Letter to Marlis Jan-Feb 2023

 

Springfield Lakes, 10 March 2023

Hi Marlis,

We’re already in the 3rd month of the year, where did the time go?!   I hope you are doing well and have been keeping out of trouble 😊. It’s been another two eventful months, so let’s get right into it!

Yumi’s new volunteering, sports and work

Yumi’s taken up a coordinator role for a greyhound organisation called: Love A Greyhound, or LAG for short. All of a sudden, it’s a flurry of activity around the house with dogs coming to visit, dogs needing transport, fosters, adopters and delivery people picking up and dropping off dogs, people to talk to and problems to solve. I think she’s enjoying it, but it’s pretty full-on for these first couple of weeks. The lady she’s taking over from is moving out of the area and the other lady is on holidays so instead of 2-3 dogs to look after, she’s organising 5-6! 

Her role is to organise a network of foster carers on the southside of Brisbane, get the dogs to them and then try to get them adopted. The people are all equally lovely, just not quite as organised as Yumi, but they are all volunteers and are doing the best they can. It’s interesting for me to see how this must have been Yumi’s experience of my SES volunteering in Melbourne. She’s gone parts of the weekend, lots of ‘emergencies’ and so many text messages and email and phone calls you’d be thinking they are planning the invasion of a small country! 

It’s good fun to have the dogs come and visit. Well, most of the times, the last one had fleas! She got a good wash and treatment with drops and then stayed outside for the next 6-8 hours with Dash, who looked very unimpressed that he also had to stay outside while he did nothing wrong! It was all sorted in a few hours, and they got along well enough, we washed all the blankets and pillows and that was it for the fleas 😊. 

She’s also taken up sports again, but this time in a group setting. She’s pretty fit already from all the walks with Dash, but is of course using different muscles jumping and dancing around to music so there might have been some (a lot…) of complaints about muscle aches and sore legs… Just wait until she starts her new thing in April where she’ll be joining a dance group who plan to do a performance at the end of the year. Apparently, it’s a very big do of a competition for amateur dancers who put on a whole show and compete for best performance. I am sure she’ll have fun, I am also very glad she’s getting out and about a bit more.

Work has been quieter than she likes, but it does allow her to spend more time on volunteering and sports and the work she is doing, she really enjoys. With our combined income we’re doing just fine, so let her have some fun for a change because she’s always working, working, working. In the meantime, she’s building her network from the ground again, that takes time. She wrote a submission for a government consultation on things I won’t bore you with, but the cool part was that her work got quoted four times, which means it made good sense and helped the discussion along a fair bit. Go Yumi!

Clean up Australia Day

We took part in the Clean up Australia Day activities in the area last weekend and that was good fun. I go around the neighbourhood most mornings during the week with my trusty litter gripper and plastic bag and sometimes I find things that are too big or dirty to carry. On the day, they set up a collection point and stand in various places, so Yumi and I drove around the place picking up the big items first (wooden pallet, small tent, office chair, big plastic tub and various car parts) to drop those off and then went to a more remote area where things just end up but don’t really get cleaned up by council. I think 50% of all the rubbish collected that day came from us, ha-ha, they looked very impressed. We were just happy it was no longer polluting the environment. It’s pretty cool to see people in kayaks out on the lakes pulling up rubbish and so many kids having fun scavenging too, that’s how it gets done! I also signed up for a casual volunteer role to go help clean up areas, plant trees and do other nature-related stuff, sounds like fun. It’s likely nothing comes from it, because these volunteer groups are not very organised most of the time, but I’d be happy to spend the time if they need some help.

Since moving to Springfield Lakes I’ve picked up and handed in 1,215 plastic bottles and packages that raised $121,50 for another Greyhound charity. That’s money that would have gone in the bin otherwise. It’s a very neat system where you can drop off your collected bottles and containers at collection points, they get scanned by a machine and in the end you can decide if you’d like to keep the money or give it to a charity. I have a huge bag that I keep the bottles in outside (they stink quite a bit sometimes) and every 4 weeks or so I hand in about 200+. It keeps the plastic out of the environment and puts money in the charity’s pockets, what’s not to love, right?

Marine Science 

You might remember from last time that I am looking at starting a new degree, in Marine Science, with the idea to one day become involved in conservation of our coast and waters. There’s quite a lot to figure out and I am glad that I didn’t sign up to start in February. Now I have the time to find out how it will work, studying full-time next to work, it’s been 10 years since my last degree, a lot has probably changed. I don’t think it will be an issue doing the two things at the same time, it’s more that I want to be sure that I am making the right choice. What university is the best option? Is this a new career or just an interest? How much will it all cost? What should I do to prepare? What jobs are out there? Will I need this to work in the field or is it better to spend the money on getting experience? So many questions. The way I see it, if you want to be a Marine Scientist, Queensland is one of the best places in the world to do it, so let’s see how far I go!

 I’ve started reading up on the different aspects of Marine Science and have been listening to a podcast (recorded radio episodes) titled: “So, you want to be a Marine Biologist”. The lady who started it wanted to share what it’s really like to work in Marine Science. I’ve listened to about 50 episodes on my morning walks so far and I have learned an enormous amount already and there’s another 50 episodes to go 😊. The main take-away so far is that there is no ‘one path’, you’ll have to work at it, have a bit of luck, get to know people and it helps if you know how to scuba dive. As it happens, those are all things I have or know how to do! I’ve got until May to decide and enrol. Normally I never take that long to decide anything, by then I will surely have figured it out.

Work

It’s been interesting times at work, with lots happening in different places. My director and another manager colleague left 2 days apart in mid-February. Just this week we heard that our new director is about to sign on but will only start in June because she has a 3-month notice period. We seem to be doing fine since January when our previous director sort of checked out, so we should be alright for the next 3 months too. 

It doesn’t impact on my role too much, other than that the team are very busy and hardly have time to think for 5 minutes, let alone think about change management. I had a good chat with my colleague Daphne, who is also Dutch and now acting as our director and we agreed that I am not really doing the work I was hired for, but operate more as an executive officer, running small projects and looking after things no one wants to do or has time for.

I am not sure how long that remains fun, but we’ll see where it goes.

I finally got a chance to speak to my boss’ boss (Chief Operations Officer) about the plan to set up a change management office, but the way things are going with budgets and the fact that it’s been 3 weeks since and I haven’t heard back yet tells me this will not happen. I thought I’d be more upset about it, but I get it, everyone is under a lot of pressure to not spend money and I am asking for a lot of money and people. It’s a good idea to set up a special office for change, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. Let’s wait and see, I expect to hear from him somewhere this month and get asked to implement some watered-down version of the plan. Maybe he’ll surprise me, but I’ll be surprised if it’s something else than the ‘light version’ of the original😊.

The project I am supposed to be working on for the past 6 months, still hasn’t quite started. As in, the contract with the supplier is still not signed, but we’re doing what we can as a project team to prepare for what’s about to come at us. Craig, the new project manager has started and he’s a bit of a special case, but will get the job done and that’s all I really care about. I am not too busy most days and get to do what I want, with no one getting in my way, let’s not complain about that too much, shall we? 

Meanwhile the start of the academic year has come and gone and it’s just the best time to be at campus. The sense of excitement, all the new students who have no idea where they are going or what they are doing, new friendships being made, everything hustling and bustling, it’s a lot of fun.

The mentoring program I am helping with is running well and in a few weeks it’s already wrap-up time for the pilot program that helps us decide if the program is worth repeating. I am pretty sure we’ll do it again, but much better and with less stress the second time around. 

It was International Women’s Day this week and the volunteer group I am part of organised an event with a very engaging speaker who shared stories about her career path and some tips and inspiration for other women in the workplace. Universities are already pretty good when it comes to equal rights and opportunities, but there is still a lot of improvement. The invite clearly said that everyone, women and men, were welcome and there I was, the only man amongst 50 or so women. 

I felt so awkward and out of place, but more than a few women thanked me for coming and being an ally. I used to be very vocal about women’s rights but got a lot quieter when I figured out that right now, as a white, middle-aged, wealthy man you can’t win or even play for a draw. Speak up and you’re told to sit down and be quiet. Sit down and be quiet and you’re told you are part of the problem because you’re not speaking up. Go figure. I don’t mind it too much though, it’s true, men have been at the front long enough and what’s a few decades of reversed roles after a few millennia of male-organised repression, right?

Yumi’s birthday

It was Yumi’s birthday two weeks ago and now we’re both 44 again until I turn 45 in October. I had organised some greyhound-themed gifts from an artist called Richard Skipworth. His drawings are often cartoons and so hilarious to greyhound owners (and probably other people too). I got her two t-shirts, two mugs, a few writing pads for her Greyhound volunteering tasks and a glossary of cartoons that make both of us laugh out loud every time we read through it.

We went to the city and visited the Queensland Museum where they had a large display on about Australian wildlife. It was beautiful and sad at the same time. Great to see the diversity and learn about the animals I had never seen before, but sad because a lot of them would have been killed just to be put on display. Well, at least the museum was free, haha. 

We also stopped by the Museum of Modern Art and that was very…modern? A lot of the stuff goes right over my head but there’s always something new to see and I don’t have to “get it” to enjoy it. Kind of excited about the dinosaur exhibition that the Queensland Museum will put on from next week because in my heart I am still 4 years old and loving dinosaurs 😊. 

After that we had lunch with a Change Management contact of mine from Canada who happened to be in town for work. We had great vegan burgers at a very tiny burger place and then had to do one more greyhound task for Yumi’s volunteering. Then it was back home, watched a movie and that was the birthday done. Oh and of course there were heaps of cards and messages and all that good stuff, a good day indeed!

Dash

Dash has truly been living his best life. He’s now been with us for 6 months and that’s 6 more months of life than he would have got if we hadn’t taken him. Everyone is feeling pretty good about that outcome! Every day is the best day of his life, always excited to go out, to eat snacks, to sniff trees, snooze for hours, hang around Yumi all day and meet other dogs. And then the next day we do it all again. He likes almost all dogs, aside from Labradors and Golden Retrievers somehow. No idea why, he might just have had a bad experience at some point but as soon as he sees one, he’s not happy. He’s stopped chasing most other things, including brush turkey and water birds, so that’s real progress. 

We went for a walk in the city with a whole group of about 12 other greyhounds and he was really enjoying himself. We were quite surprised to see him develop an interest in water recently because only a while ago he was afraid of even a shallow puddle but nowadays he’s knee-deep or more into the lake and trying to drink it all while standing in it. Here are some pictures of Mister Dash snoozing on his sofa (with his eyes open), cuddling with Yumi, on the big sofa with his favourite toy, Mrs. Prawn (not to be confused with his second-favourite toy, Mr. Lobster) in a staring contest with a turkey on the fence outside the window (behind the plant) and up to his belly in the lake nearby. 

Change Management Institute (CMI)

I dove headfirst back into a role at the Change Management Institute that I was part of two times before already. Each time I left because leadership was getting a bit strange and crazy, but three times might be the charm, haha. The lady in charge is very good to work with and I get to run events and do what I want, which always works very well for me. We just did a round of networking drinks and I am always amazed at how many people I actually know and who know me. 

Then in two weeks we’re hosting a breakfast event called a Lean Coffee, which is just a fancy excuse to talk about change management and drink overpriced coffee (or tea in my case). And then right on the end of the month I am helping a set of friends launch their book about change management to a global audience. I read it and it’s really good, so I was happy to jump in! This is the sort of thing I enjoy doing and as long as the politics stay out of my way, happy to get involved!

SES

After nearly five months I’ve finally started with my new SES unit. It’s all a bit strange and unfamiliar and very familiar at the same time. The coolest part is that my SES mate Michael from Victoria now also lives in Springfield Lakes and we’re SES buddies here as well. It’s good fun to go to training nights, but a bit annoying that everything they are telling us I already know and have taught to others. I am happy to wait and see what happens after the initial training that they have to do. If it turns out that I have to retrain everything, I might apply to the fire service or do something else altogether. I think it’ll be fine, this is just something to get through. 

All the same, I’ll be back in orange soon and then we’ll see how busy things get. They have a very different profile than my previous unit, which means they respond to different requests for assistance and different things happen in the area. There is still a lot to learn for me and I consider everything else just a good refresher and an opportunity to work on my knot tying skills.

Small stuff

1. The Netherlands trip in July is slowly taking shape, but Yumi’s dad is not exactly in a hurry to book accommodation, but hopefully by the end of the month things will start moving.

2. After 6 months in Queensland, it’s safe to say we think we made the right decision to move, especially now that we’re getting more involved in the community, it’s a good place to live.

3. We’re planning to get more serious about scuba diving because we miss it and I also plan to buy a second-hand kayak, more on that in the next letter, I hope.

4. I’ve also started looking at who might be the best plastic surgeon to do an operation on my upper chest to remove the excess skin from when I was much heavier. It’s not cheap, but I think I will feel much better when it’s gone. If it’s anything like the operation on my belly region I will never have regrets!

5. My Father second-oldest brother, Henk, passed away at 81 from cancer last week. It was a long time coming and he held out for a long bit, but in the end the sickness won and he could fight it no more. They made him comfortable in his last hours, which is probably the best any of us could hope for when it’s our time to go, I guess.

6. I was so excited last week, when I cycled home there was an echidna just minding its own business and digging in the earth looking for snacks right next to the bike path. It looked really unimpressed by me just looking at it and just waddled along. It’s the first time I’ve seen one in a built-up area, very cool. We also saw our first red-belly snake, so we stayed well away from that one and Dash is not keen on them too, which is exactly how we like it!

7. I’ve had my bike repaired a few times now because I didn’t want to buy a new one, but by now everything but the frame is new, and I might have been better off buying a new one. Oh well, it’s good as new for real now 😊.

Okay, that’s most of it I think, I’ll be back early May again to tell you about our adventures of the past two months. 

Be well and stay warm now that Autumn is coming!

Gilbert

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