! They had chipped form years of grinding my teeth in my sleep and I am sure the excessive amounts of soda I drank for the past 25 years didn’t help much as well. All the same, initially I had 3 options. Crowns, veneers or filler. Mind you, crowns and veneers would be $4-6,000, so I was keen to hear about the filler option. 90 minutes later and $100 poorer I walked out with two completely fixed teeth.

As long as I don’t chew on the furniture or start cracking nuts with them, they should last me a good long time.

You’ll be happy to hear that aside from B12, we now also take vitamin D. I am still unconvinced of the use of vitamins in general, but I can’t deny that my eyesight seems to have recovered considerably. I probably still need glasses, which I am in total denial about, but a few weeks after I started taking the vitamin D capsules, I noticed I could read things that I couldn’t read anymore before. Winning!  

Yumi’s been having headaches on and off for the best part of two years now, but as she can be a bit stubborn (some would say incredibly stubborn) she just kept postponing going to the doctor. Now she’s finally gone and they’re doing some tests. So far, they aren’t finding anything really, but at least she’s got some extra strength migraine medication just in case, which I find very reassuring.

A long list of short things

• Snap lockdown 4.0 came and went an no one even got excited. It’s face masks on, then off, then on again around here and we’re just rolling with the punches. I don’t wish ill on anyone but it’s very quiet all of a sudden with the jokes and comments from NSW and QLD now they are in the same situation as Victoria was a while back. Not so funny now, eh?!

• Friends and family are doing well. A holiday to Italy for the Amsterdam crowd, a super cool and very well-paid new job for Yumi’s friend Hester, my friends Just and Alex thinking about new jobs and our friend Danielle had a daughter (Charlotte) a few weeks ago. Our parents are doing well too, everyone is over the whole COVID thing, understandably, but Europe isn’t quite as well off as Australia.

• On my morning walks I now listen to Australian True Crime, a podcast about, well, Australian crime! All sorts of old cases, cold cases, recent developments and things I never knew about the justice and prison system. Very informative and entertaining although it’s a bit scary sometimes when I walk around town in the dark of early morning and listening to how a serial killer ran around a neighbouring suburb 20 years ago. Good times, haha.

• I have a new laptop and it’s a Mac. For the past 25 years I have always worked in a Microsoft environment and it’s like driving stick when you only ever drove automatic. Some things work really well and others are just really weird design choices. But after 4-5 weeks I am now getting the hang of it and it’s a good challenge to keep learning new things. It needed to be a Mac due to workshop materials I am using, which were all created on Mac software. Now I can live in two system worlds and be part of the cool kids’ team for a change.

• Volunteering for Beachpatrol has been a bit quiet due to the cold weather and the Happy Paws Haven people had some sad personal affairs to sort out, so there wasn’t much for me to do there too. It’ll pick up again for sure, even when I am not sure how much I can really do for them anyway, but we’ll see.

I think that’s it for the update this time around. Please stay warm and safe until the weather gets better and the COVID craziness calms down some more. I’ll write again early September.

Be well  

Gilbert

Letter to Marlis MArch-April

 

Barooga NSW, 7 May 2021,

 

Hi Marlis,

 

That’s right, all the way over in Barooga in NSW today, driving Yumi back and forth to a work thing. I’ve parked the car next to a river and the only thing you can hear is the birds and oh, there’s a Kookaburra! I hope you are doing well now that the ACT is hitting the frosty lows again, it’s hard to imagine sitting in 25degrees just now 😊. The past 2 months have been as eventful as they could be, so I’ll just get into it straight away.

 

Hamilton trip

Not to the musical Hamilton, I always get so confused when they first act, then dance and sing, I never know what to do! No, the place Hamilton near the Grampians national park. We once visited there about 10 years ago when we came to Australia for the second time and the weather was so miserable, we ended up not seeing or doing much for 3 days. This time around it couldn’t have been more different. The weather was gorgeous, the little bed and breakfast we stayed at was lovely and at night the stars were so bright and visible we could see parts of the Milky Way and even the Magellan Clouds (small parts of other galaxies), which just doesn’t happen in Altona with all the light pollution from industry and the city nearby. As always, Yumi had crafted a very good travel plan and we climbed mountains, visited cultural sites and bushwalked to our heart’s content. We drove up along the Surf Coast and great Ocean Road and you just know you’ve become a local when you don’t even stop at the 12 Apostles or any of the other tourist traps because, well, you’ve seen them more than a few times and they’re rocks, so they don’t change much, haha. Instead, we went inland and got a little bit lost in a volcanic crater park because ethe signage was so strange and all over the place. We found our way back and called it a day for then, without Yumi I’d still be wandering around there now… At the cottage we could play with the cat, who also wanted to sit on Yumi’s lap all night, there were some sheep and alpacas and a veggie garden where we could get fruit and some veggies for our snacks and meals. It was all pretty good. Aside from the fire alarm going off full tilt, not once, but twice, so I pried it off the ceiling and took its batteries out. That’ll teach it! On the way back we stopped in Ballarat to visit the regional art museum and it was much better than expected. It was only supposed to be a stop to stretch our legs a bit, but we ended up staying much longer than expected. They had all sorts of interesting paintings, art installations and contemporary works by local people and the building itself is also a piece of art on the inside. You’d never guess form the outside, with its black and brown façade, but the inside is bright, colourful and light.

 

Work/Career change

You know that job I was so happy to have and go to every week? Yeah, I quit that 2 weeks ago…There was very little drama in the whole event and we parted on good terms. Two months ago, my boss had spoken to one of my teachers who mentioned that I was rushing things and wasting materials. The rushing thing is true and I changed that a lot since then, but the wasting material is just nonsense, also, I pay for those materials myself, so I feel I can make a mistake or two. Anyway, my boss spoke to me about it, I said I’d do better and then two weeks ago he felt that it was necessary to repeat the whole thing again. I let him do the talking and then at the end he said he felt like I wanted to say something too. I wasn’t going to say anything, just having promised Yumi that I would give it my best try, but he really opened the door and I decided that enough was enough.

I explained how I felt that this was not going to work if he treated me like a 17-year-old and that it made me feel like this was maybe not the job or even career for me. He didn’t take that too bad but said that he had many things going on and that I needed to sort my sh** out and fast. Now I am never one to walk away from a challenge, so in the calmest of ways I told him that I’d make his life really easy, pack my stuff and leave. Despite being 2 team members down already, I think we was very happy with that outcome. I always felt like I was a bit of a disappointment to him for some reason and life’s too short to live or work like that. I’ve written a blog post abut it that I’ve included all the way in the end, so you can read even more if you like.

 

Since then, I’ve had a think and decided to call it quits with the tradie life. I gave a good shot for nearly 18 months, but this is where I’ll get off the bus. I’ve decided to go back into some form of consulting. I thought I was going to be totally stressed out, but I am actually doing fine. I might end up working with one of Yumi’s business partners on a few things and have a few ideas of my own that I’d like to work on. The Change community was happy to have me back, judging by the dozens of comments and messages I got since announcing my career reversal. Never a dull moment in the life of Gilbert!  By the time I write the next letter, some kind of plan will probably have formed and I’ll tell you all about it.

 

School and training

With me quitting my job, that also means that TAFE is coming to an end and “good riddance”, I say! The teachers are good, but it’s all so poorly designed and organised that things take twice as long and having to ask what I need to do for every step, yeah, that’s just not me. I did manage to finish my desk (see picture on the next page) which also means I completed my first-year furniture making apprenticeship! I’ll get a statement of attainment, so that if I ever decide to go back and finish it, I can start form that point on, so that was totally worth the last 3 days of last week. I also got to hang out with one of the best teachers and he helped me sharpen my chisels to such a point that I can now perform simple surgeries on humans and farm animals if required. Probably not a good idea though 😊.

  

 

On the same day I quit my job, I also got the news that I passed the exam for my Cert4 Training and Assessment. Now I don’t want to sound like a total whinger, but that was one of the most terrible courses I’ve ever done. The people and organisation were lovely, but the paperwork and repetitive work were beyond funny. I honestly think I wrote a 300-page book of forms and templates. I was super excited to get the qualification because it allows me to teach at unis, TAFEs and schools in a casual capacity, but I will never, ever do this again if I can help it. Aside from the refresher courses every few years, those can’t be too bad…Right?! Well, they can’t be any worse than the course itself, if only because it’s just 2 days!

 

SES activities

It was relatively quiet with callouts for a while, aside from the possibility that we’d be going to WA to help out with the cyclone damage over there. But then they went in lockdown and all things got stopped. It’s always a weird feeling, because you want to go and help, but you’re also happy that you don’t have to, because that means things are under control. Well, sort of, because in East-Gippsland, people still need help and not much is happening there now that the media has moved on to the next crisis.

 

I’ve started my truck license and passed the theory exam already, even had an hour behind the wheel of our own very old truck that will be replaced in a few weeks’ time. I need a few more lessons because some habits I’ve developed over time are not good enough when you’re driving a 3-axle 27 tonne block of steel. I had my truck license 15 years ago, but let it expire when we came to Australia. I hadn’t driven a truck for 8 years by then and didn’t think it was safe to just get behind the wheel. I mean, we see enough accidents on the roads around Melbourne and now that I’ve seen the theory exam, I understand why. It was So.Much.Harder. in the Netherlands!

 I am very excited that 9 other members are getting their chainsaw ticket soon and then we’ll go on a fieldtrip to regional Victoria to cut up some trees. We did a test run a few weeks ago and that was heaps if fun. It will also help our unit and response rate because currently it’s mostly me or one or two others doing all the cutting work and that’s just not great. The new recruits are super keen and want to get into things so I am happy to step aside and let them have a go. This and next few weekends I’ll be training a few of them for the next level in their SES career, so that’ll be fun as the weather promises to be terrible…Oh well, we call that ‘a scenario of realistic circumstances’ 😊.

 

Yumi’s work, courses and training

Yumi keeps powering on and working with her clients all over the country. She was in Canberra last weekend to meet with her business partners in person for the first time in more than 12 months. It sounds like it was a good meeting, because she came back full of energy and plans, which is the version of her that I like best. A lot of things that had been on the boil for a while are now finally getting pushed to the next step or will be brought to a close, so that’s progress! Between all that busy business work, she’s also managed to complete 2 trainings. One more in the space of thinking about yourself and how your respond to the world, the other about a certain method that consultants use to get results without making organisations and the people in them jump through hoops. She’ll end up delivering that training to others now as well and will perhaps even do a few consulting jobs for Semco Australia. I think she got a lot out of it and even made the course better for others. Money well spent for sure!

 

Bronn the foster dog

The day after we came home from our Hamilton break, we picked up foster dog #3, Bronn. His whole litter was named after character from Game of Thrones, a popular, be it slightly gruesome, t-series. He’s named after a mercenary and that is just so funny because he is a massive grey hound of nearly 40kgs, but also the biggest scaredy pants you’ll ever meet! In hindsight, the other two gave us a real easy time. He was just the loveliest and most gentle dog, but afraid of the wind, cars, the trains, the train horn, loud noise and fast movements. He probably led a very sheltered life so far. He’ll get there eventually though because he was just so smart. He recognised reflections, understood doorknobs and how he would get a treat if he had all four of his paws on his mat. He was the only one so far that Yumi felt safe to leave in the living room while we were out and aside from the occasional ‘stolen’ shoe, he didn’t get up to mischief at all. He also was enormously food motivated and ate everything we gave him, which was a very pleasant change from the other two. We learn so much from every next one, this is just too much fun to stop doing. His anxiety and stress caused him to lash out to me a few times, but he doesn’t mean to harm you, just trying to tell me he was scared, so I don’t blame him, just kept my distance when I could. He’s back at the shelter now and I am sure they’ll find a good home for him, maybe after a bit more training on how to use stairs because that remained a bit of a challenge till the end. Below are some pictures of him on his mat, exploring the water, proudly standing on the landing of some stairs outside and sniffing all the snack for his birthday on the 28^th of April. The only time we had grilled chicken in the house and he loved it!

 

 

 

New volunteer gig

I’ve started working with an animal shelter in Grafton, NSW just because they asked for help. The lady, Sally, has turned 70 and feels like it’s time to start slowing down and hand over the ‘business’. It’s early days still, but I’ve been asked to write up a strategy, a media plan, a succession plan, a fundraising strategy and a few other things that shouldn’t be too hard. I plan to take it slow and there’s no need to rush as she has a 5-year plan in mind. Then again, she’s had three strokes so far and things might not be up to her completely. I handed in the draft documents this Wednesday and learned a lot in the process. Very curious to see what happens next. There’s a very small chance that Yumi and I will take over the shelter if everything works out just right, but for now I am designing it all for someone else and it’s just good to use my brain for these sorts of things again!  

 

Small things

·       BeachPatrol, where we clean the beaches and streets in Altona has started up again and it’s good to be out and cleaning up again. Now that things are getting back to some sense of normal, littering is back as well, so there’s work to do!

·       My friend Peter and I will be working on a comic book about Change management and what doesn’t work and maybe even design a game where one team needs to make change happens, while the other team does everything they can to make it fail. Even if nothing comes of it, I just love working with him because we have so much fun.

·       All the family in the Netherlands are getting their Covid shots and we feel much better knowing they’ve been vaccinated. Australia is so much better off than any other country I know of, it’s just amazing to see thousands of new infections and no one seems to car that much I hope you also decide to go and get the Pfizer one. There are some very rare problems with the Zeneca one, but knowing how tough you are, you probably wouldn’t even notice it if you caught Covid anyway 😊.

 

Alright, that’s it form me for now, please stay safe and warm and I’ll write soon again with my adventures from May and June.

 

Gilbert

 

 

This is the piece I wrote on my ‘professional’ blog:

To make sense of my career changing events of the last week or so, I imagined meeting myself at a networking event and answering some questions I might have after not seeing me there for 18 months. Here’s how I imagine this conversation would go.

Where have you been all this time?

I decided that I needed a break from Change management and how it was being practiced. I wanted to find out if working with my hands was a better career option for me. After two workplaces and a year of TAFE I realised that the mature age apprentice life is definitely not for me.

What made you quit?

In hindsight it was two big things that were made worse by smaller things. Big thing one was that I had interviewed way too well and got a reference that was so glowing that people all around Torquay had to shut their blinds for 3 days. I could simply not live up to that, despite my best efforts. Big thing two is that I was arguably the worst apprentice ever. My work ethic is beyond compare, but I consider myself too old for most BS that a teenager will put up with. Add to this that my last boss and I have very similar personalities and we brought out the worst in each other by just being ourselves. Being told that I needed to get my sh*t sorted (and fast) while I was trying to explain that I wasn’t sure if this was the life for me, sealed the deal for me. It was also the first time that after six months I was still the least performing person on a team of legends. After a while I got the sense that mistakes were no longer acceptable and that I was simply not good enough to keep around. Life’s too short for that and the team deserves better, so off I went. That’s my version of events, a story with an okay ending and no heroes or villains.

Has it changed you in meaningful ways?

I sure hope so. It would be quite depressing if 18 months of being in a completely different environment, doing very, very different things would leave me unchanged. My patience has improved at least 5-fold! But before you get excited, that’s from 2% to 10%, so let’s hold off on the celebration just yet.  I am less confident than I used to be and I like to think I am a bit more easy-going, less intense. People often mistake my intensity for passion, but it’s really just frustration with the way things are, voiced in a pleasant and sometimes amusing way.

What was the best thing about it?

So many things! Every day is different, new places to go, things to do, furniture to finish and offcuts to set on fire. What’s not to love?! I got to work with truly talented people and make beautiful things that people want to own and sometimes designed themselves. The trade took me all around Melbourne when lockdowns 1,2 and 3 happened and kept me working and learning when so many others had the roughest of times. I’ve visited many schools, businesses, the poshest of homes and lots of other strange and wonderful places that Change never took me.  On top of that I now have a full kit of tools that I know how to use if I ever want to make an okay-ish piece of furniture. And that’s not even mentioning the hundreds of hours of podcast on science and history I could listen to while working in an ‘office’ with the best view and coolest workshop dogs ever. Good times indeed.

What was the worst about it?

TAFE, without a doubt. Imagine a kitchen where 16 incompetent young people (and old me) are cooking a somewhat specified meal, using the same tools, pots, pans and the same space, with little to no instruction and guidance and everyone can stir pots, change the temperature of the oven and mix up ingredients. That’s not a meal you’d serve anyone. Most of the teachers were masters of their craft but the system itself is beyond repair and caused so much frustration that I was looking forward to leaving by the time I walked in. I also didn’t enjoy feeling incompetent for months on end. Apparently, that’s part of the process, which makes me feel that the process is in serious trouble. I figured I’d feel more competent, skilled and trusted as months went by, but the exact opposite was true for me. Perhaps it was one of those: “once you know how little you know, it’s hard to remain confident about what you do know” kind of situations. I’ve been known to be my own worst enemy…

What did you learn?

So many things! Probably the most important thing was to not drill into my hand! Not only does it hurt quite a bit while it heals, it also really freaks people out. Their screaming is a lot worse than the blood. Another thing I learned is that it feels better to work pro bono than for minimum wage. I always had respect for people doing hard work for minimum wage, now that I’ve experienced it myself, that respect has at least doubled. Another key learning was that almost every mistake can be fixed if you have enough time. Also, sometimes IKEA is easier, faster and almost always cheaper than making it yourself from scratch.

Any regrets?

No, it was totally worth it, even though I would not recommend this kind of career change to just anyone and probably never do it again myself. Despite having failed in what I set out to do, the experience of stepping away from Change and fully committing to a completely new trade gave me some much-needed perspective and helped me regain creativity I didn’t even know I had lost.

Did you miss the Change Community? Even a little bit?

I missed the people and conversations a lot, for sure. But LinkedIn and Twitter kept me connected to long-time Change friends and in the loop on the big things. With 2020 being the social and professional dumpster fire it was for so many, I feel like this was the best year to take a break. For once, my timing was spot on! I’m not saying that nothing has changed in Change, but now that the roar of lockdown terror, vaccine anger and all the posts on making sense of a post-COVID world have subsided a bit, I think we’re once again hearing all those good ideas and new initiatives that got drowned out before.  So much new ideas to look forward to!

You’re here tonight, does that mean you’re back to doing Change work?

Short answer, yes. If the right challenge comes along; I’ll jump on it to get back into things. Longer answer: I’m not sure if I want to. From what I’ve seen from 20 minutes on job boards, the change job market is as mercenary as it’s always been. I’ve got a few things I am working on with Purpose at Work in board advisory on quality and safeguarding and if things go well, I’ll be creating a whole new toolkit on purposeful practices in disability, aged and social care. I am also looking forward to the third round of Change Tools Masterclasses for Deakin. I still prefer short term, complex and hard to solve challenges and I think everyone is better off if I am my own boss moving forward.

Good to see you again, I hope the community welcomes you back with their usual enthusiasm!

Thanks for the chat, I enjoy being back and look forward to finding out what people have been up to.

 

Letter to Marlis Jan-Feb 2021

 

Altona, 8 March 2021

 

Hi Marlis, 

I hope things are going well for you in the ACT and that you had more of a Summer than we had down here in the South. We had a few warm days but that was about it. Then again, last year around this time the whole country was on fire, so maybe missing out on one Summer isn’t all that much of a drama 😊!

The past 2 months have gone by really quick, but I don’t feel like much has happened. Oh well, let’s see what happens when I start writing!

Upcoming road trip

We’re quite excited to go for a bit of a drive at the end of the week. Destination: Albury, of all places. I’ll be there to help run a workshop for an aged care service provider together with Yumi’s colleague Alan. Him and I developed the materials and program together last year and this is the second delivery. It’s pretty cool that people are warming up to the idea of more modern practices for quality and safeguarding in aged care. You might have caught some things on the news how bad the situation sometimes gets in these homes and service facilities. I just get so mad every time another scandal comes up, it’s like we never learn! At least we’ll be doing something about it on a small scale with people who make the decisions and hopefully make some changes. Yumi will travel with me and just do some work at the hotel most of the day, I think. We’ll be sure to spend some time around town and go for some lovely Indian food while we’re there. I hope they survived all the Covid unpleasantness…

 

Easter break

In 3 weeks from now, we’re taking a week off at work for Easter, which means we get to go travelling once again. Yumi’s slowly turning into a hermit and hardly needs to go out as most of her work can be done online or over the phone, so it will be good to get out and see some different scenery. We’ll be staying in Hamilton, which sits in the middle between Warrnambool on the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians, so we’ll be getting some sea and some mountains. I predict lots of walks and reading and lots of food of course!

 

Work

Work has been the good kind of busy. I am very slowly progressing to more complicated things and so far, I have made 2 tables (pictures below), more or less by myself. The one with the black legs was about 2.7 meters long and 1.2 meters wide. The White-legged one was 3 meters by 1.2, but out of 60mm timber and so heavy! I think that when it was all done, it weighed at least 100kgs. Good luck getting that through the front door! Then again, most people who can afford our furniture probably have double doors and servants to carry stuff, haha.

 

I truly enjoy the work of selecting timber, gluing and sanding and then finishing. I also do the maintenance of machines, keeping inventory, cleaning, making samples, packing away timber, fixing on the backs, doors and shelves and virtually anything else that needs doing. I’ve now been there 5 months and that’s the longest I’ve worked for a single employer in the past 4 years, so that’s a bit of an adjustment. I also like the variety of no two days being the same and the team is good to work with too. We’ve been producing like crazy and sometimes there’s so many items awaiting shipment that it’s hard to move around, but it’ll be a long time before I complain about being busy. After Easter I might get upgraded to building simple cabinets, which is something I really look forward to as well.

School

By some kind of miracle, my school has finally figured out how to get organised. I’ve gone to school in early February for 4 days and managed to build most of a ladder chair (see picture). It was a comedy of errors to get it done and I am still amazed that it came out the way it did.

I made up heaps of time in the glue up phase because I brought some glue from work that cures in 20 minutes while the glue from school takes 4-8 hours…  The next part for this block is building a desk. I hope to at least get all my timber sorted so that I can take it home (or to work) and finish it there. That way I’ll still be able to finish my first year on time without any difficulty. I hope that I’ll feel better and like I am progressing with this whole career change thing when I get to call myself a second-year apprentice.

Yumi’s work

Yumi’s been busy as always. Not only with her clients, but she’s also doing 2 training courses at the same time because, why not?! 😊

One is about a certain kind of management system that is called Semco-style and based on the practices of a South American company that decided to change the way they do business in all ways that matter. Staff hire their own colleagues, make their own decisions about work rosters, pay checks and bonuses. It worked extremely well for them and although she’s not learning a great deal, she’s ‘meeting’ new people, expanding her network and doing something else than working all the time. And the trainer has asked her to deliver the next set of classes in Australia, so I think she’s on top of it! The other training was a free ticket for a 4-week course based on the work of a very famous speaker from the US, Brenée Brown. She’s all about courageous leadership and people around the world (millions and millions of them) love her work. I am very impressed by her delivery and smart business model but can’t say that her message of fearless leadership really works for me. Yumi is the same, but to her credit, she’s giving it a go and hopes to get some useful pointers from those 5am and 6am starts, haha. I’ve also starter raising with her that even though her biggest client loves her to pieces; she’s been working with them for about 18 months now. Maybe it’s time to look for a new challenge? Obviously, it’s literally none of my business, but because I am a bit further removed, I can see that she’s starting to get incorporated, which is never a good thing for an advisor.  Ah well, she’s smart, she’ll sort it!

SES

It’s been blessedly quiet on the call-out front with SES. We had a few weird jobs, even one that required lights and sirens because a person was allegedly stuck in one of those close donation bins. We didn’t find anyone when we arrived on scene, so they either got out or it was a prank. Another was a sailboat that had run aground. This happens quite often on the bay, but there’s hardly anything we can do. It was pretty cool that we beat everyone else there because we happened to be at the unit doing some maintenance. And then we stood around on shore with the Ambulance people while we waited for the water police to give them a tow back to the pier. Good thing we waded through 1.5km of swamp land first and then got told we could go home haha!

I’ve also been busy with the new recruits and their training. They’re nearly done with the first part and it looks like they will all pass their test, yay! Especially good because there are 4 women in this group and we can really do with more of them, so fingers crossed they stick around. I’ve got some training lined up for myself as well later this month. It’s about land-based swift water rescue, which is fancy speak for rescuing people when the water comes on land. They could be stuck in cars, caught in rising flood waters in their homes or a number of other unlikely scenarios that always seem to happen at 2am in the morning😊. Then yesterday I heard I might get my truck license training and even some 4WD train-the-trainer training this year, so lots of fun things to look forward to!

Last week, some of us, including me, got a token of appreciation for our efforts in the Summer fires of 2020 in the shape of a pin. We can wear it on our uniform overalls and it has a pelican on it, so I decided to wear it. I am never really one for awards and that sort of thing, but it’s nice to get some recognition, I guess, even if it’s 12 months down the track. A few exceptional people will be presented with the Service Medal, but that is a much shorter list and I am pretty sure they’ve earned it more than a few times over. Let’s hope the next pin doesn’t get awarded until 2030 or even later.

Podcasts

I’m very much into listening to podcasts since a few months. A podcast is basically a recording of people talking about different subjects for different lengths of time. There are 100,000’s if not millions of them on the internet to choose from! At work we wear headphones all day to protect our hearing and we all have very fancy ones that you can link (wirelessly) to your phone to listen to music or whatever you like. I tend to go for the history and science ones, sometimes a bit of stand-up comedy and every now and then I just listen to the latest hits from Japan, Korea, India, China or Russia to mix things up a bit. I don’t have to understand what they say, some background noise is fine. I started with Dr. Karl and learning about the universe and all sorts of biology and psychology. Then I started listening to Evil Genius, which takes historical figures and presents some facts about them that very few people know. It seems that a lot of them (men and women) were very racist and rather unpleasant to their kids or family. It makes me wonder about what people will say about the ‘greats’ of our time in 50 years from now. Another one of my favourites is ‘You’re dead to me’, which is all about historical events and people whose stories have become so warped and romanticised that there’s very little connection to what actually happened. But never let the truth get in the way of a good story, right?! It keeps me entertained and I feel like I learn a lot while I learn about furniture making. How’s that for a win-win!

Changing careers progress

Last week I got a call from a business asking if I would like an apprenticeship with them. I had handed in my resume 10 (!) months ago after all. Yeah, nah, thanks, I’m good. My career change is still very much a work in progress. I expected that after more than a year I would have found my groove and most days I am fine with the choices I made, but some days I really doubt if this was the best thing for me. I absolutely hate being an apprentice, not knowing what to do and everyone telling me what to do most of the day. Not that they are unpleasant about it, not at all, it just doesn’t work for my independent and autonomous self. I know it takes time and that my patience and accuracy need work, I somehow had thought that I would feel more competent and confident in my skills by now. The exact opposite is true though. I feel more insecure and incompetent as the months go by, wondering if I will ever be good at this whole furniture making thing. I feel like I gave up a lot to gain very little so far. I really hope that this will change in the coming months, it’s not a great feeling. Ah well, let’s see what happens. In the meantime, I’ll keep practicing being patient.

Covid snap lockdown

We had a brief 5-day lockdown a months ago to get some possible outbreaks under control here in Melbourne and it was encouraging to see how quickly everyone fell back into the routine of mask-wearing and distancing. For me it was mostly just a week off as Yumi could continue working and I was basically doing chores around the house and playing video games. I don’t think this will be the last lockdown we’ll have and with every next one we’ll have more experience to draw from. Looking at the rest of the world, I think we can consider ourselves very lucky once again to be living on this big red island 😊. Last weekend, we went to give blood and had some free tickets to go see a movie in the cinema. It felt a bit strange to do things we didn’t do for nearly 12 months. If nothing else, we enjoy and appreciate everything out of the ordinary a lot more.

Next foster dog

Yumi is counting down the days until we’re good to have our third foster dog, so be prepared for some pictures in the next letter! It will be another 4 weeks because she’s got a few work things and we’re doing a bit of travel. Apparently, 10 April is the date she picked for a new four-legged friend to come and stay with us. So basically, on the way back from the Grampians! The toys are washed, the bedding repaired and the snacks prepared, so we’re almost good to go. She showed me the list of the dogs up for foster right now and it looks like we’ll get a young one this time, maybe only 1 year old. It’ll be fun to have a doggo around the house again, lots of things to laugh about as greyhounds are quite the cheeky dogs!  

Friends and family

There’s only good news on the friends and family front. All are healthy and most have really long hair! They are soldiering on through their extended lockdowns, while trying not to be annoyed by all these Covid-deniers claiming it’s all a big conspiracy from the lizard people who secretly rule the world through our mobile phones. Sigh.

Our friend Alex is doing something cool as a side job now. He’s always been in logistic and purchasing roles and has a real talent for those things. He decided that he wants some financial independence down the road, so did the work, built his network and got some training and coaching to become a real estate investor. In the Wales market, where there appear to be many opportunities. I’ve known him for 20+ years and he’s never failed at anything, so we offered to set him up with some starting capital. The money is just sitting in the bank for us anyway and with nearly 0% interest, his offer of 6% return seemed pretty good. Turns out that’s what we lose in exchange rates, haha. Oh well, it’s worth it to help a friend! Everyone else seems to be doing well and is keeping busy. Jobs are getting done, birthdays celebrated, all that good stuff. One of our nephews turned 13 yesterday. I clearly remember changing his diapers (not fun) a long time ago and it’s hard to comprehend he is a teenager now. I must be getting old 😊.  

Those seem to be the main events of the past two months; I’ll write again early May. By then we’ll be coming up on Winter, had another foster dog, been on lots of trips and I’ve hopefully completed my first year of apprenticeship as well.

Stay warm and be well,

Gilbert

Letter to Marlis Nov-Dec 2020

 

Altona, January 2021

 

Happy New Year Marlis!

 

I hope you survived the social obligations of Christmas and New Year’s well enough and that you are enjoying some of the nicer summer weather in the best part of Australia!

 

I truly feel these holidays should be spaced apart a bit more, like July and December, but no one has asked my opinion about this yet and I don’t think they will any time soon… 😊

 

It’s been another busy two months, with lost of work, life and school stuff happening, so let’s get started!

 

Christmas at home

It has been a while since Yumi and I spent the Christmas holidays at home. We generally go on a diving or adventure trip, but last year was different in a lot of aspects and travel was proving ‘too hard’ with all the closures and restrictions. And we also had a foster dog to look after, but more on that later. Never one to just sit and do nothing, I made a long list of things to do and got it all done. 😊

I did some school stuff, lots of SES calls, some home improvement, tried out a few new vegan baking recipes, read a few books, bought some new work clothes and played a lot of video games. So, I basically did what I always do, but without going to work…Geez, my life is boring, haha.

 

We’ve never been a fan of Christmas decoration or fireworks, so there was no cleaning up or packing away and while the weather wasn’t great for most days, we still had a good time. We even did a little one-day road trip down the coast, which is always nice to just drive and chat. This year, diving is most certainly the preferred option, but we’ll have to see how things stand around then.

 

Work

I am getting quite used to being covered in dust and wood chip all day. I saw a t-shirt that said: “This is not sawdust, it’s man glitter!” and that’s exactly how I feel most days😊. The end of the year was super busy at work, which meant that we actually worked all five days of the week. I know, shocking, right?!

I got into a bit of a funk near the end, because I am still not allowed to do most things, but somewhere during the Christmas break I made my peace with that and now I am much better again. It was just that everything had been cleaned, sorted, burned, organised, fixed and cleaned again and then I ran out of things to do. I am not at my best when I feel like I am not adding value, but now I just relax and think that as long as I do what is asked, that’s good enough. The team all really appreciate what I do, because it makes their lives easier and this week, we finished a day earlier because of what I do, so ha!  

The work year has started really well with me doing lots of new things and what feels like ‘real work’. It is still just gluing sticks, filling holes, sanding boards and making simple parts, but that’s also part of the job. Small steps, small steps…  

 

Yumi’s work

Yumi landed another project right before Christmas and another is about to start, on top of what she’s already been doing. Safe to say she’s doing really well and decided to just work some more over the Christmas break. I don’t worry too much because I did the same in my previous work life and never felt to stressed about it. There’s busy days and not so busy days, but it all levels out quite well. She seems to be enjoying herself and her clients love her and her work, so there’s not really anything to complain about. The training course she started last year continues in the next few weeks, so I guess that’ll keep her out of trouble 😊.

 

 

SES

Things have been flat out with SES as well. Now that we’re allowed to train on site at our unit again, we’re almost back to normal. I’ve started the training of 8-10 new recruits and it’s been great fun. It took us long enough to get organised, as we were supposed to get started in September, but we’re here now and making heaps of progress. It’s a bit of a talk fest at the moment, with me doing most of the talking, but that will change from this week on, where they finally get to do more things and work with the equipment hands-on. I just want them to have a really good time, because if the start is good, they generally stick around and this seems like a good bunch, just like the last group.

We had a ‘weather event’ (what normal people call a storm) come through around Christmas and in one week I attended 20 call outs across 5 days. It’s always good fun, but less so when it’s pouring down rain and there’s trees and branches falling everywhere. Broken roller doors, roof tiles flying off, lots of broken (really big) branches, trees on roads and a few people trapped in flood waters. It’s all in a day’s work. It was good to be out and about this time around, because I missed the previous 2 years due to holidays. We always work really well as a team and the appreciation alone from the community is enough for me.

This weekend and next I’ll be going back to Bunyip, where a lot of properties got damaged in the 2019 fires. We were there last year and that was such a good experience that we offered to help out again. It’s mostly just clearing fallen trees on private properties, but it’s a huge help for these people and a great way for us to get some additional hours on the tools and have some fun. Apparently Channel 7 is coming to do a report, so you might see or have seen me on the news if it makes it to national. We always get a full briefing that feel like your mum giving you marching orders right before you visit the family barbecue. I understand they want SES to look good on TV, but what are they seriously thinking we’ll do on camera?! We’re not total idiots. Well, most of us aren’t haha! Below two pictures of me in my uniform, I am the guy with the chainsaw in the back.

 

That being said, I just got back from day 1 of the event after just a few hours with a mild case of heat stress. Those were 3 very unpleasant hours coming back. Headache and nausea despite drinking heaps and taking breaks, I must be getting old! It’s a shame really, I was having a really good time and going through the trees like paper, but all of a sudden, I wasn’t doing great. As a team we decided that I should go back home and not return today. It’s the right call to make, but still disappointing as I so looked forward to it. Ah well, we’ll try again in a week’s time if there’s still work to be done. It’s not that I need the hours to keep up my skills and there were still about 25 people with chainsaws left, but it’s just annoying ☹. I am fine now, it comes and goes quickly. 😊

 

Tradie school and TAE training

School has been a bit of a mess, but that’s become my expectation over the past year. A year ago, around this time I started my pre-apprenticeship training for Carpentry and since then I switched to Cabinet making in June. We didn’t go to school until October and I missed December due to work being busy. I didn’t mind that too much really because in November I missed 2 days because…they had no teacher and 1 because I needed to stay at work due to others being sick. Long story short; of the 12 half days I could have had, I had 5.5. But I still managed to get the project done and this is the end result.

 

I did most of it in the garage (also known as ‘the workshop’) on evenings and weekends. With some help from work tools, but mostly by hand once I cut all the timber on the machines at school. I was quite proud of the end result, took all the pictures as I went and sent them to my teacher. I got my marks the next day telling me that I had passed, so that’s project 1 of 6 done! Next up is making a library chair, which is just a fancy timber chair and I start school again on 1 February, hoping to still finish by April and then having completed my first year as a Cabbie apprentice.

 

My TAE (Training and Assessment education) course is ticking along, despite the mountain of paperwork. Thanks to a change in schedule, I was able to deliver 3 training sessions to new recruits at SES, fulfilling the final requirements for part 2 of 3. Now I have only part 3 left, which I hope to punch out by the end of the month. I did have to redo all the work for this part, which was not great, but it’s behind me now, so let’s forget about it. There are a lot of people at my unit who have done this training too and suffered the same annoyances. They’ve all offered to help out because they remember how needlessly complicated things got for them too.     

 

Anna the foster dog

Last time I wrote we had just heard we would get our very first foster dog (Early) and that was a lot of fun and learning for all three of us. We thought we’d go six weeks without and then early 2021 we’d take on the next ‘recruit’. But then Yumi got a call asking if we would be willing to take on Anna over Christmas, so 5 weeks instead of the standard 3. We had all sorts of travel and trip plans that fell through and had decided to stay home anyway, so we said yes to number 2!

This is us on the new bench on Christmas Day, with Anna wearing her very appropriate antlers and out in the park for a picnic with friends. She was so busy sniffing all the smells she tired herself out, haha.

 

 

Anna is one of six dispossessed dogs from a trainer who lost her license due to malpractice and poor treatment of her animals. She was very skittish, had some nail and skin issues and judging by the scars on her body had seen some pretty rough times. She didn’t eat for almost 4 days which caused her some discomfort and a lot of stress for Yumi. Eventually she got hungry and/or calm enough to start eating and she ate as much as Early, who was literally half again as big as her. He was 36 kg, she’s a lot smaller, but still a big girl at 24kg.

One of our tasks is to try and fatten her up to get to 27, which is going quite well and her coat is much shinier and softer than it was. We have her for one more week before she takes her test and goes up for adoption. She is a very different dog from Early, but equally lovely and she’ll find a new home for life in days, just like him for sure! She’s 4 years old, so very curious, loves chewing on carton boxes and gets super excited when we go for walks. She wants to meet every single person, cat, dog, bird and tree, so you can imagine that walks take a little while. She loves riding in the car and figured out how to walk up and down stairs on day 2, just so she could be with Yumi in her office. She sleeps most of the day, but when she’s not, she’s digging holes in the backyard, burying her toys and catching flies. 😊 I thought it would be fun to just go and run on the beach with her. Big mistake. She pulled me to my knees in no time, resulting in a very unpleasant scrape on my knee that only took the whole holiday to heal. Me and my great ideas, haha.

We’ll be happy to be without for a while as it is a lot of work and maintenance for Yumi mostly. I just vacuum every day and try not to look at our white tile floor to closely…They said black haired greyhounds don’t shed as much hair as white ones. Well, I can tell you that’s 100% NOT true. Just as much, possibly more!

 

Small stuff

·       You’ll be happy to hear I’ve started to take some vitamins. Because of my vegan diet, I don’t get any B12. Despite feeling healthy and well, I’ve felt over the past few months that my eyesight started to go a bit and B12 deficiency might be one of the causes for that. Or I am just getting older, which is equally possible. I’ll give it a few months and see how it goes, it won’t hurt me, but at $22 for a bottle of 60 tablets, I’ll not just take them for the fun of it.

·       Family and friends are doing well. My friend Danielle from the ACT is going to be a mum. I never thought she would, but that just shows what I know. They’ll do great as parents for sure. Our friends Anna and Jamie have moved back to Perth, which is sad for me, but great for them. She never really warmed to Melbourne, like me and always longed to go back. Good for them! I also met with 2 ex-colleagues from Deakin, who work just 10 minutes away from where I work and it was really good to see them and catch up.

·       Over Christmas we’ve scoped out some of the towns near Torquay to see if we could live there and we probably could but found out that we are in no real hurry. Maybe in a few months we’ll revisit the plans, right now the drive is pleasant enough to make and moving seems like too much hassle

That’s it for this time around, make sure to enjoy summer and stay well. I’ll write again early March 😊

GGilbert

 

Ps. Below is the piece I wrote early December for my professional network about what it’s like to be an apprentice for me. I thought you might like to read it too.

 

Looking back on 1 year as an apprentice

 

It’s that time of year where many of us reflect and look back to take stock of the year gone by. I don’t think anyone will disagree that 2020 as an experience was solid ‘1/5 stars, would-not-recommend-where-is-the-skip-button-on-this-thing?!’ nightmare material for most people. 

 

Thankfully, not so much for me. The trials and challenges I had this year were almost entirely of my own making. When I followed through on my career change from consultant to ‘tradie’ late 2019, I had no real clue what 2020 had in store. I would probably still have made the same choice, which is more of a testament to how much I had bottomed out than a reflection of how ‘courageous’ I am.

 

It’s been a while since I last wrote about my apprentice experience. And what a rollercoaster ride it’s been! A redirect from carpentry to cabinetry, one not-so-great job lost, one totally cool job gained and trade school being postponed so many times that even I lost the plot. I might have learned a thing or two and found some answers to hard questions along the way. Disclaimer: this is not your typical LinkedIn ‘look-at-how-totally-awesome-my-everything-is’ kind of write-up, so if that’s what you’re after, best stop reading now.

 

Did I make the right choice?

It wasn’t so much a choice as a necessary change. In that sense it feels right. I feel incredibly fortunate to have landed with Bombora Furniture in Torquay doing work that I like, in a beautiful environment, learning from a team of people who are both skilled and friendly. I have a lot of good and worthwhile things to look forward to. If my learning curve continues upwards like it has, I’ll be a skilled tradie in two to three years and will be one step closer to my ultimate goal of teaching new skills to disadvantaged people in regional Australia one day.

 

Would I do it again?

No. If for any weird and unforeseen reason I’d lose this apprenticeship, I’d likely go back to some kind of advisory work. The persistent feelings of incompetence, uncertainty, insecurity and being the least skilled person in the room are at times so overwhelming and almost physically painful that I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it. Well, at least I’ve learned a lot about myself, even if most of it is not pleasant or uplifting. And yes, it won’t kill me, but will it make me stronger? Or just stranger?

 

If you’re also thinking of changing careers, I highly recommend that you take as much time as you need to carefully consider all angles before moving forward. This is a decision you’ll have to make all by yourself and a path you mostly walk alone. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.

 

Here are 7 experiences that I thought worth sharing.

 

1.    What you did and who you were quickly becomes irrelevant

Especially early on, I found myself talking a lot about what I used to do in Change, what I got up to, what work situations and experiences I had, that sort of thing. After a while I got pretty annoyed with myself because it’s like talking about your ex to your new girlfriend on the first, second and third date. I now realise that was just me letting go of a persona that I created from certain parts of me over the past six years. My hands can only take instructions from one persona at a time, so it really was time to retire that version of me. He seemed tired and a bit over it all anyway. Changing careers allows you to create a new persona of your best parts to bring to work, if you’re willing to give it time to emerge and don’t just keep filling it up with who you used to be. Lesson learned: There’s no need to fast-track the ‘getting to know me’ process, just let them make up their own mind and judge you by your actions over time.

 

2.    Prepare to feel incompetent and insecure most days

I truly love the work I do now, but thoroughly dislike being an apprentice. I thought I’d have this humble, grateful and open mindset, that I’d be happy to learn and experience new things, that every day would feel like I am building towards something. Yeah, nah... I spend most days getting in my own way, all the while feeling both annoyed, insecure and incompetent because I am not allowed do certain things, feel like people are watching my every move, get the simplest things wrong, and don’t understand things as they were intended when explained. It’s not humbling, it’s humiliating and tells me my ego is more fragile than I’d like to admit. It sucks. But I chose this, so it’s up to me to change my response to the situation, not the other way around. Lesson learned: THIS is probably what people (unwittingly?) really mean when they say that it’s sooo brave of me to change careers.

 

3.    Have a story ready on the ‘why’ of your career change

Lots of people change careers later in life, but the (crazy) ones doing it voluntarily are still a small minority overall, so you’ll always be a bit of a curious novelty for others. I am not great at explaining things on a good day and often end up waving my hands around and making weird analogies. After 12 months I’ve told the story of my career change ‘why’ so many times, I now have it down to: “I didn’t like what I was doing as an organisational consultant anymore, always wanted to work with my hands and figured I’d give the trades a try. One year later, here I am.” That seems to satisfy most people and works well enough for job interviews and motivation letters too.

Lesson 1 learned: having an explainer story saves time, provides context and makes people relate to your experience. Lesson 2 learned: literally no one has said to me: “But consultancy is such a fun and fulfilling thing to spend your time and life on!

 

4.    The money is what the money is

$45,000, that’s what it is in year 1, about $60,000 in year 3. That’s it. And it seems about right. You have no skill, no pace, need help constantly, interrupt the flow of others and really can’t add much value other than doing some maintenance, simple tasks and cleaning. To put things into perspective, you’re still getting paid as much a QUALIFIED disability support worker or junior social worker. Yes, taking a $75-100,000 pay cut takes some time to adjust to, but it’s certainly possible, depending on what you are prepared to give up or go without. I have near-zero responsibility for anything, one (!) 20-minute meeting a week, no deadlines to speak of and a healthy (be it dusty) workplace with a great view and team, that allows me to make new mistakes every day to learn from. Is that worth $100,000? It is to me and fits the choices my partner and I made earlier in life. Lesson reaffirmed: Some people are so poor, all they have is money.

 

5.    You’ll learn most things in reverse

I’ve always liked processes and finding out how things work. Cabinet making is like LEGO, but with timber. And very sharp tools. And saw dust. Okay, it’s nothing like LEGO, but the principle is the same. You have a picture of the end result on the box/drawing and then you figure out the steps in between to get there from a set of building blocks/timber boards. One of my jobs is to oil and polish the finished products my colleagues make. This teaches me to ‘see with my hands’, notice joint types, pick up on ways to create features, solve problems and read timber (that’s a thing…). Without those basics, I wouldn’t know what to look for, what to do or where to begin even if I had the drawings and unlimited time but seeing and ‘finishing’ the end result at least gives me a frame of reference for what’s possible. Lesson learned: Sometimes backwards is the only way forward.

 

6.    Finding an apprenticeship is the worst part

Tradies are notorious for not showing up on time, not returning calls, rescheduling and changing plans at the last minute. From the inside, I now understand that often there are good reasons for these things happening. But from my previous life, I also know that a 1-line text or 30 second voicemail message makes a big difference in keeping people on-side. Then again, I’ve met some truly wonderful and inspiring people during my job search. There are businesses out there who are willing to give a mature age career changer a go, some even prefer to work with mature agers!

 

Unfortunately, the job application process is just like in Change and equally soul crushing in its apparent indifference and evident opportunism. You can be as philosophical about it as you want but getting only six replies (all rejections) to 37 applications is not a great experience for most people. Age discrimination, illegal wage practices, unsafe tasks and downright dangerous situations, it’s still happening in 2020. I am sure my experience is not unique and maybe even more positive than for others. Despite all that application effort, I ended up finding my first job through a LinkedIn connection and my second through my TAFE-teacher.

 

Frustratingly, it was the impression I made on my referrers and their willingness to vouch for me, that made the difference, not my CV, my motivation or my experience. Understanding that this is how things still work is just so frustrating. Why even bother to get qualified, right?  In the end it still seems to come down to who and not what you know. Lesson learned: Don’t take it personal, they don’t know you as a person, stay with it and eventually you’ll find something that fits well enough. It takes luck, persistence and flexibility, but you’ll get there. Keep looking for a place that makes you feel valued.

 

7.    TAFE is not great (so far)

Teachers going missing, classes getting dropped, wait times for using equipment, unclear and incomplete instructions, faulty technology and quite literally the worst back-office administrative processes I have ever seen. None of this was in the brochure. I should have known what I was in for and run for the door when during induction one of the course managers said: “Welcome to the VU family!” COVID messed things up scheduling-wise and I get that, but you’d think that 6-8 months would be enough to come up with a plan or at least a clue. No? What’s that? It’s even worse in other places?! I am not sure that is even possible, but okay… Good thing my teachers are skilled, friendly and actually good at teaching or it’d just be a paid-for painful and unpleasant chore.   

Lesson learned: The TAFE system is seriously broken and no amount of social media happy posting can fix that. But it’s the only way to get qualified, so try to focus on the good bits.

 

I hope this write-up paints a realistic picture of what it’s like to be a mature age apprentice for anyone considering that path. Most days are good, some are great, some are sh*t, such is life. I’ll write some more later, right now kitchens need building and floors need sweeping!