Letter to Marlis Nov-Dec 2022

 

Springfield Lakes, 8 January 2023

 

Hi Marlis,

Happy New Year! I know we only spoke on the phone this week, but there’s no harm in repeating new year wishes I reckon. I hope that 2023 will see you healthy and comfortable with lots of time in the garden and sunshine and not too many kids visiting haha.

It’s always so typical that you often call me when I literally just mentioned you the same day or the day before to someone! It’s always good to hear you, so feel free to call me when you want, or when you feel a bit down or out of it.

The past 2 months have been a lot more relaxing than the ones before, but like always, a lot has happened still. Every time I write I think that the next two months will be less busy, but they hardly ever are! Okay, let’s dive into what has happened over the past two months.

 

SES Ipswich

Technically we don’t live in the Brisbane area, Springfield Lakes belongs to Ipswich City, so I’ll be joining SES Goodna on 7 February. There was an information night on 6 December and it was a good opportunity to see their unit and meet some of the people. It’s very similar in style and approach to SES Victoria, but they respond to more weather and flood related jobs and do less trees and trampolines. Oh well, you can’t have it all! They seem to have comparable equipment and most of my training will still be applicable. I’ll just go through the same training as everyone else as far as I am concerned and that’ll give me a good idea about the differences and I’ll get to learn about my new crew mates as well. I hope to get some training on boats and water stuff because that’s still missing from my skillset but they seemed happy to have a trained up person come join them.

The unit commander seems like a friendly guy and they have 40 members, which is double the amount of what Altona SES used to have, so that’ll be a good experience, not having to be on every job. It’ll also be an adjustment to not be 2 minutes away from the unit, more like 15 minutes, 13 if traffic lights are friendly. Another really cool thing is that my SES buddy Michael from Victoria will move to Springfield Lakes in just 2 week and live just 2.5km away. He’ll also join the SES Goodna unit so we can go out on jobs together again!

 It feels like I’ve waited forever to get started and it HAS been six months since I left the Altona unit, so I am very much looking forward to getting back into orange! The first 3 months of training should be fun. We’ll train on Tuesdays first, away from the main group to focus on the training bit and then after three months join the rest of the crew to train on Wednesdays, which always seemed like a better day to train for me anyway.

In some final SES news, I am getting an official medal! The National Emergency Medal, for the work I did early 2020 with the fires and stuff. Typical SES that it takes nearly 3 years to get there and It feels a bit like getting all the credit for doing very little, but it’s a nice recognition of everything else I did for SES. I’ll put it in the box with the rest of the certificates and accolades. Not that I am not proud of my work, but I just don’t have a lot of events and opportunities where I would wear a medal!

The new table

After being a furniture maker’s apprentice for a bit I vowed never to buy mass produced furniture again if we could afford it and fortunately we can! Early September we designed our very own dining table, found somebody to make it for us and we even got it earlier than expected. We did a lot of furniture shopping for chairs and a new sofa too and despite the horror stories of delivery times taking up to 6 months, we had everything in house within weeks.

The furniture maker enjoyed working out our table design and told us that he hadn’t made anything like it in eight years, so it’s truly one of a kind! It’s really not that special if you ask me, it’s still a square slab with two loops for legs, but the legs stand at an 82 degree angle and it’s completely made of blackbutt timber instead of getting the standard metal black legs and now it just looks more natural I think. I like the look and feel of it, even though the finish is a bit rougher than I would have made it when I worked at Bombora as an apprentice, it’s a very nice table that can stay with us for the rest of our lives if we want.

It was a bit of an adventure to get the van organised and it really only just fit into it. Nowadays you can organise it all on your phone and 15 minutes from our house is the pick up and drop off. So we go there and the van isn’t there, the previous person was late, but when I called the company they said it was parked near a servo nearby. So we drive there, no van again. I call them again and they tell me, no, it’s at the original spot now. We go back and there it is, turns out they were fuelling up, haha. We arrived a bit later than planned but Ben the furniture maker had a nifty lifting gadget that made loading the 50 kg table into the van super easy. When we got home the unloading and manoeuvring to get it into the house went a lot better than expected and the chairs matched really well too! Have a look at the pictures and see for yourself.

Garden set restoration

A few weeks earlier we picked up a garden set for just $90, six chairs, cushions and a table. But because we couldn’t take it apart we ended up hiring a van and all in all the full set ended up costing $300, with the staining and sandpaper included. Still, you can’t get a new set like it for that money and we’re trying to be conscious about not just buying new things, but reusing existing things that are still fine. Over the course of a few weeks, listening to the radio and working early in the morning when it’s not 600 degrees outside, we sanded back the table and four of the chairs (two were not in great shape and we put them in our shed as backups) and stained them in a light colour so they can live on for a few more years. It was nice to work with timber and restore it to its former better self, even it’s pretty low quality wood and not in the best condition anymore. We sanded it all by hand and now it truly feels like OUR garden set.

New licenses and registration

A few weeks ago we finally got our new licenses and car registration sorted. You’re supposed to do it in the first three months you move and technically we were in the clear but I was expecting it to take forever and having to wait for hours. I don’t know why I thought that because I’ve never spent more than 45 minutes at the place where you sort these things, but we were in and out under 30 minutes with our new license plates that took all of 5 minutes to swap out. It’s always so weird to see your own car with new plates after having the old ones for nearly five years. It did feel like we finally truly arrived in Queensland now and that we’re more or less official Queenslanders now, for better or worse, haha. It felt a bit strange to not have a driver’s license for a few weeks, just a piece of paper but of course we never get asked for it in general and we weren’t stopped in the three weeks it took to get to us. Turns out we DID need it for renting the rental van for the table, but I sort of lied and used images of my no longer valid Victorian license, not great, but it all worked out  and no cars were harmed in the process!

 

Dash’s adventures

Dash has been living his best life as usual, snoozing the day away without a care in the world, following Yumi around wherever she goes and being a lovely friendly dog every day. It’s just the best to see how excited he is to get started every day, knowing he’s going outside and on the best days he even gets to go by car. He’s just a ball of energy from the moment Yumi’s alarm goes off and doesn’t stop until we get into the car 30 minutes later.

Everything is just one big adventure for him and we laugh at hm all the time because he startles really easily and is afraid of his on shadow, rocks and branches just lying there, paper rustling, frogs, birds, suspicious piles of leaves and strange sounds. Near one of the lakes there’s a little ramp where he could walk into the water and he did it one time, but most of the time he sees the tiniest little fish in there and he’s backing away like he’s about to be attacked by a killer whale! We always just tell him he’s okay and we don’t mind that he's careful, at least he won’t charge after snakes or toads and get poisoned.

We found a greyhound walking group in the neighbourhood and he really enjoyed meeting some of his long-nosed friends. The other owners are all friendly people as usual and their doggos are just as friendly. Compared to the massive 25-40 dog walking group in Victoria, It’s only a small group of 5-10 dogs, but that’s enough for him to have a good time and learn from them how to dog. He had a great time and even went into the water with the rest of them for a few seconds, our hero!  We took him for a walk on a nearby beach and it’s always so interesting to see that he’s equal parts excited to be there, but also has no real idea what to do, so he just jumps around and wags his tail real hard before quickly retreating and calling it a day, haha, he will never be a sea dog, that’s for sure.

With all the long morning walks and walking up and down the neighbourhood hills his leg muscles are really bulking up and he looks like he’s retired from racing just last week. We’ve been monitoring his weight because he could do with 1-2 kilos more, but so far he’s still around 37kg while he could easily be 38.5 to 39. We give him snacks and treats but he just burns those calories off straight away I guess. We’ll have to look for a different treat solution because the ones we have now (which he loves) cost $800 per year. Per year!! They are supposed to help him clean his teeth, but that’s just crazy if you ask me, Yumi thinks it’s fine but even I don’t have $16 of snacks per week…Turns out that an annual teeth clean at the vet is ‘just’ $300, so maybe that’s a better way to keep his teeth in shape and save $500!

Christmas break and New Year

I had a break from work from 23 December to 3 January and it was nice to just hang around the house a bit and not get up to very much. Well, our version of not doing much at least. We still went on day trips, did some clothes shopping in the city, cleaned up the garage and offices, built a feeding bowl stand for Dash, donated blood, went on lots of walks to pick up litter and did some video gaming and puzzling while reading books (not at the same time 😊).

We also found The Dutch Club, just 15 minutes from our home. It’s a community volunteer initiative for social engagement and they even have a little store with Dutch groceries, candy and other food items. Not that we NEED them, but it’s nice to be able to get those if you want to. We got some specific herbs, condiments, different kinds of Lebkuchen and a small bag of ‘spicenuts’ (English doesn’t really have words for these things).  

I noticed that life really starts earlier here. It’s light at 4.30am, which suits me really well and people are out and about earlier during the day as well. Must be a temperature related thing, I think. We went on a day-trip to Bribie Island, which is an hour and bit north of where we live and you can get there by car so we brought Dash too. It was quite busy already at 7.30 in the morning! We did really enjoy being near the ocean just as much as he did and it’s nice to see different parts of Brisbane too. It’s nice to just walk and chat a bit, but when we bring Dash it’s like having kids, you’re constantly watching him and laughing at his antics.

We were fearing that there would be lots of fireworks and that Dash would freak out, but it really was a non-event. We did stay up until 12 but there were maybe 2-3 pops in the distance and that was about it. There was some organised fireworks earlier at 9pm or so, but that lasted all of five minutes and Mr. Snooze-a-lot didn’t even really wake up for that. It’s not that he’s afraid, but he gets curious and walk around the house looking for where the noise comes from. We were just happy that nothing happened and went to bed at 12.05, haha.

Yumi’s work

Yumi got to travel for work in November and December and did some client work that she really enjoyed. I love how she makes her own way, finds new people to connect with and does work she enjoys. I see so much potential in the things she does or could do, but I’ve learned over time that she’ll does what she wants to do and I don’t need to advise her in any way 😊. All the time building her network since we arrived is now starting to pay off, with the new year come new budgets and strategic plans, so she’ll probably be busy in the months to come. That’s the great thing about being self-employed and making good money when you work, you don’t need a lot to get a good pay check. I am curious to see what she’ll be doing in the next few months with new and existing clients. She tells me she’s working on a new product/service in her head, but isn’t ready to share it yet, I reckon it’ll be good and useful as usual!

Going back to school

I recently realised that it’s been 20 years since I got my bachelor’s degree and this year it will be 10 years since I got my master’s degree as well. Of course I did a few Cert-4’s and other kinds of training but nothing in the traditional sense of ‘study’ with just my brain. I’ve been thinking for a bit about maybe studying emergency management, or environmental protection and I’ve landed on Marine Biology. It’ll be a three year commitment and not exactly cheap ($25-30,000 all-in) but with some tax write-offs and fee-help from work I might be looking at 40-50% off, fingers crossed. It’s a bit too early to get excited as I’d only be starting in July, but it’s something to look forward to. Perhaps there’s a new career for me in it, living near the coast, working with marine life. Some days I feel like I am too old for another career change, but then again, I’ll be working for another 20-25 years, so why not do something that helps save the planet and change things for the better, right? I ask myself what you’d say and you’d probably tell me to go and do it because I have nothing to lose. Worst case scenario I learn a lot about marine biology, that’s not such a bad thing to begin with.

 

Work stuff (University of Queensland -UQ)

Work has been busy in a good way. Nothing that I can’t handle, but lots of things happening as they do at any university.

·      First of all, my boss is leaving for family reasons after a year in the role. His daughter is starting university in NSW and needs some more support than anticipated and their plans for the family moving over to QLD never happened due to Covid so it makes sense. It just throws a small spanner in the works for our division plans, but let’s wait and see who the next person is and what they intend to do.

·      I’ve temporarily got a person reporting to me, Loretta. She’s a very experienced administrative person and needs no looking after whatsoever, but she just needs to have someone to ask questions off and I happened to be around when they needed a manager. She’s getting things done and then some and I just stay out of her way!

·      The new risk system project is going as planned, slow but steady and a little less frustrating every week. We’re getting I don’t have that much to do other than keeping things organised but that’s not too hard, we make a pretty good team overall and everyone wants the new system to arrive sooner than later so no one is actively working against us. It also looks like we’ll have a new project manager by the end of the months. He will replace the current one who is struggling to get the job done and it’s starting to wear on everyone a bit, so that’s good for all of us.

·      I’ve put my hand up as a volunteer for the UQ Professionals Network (colleagues networking together) to organise a mentoring program and to host some networking events for colleagues to get to know more people outside their immediate team. Should be fun and it’s a good way to get to know more people myself too.

·      I got to deliver a presentation to about 125 colleagues on change management in a very nice venue in Brisbane City Hall early December. I definitely enjoyed it and it looked like they did too. I got a nice box of tea as a gift and met a lady who wanted to practice her Dutch (she’s English, married to a Dutchman) and we had a good time.

·      Still waiting to present my big plan for change management to the big boss, but maybe next week or early February, it’s all getting a bit ridiculous, but that’s just how things go at a university with many priorities

 

 Things to be thankful for

As I said on the phone already, Yumi and I have this tradition at the end of each year to list everything we’re grateful for and as promised, these are the main things in no particular order:

 

1.  Adopting Dash
2.    Getting an article published in an actual business journal
3.    Road tripping to QLD in January
4.    Visiting Marlis in January AND September
5.    Getting a new bed, table and sofa
6.    Moving to QLD by ourselves with no issues
7.    Being voted SES crew member 2022 by my unit mates
8.    Deploying to the floods in March and SES work in general
9.    Doing work with Alan on Right on Board
10.                   Being self-employed and doing work I like
11.                   Visiting the Netherlands in May
12.                   Lots of greyhound walks
13.                   Working on creative projects with Peter
14.                   The first 5 weeks by myself in Brisbane
15.                   So many good books getting read
16.                   Being part of the Change Days conference team
17.                   The Bad Change Book doing really well
18.                   Donating lots of money to charity
19.                   Guest appearances on podcasts and conferences
20.                   Friends and family are doing well
21.                   Regular video chats with our parents and friends
22.                   Doing a good job at Swinburne
23.                   Finding a new job with UQ
24.                   Fostering 4 greyhounds (Fraser, Paddy, Danger, Suzy)
25.                   Completing my AICD Directors course
26.                   Delivering Change tools
27.                   Finally getting glasses and seeing properly again
28.                   Making healthier eating and drinking choices
29.                   Getting my teeth fixed
30.                   All the new friends and connections made over the year

 

Small stuff

·      I’m still not drinking soda, which didn’t prove all that difficult. I’m now drinking water, tea and cordial and that works just fine too, just had to get used to not having so much caffeine in my system. I hope my teeth are happy too 😊.

·      Life in Springfield Lakes is still pretty good, we have the parks and lakes and the stars at night, all the shops we need and keeping the yard tidy isn’t too much of a chore. Overall, life is good. We had some big rains and got to see the water management systems work overtime, which I think is pretty cool and it works so well!

·      I am still working out in the garage 3 days a week in the early morning and I am seeing some progress and I feel much fitter. Not much weight loss just yet, but that’s fine. I hope to drop 6 kg in the next 6 months and once I see what I look like, I might still consider getting some skin removal plastic surgery done on my chest and inner thighs, but that’s a long way away and first I’ll have to get to 82-83 kg, haha.

·      I’ve been reading this massively thick book by a guy called Studs Terkel, titled ‘Working’. It made me think of you a lot. It’s from 1970, when you would be working and building a life in Australia and even though the book is a collection of 100+ American regular people’s jobs and how they experience them, it’s such a good an human read, you feel like you’re right there in the room/office/workshop/truck with them. It just shows that some things got better, but a lot of the things they grappled with then, we still have the same issues in the workplace today.

·      I wrote this article on a website for change professionals and normally when I write that gets about 2,000 views and a few dozen likes (it’s an online platform where people can click a thumbs up button if they like what you write, like Facebook and Tik Tok, but for professional workers). This one on change fatigue got 27,000+ views and 300+ likes, so I clearly hit a nerve somehow. I am just busting some myths and telling people it’s okay to tell leaders no, to change a bit less or not at all to keep people healthy and sane. You’d probably say that’s not rocket science and I agree, but clearly people appreciated the message. It’s nice to feel like I am influencing the public debate a bit in my own little way.

·      The book is still going strong, nearly 600 copies sold and we’re now getting started on a smaller version with only 20 stories, called ‘Bad Sponsor’, with a new comic every two weeks or so. Let’s see how much we’ve learned from the first one 😊.

·      I got my bike (used to be my dad’s) completely serviced and fixed up for just $350. That’s so much cheaper than buying a new one and it’ll last me a good few more years still, yay!

Okay, that’s about it this time around, I’ll write again early March and I am sure there’ll be lots to tell you then.

Be well and stay cool as always,

Gilbert

Letter to Marlis Sep-Oct 2022

 

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

Letter to Marlis Jul-Aug 2022

 

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 21^st 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