I have mentioned in previous posts how much I am enjoying having a running coach and actually achieving results. To me it's an awesome process. Coach this is my goal, help me work to it! Coach - follow this program, provide feedback and work together. Ultimately, I am the one doing the work. But the coach is doing the assessment of how I am going and how to tweek the program based on the feedback I'm providing.
All of this reflection about my running coach led me to think, would I get the same result with a career coach? What things would I need to reflect on? How would they help me? What would they need to know about me in order to establish a good, effective relationship?
I'd love any readers to jump in with comments, thoughts etc regarding careers coaches as I really don't know much about them and how it all works!
Other than the running coach reflection bringing about these thoughts, I have recently been reflecting on where I want to be with my career - which brought me to the career coach thing.
The move to where I am now was where I needed to be at that time in my life. After 8 years, I'm not sure if this is still where I want to be. As my daughter gets older the focus changes. For a while it was all about family and it really still is, but it slowly starts creeping back towards what makes me happy. Well really it is still about making the family happy but the focus is shifting slightly.
I'm hitting the big 40 next year, is this the organisation I want to be working for? Is this the position I want to be working in? Is this the place I want to be living? Do I have gaps in my skills/knowledge that I want to fill, but can only be filled if I move to a different position in a different organisation? And always, the pull of family and friends in Qld is constant.
Sounds all very self absorbent, doesn't it? But I'm sure others have had these thoughts or are having them. I think it is good to reflect on where you are and where you want to be. I've been ignoring it for a while but I think now is as good as time as any to put myself out there and see what happens!
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Friday, June 15, 2012
Blog June Post 16 - Not Every Day is a Bright One
The IT saga continued yesterday with staff computer (and our back up) number 2 going down at Urunga branch. I feel pretty stupid about this one because I was trying to open a docx document and we only have word 2003 on our computers - sad I know but we don't have the funding to purchase a license to upgrade the library computers. So I thought I'd download open office - as I have done this before and it will then allow me to open the document. I can almost hear some of you sighing about doing this - because I'm sure there are other ways of opening docx documents but anyway this is the way I know. Please share if you know another way.
So I started downloading open office - and I noted the download was different to normal so I stopped it. Apparently a bit too late because this stupid free games program had loaded and it decided that it would stuff the computer up by not allowing any programs to launch.
Phone call to our wonderful IT officer and he talked me through starting in safe mode and then trying to do system restore - hmmm system restore not working. Hmmm big problem. So he has given me some instructions that I will follow, along with the help of my IT savvy husband who has more than once saved a computer from a nasty virus/trojan, over the weekend - when we get time to go down to the library - to see if we can salvage this computer.
Unfortunately, it means my staff member who is working there today until lunch will have to manually note all loans and will have no system to search or reserve. Not to worry, we have all been in tha predicament before but it reminds us how much we rely on technology and how we have really made it hard for when our system isn't working for us to do our job.
A positive out of the day is that we decided to splurge and go out for dinner to the newly refurbished Club Urunga (Bowls Club). What a shock to be asked for a licenses when we walked in the door - or some other form of ID. Thank goodness we are local as they let my husband slip in without ID as he wasn't driving or paying so he didn't have his wallet on him. He did have to get signed in by a member though!!
It was also lucky I had run into a lady that works there during the day and mentioned we were coming in that night. She asked if I had booked - to which I replied - no do we have to? She said yes as Friday nights are pretty busy. She then reassured me she was heading over there now so would put our names down. I'm double shocked now as this is Urunga with a population under 2000.
Anyway, we were seated by the lady I know and there was another lady who was taking bookings and payments that I also knew and then a few people that sat on adjoining tables that I also knew. And then hubby saw some people he knew and so on. It's nice to eat out and feel part of the community. Of course, my head starts going on tagents of possibly ideas to partner with the libraries. But more on that later when I've mushed them around a bit.
The meal was lovely - very filling. My daughter was desperate to check out the kids playground - you can see it from the road and she has been hounding us since the club opened. So in the freezing night we went outside and she got to play around for a while. There was a big tunnel slide but she wouldn't go on it because it was pitch dark inside!!
Once my husband is working again - he took his first steps toward this by getting his OHS White Card - we hope to do the out for dinner in town thing a bit more often. We thought he had a job lined up after that but he's been told he will need his Blue Card (stop/go batten) first. So because all these tickets/cards cost money we have to do it bit by bit when we can afford it. But we are working towards it and that is a good thing.
On a side note, I waited on the phone for over half hour to talk to family assistance about child care benefit as we want to put our daughter in vacation care this holidays. The main reason is that the vacation care is on it's final chance to prove that we need the service in Urunga. So they have to get at least 15 kids booked in this holidays or else they will not offer it again. You see once my hubby starts work we will be needing this service so while we don't need it now I am going to book her in for some days just to show support - and I think she will really enjoy it as they have some great activities planned.
So after half hour waiting on the phone - I can't believe this is accepted as customer service - I finally found out some good news about our entitlements. Basically we won't be paying a lot for vacation care.
Back to vacation care - I had a few emails back and forth with the organiser and suggested that if it is to keep going - which of course it will - we should look at where we can use the library in the program. So I'm putting it out there to my fellow professionals - have you worked with a vacation care provider to offer some library based activities and if so, what were they?
So I started downloading open office - and I noted the download was different to normal so I stopped it. Apparently a bit too late because this stupid free games program had loaded and it decided that it would stuff the computer up by not allowing any programs to launch.
Phone call to our wonderful IT officer and he talked me through starting in safe mode and then trying to do system restore - hmmm system restore not working. Hmmm big problem. So he has given me some instructions that I will follow, along with the help of my IT savvy husband who has more than once saved a computer from a nasty virus/trojan, over the weekend - when we get time to go down to the library - to see if we can salvage this computer.
Unfortunately, it means my staff member who is working there today until lunch will have to manually note all loans and will have no system to search or reserve. Not to worry, we have all been in tha predicament before but it reminds us how much we rely on technology and how we have really made it hard for when our system isn't working for us to do our job.
A positive out of the day is that we decided to splurge and go out for dinner to the newly refurbished Club Urunga (Bowls Club). What a shock to be asked for a licenses when we walked in the door - or some other form of ID. Thank goodness we are local as they let my husband slip in without ID as he wasn't driving or paying so he didn't have his wallet on him. He did have to get signed in by a member though!!
It was also lucky I had run into a lady that works there during the day and mentioned we were coming in that night. She asked if I had booked - to which I replied - no do we have to? She said yes as Friday nights are pretty busy. She then reassured me she was heading over there now so would put our names down. I'm double shocked now as this is Urunga with a population under 2000.
Anyway, we were seated by the lady I know and there was another lady who was taking bookings and payments that I also knew and then a few people that sat on adjoining tables that I also knew. And then hubby saw some people he knew and so on. It's nice to eat out and feel part of the community. Of course, my head starts going on tagents of possibly ideas to partner with the libraries. But more on that later when I've mushed them around a bit.
The meal was lovely - very filling. My daughter was desperate to check out the kids playground - you can see it from the road and she has been hounding us since the club opened. So in the freezing night we went outside and she got to play around for a while. There was a big tunnel slide but she wouldn't go on it because it was pitch dark inside!!
Once my husband is working again - he took his first steps toward this by getting his OHS White Card - we hope to do the out for dinner in town thing a bit more often. We thought he had a job lined up after that but he's been told he will need his Blue Card (stop/go batten) first. So because all these tickets/cards cost money we have to do it bit by bit when we can afford it. But we are working towards it and that is a good thing.
On a side note, I waited on the phone for over half hour to talk to family assistance about child care benefit as we want to put our daughter in vacation care this holidays. The main reason is that the vacation care is on it's final chance to prove that we need the service in Urunga. So they have to get at least 15 kids booked in this holidays or else they will not offer it again. You see once my hubby starts work we will be needing this service so while we don't need it now I am going to book her in for some days just to show support - and I think she will really enjoy it as they have some great activities planned.
So after half hour waiting on the phone - I can't believe this is accepted as customer service - I finally found out some good news about our entitlements. Basically we won't be paying a lot for vacation care.
Back to vacation care - I had a few emails back and forth with the organiser and suggested that if it is to keep going - which of course it will - we should look at where we can use the library in the program. So I'm putting it out there to my fellow professionals - have you worked with a vacation care provider to offer some library based activities and if so, what were they?
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
What brought you here?
I get asked this question a lot - especially when I mention that I'm originally from Qld. Well today I will share the story.
Ok back in 2006, I took 12 months maternity leave. After that was finished I didn't return to my previous POW and managed to pick up some casual work which lead into a relieving position for a staff member on leave. This was to be for 12mths.
While I really enjoyed working there, I realised that there was a high possibility of there being no full time, permanent position for me once the 12mths were up so I continued to scan the job market. Also, on the home front things were not going well. We had some neighbours that were intent on making life not too comfortable. This was resulting in a lot of stress and the realisation that perhaps this wasn't the place we'd like to raise a child.
Low and behold an add for my current position appeared in my work email inbox. It is quite funny because I recall it was on an elist that I have no recollection of subscribing to. Perhaps it was meant to be.
The position was a manager/supervisor role and I had not yet graduated from my BALIS - however I did have my LT quals and 15 years library experience. So I thought I'll give it a go. Let it be known that I had no idea where Bellingen was. My husband and I did a bit of research and discovered that it wasn't far South of Iluka - we had frequently spent holidays at Iluka and also had our honeymoon there. We always wanted to live there. So I thought it would probably be a nice place.
Well I got an interview, which I did over the phone and thought I'd totally stuffed it up. But then got asked to come and meet face to face. They organised for this to be done at Grafton so we wouldn't have to travel so far. We only had the Friday and Saturday as I had to work on Sunday so we decided that regardless of the outcome we would travel to Bellingen after the interview and stay overnight - just to check it out.
I got offered the job and we had a very surreal overnight stay in Bellingen. Reality hit when we got home and realised we had only 6 weeks to relocate interstate and put our house on the market.
Rental accommodation in Bellingen is hard to come by so it wasn't until the week before moving that we had secured a house. Talk about stressful!! But if it is meant to be then it will work out.
We have been living down here for just over 3 years now. We bought a house in Urunga which we are currently doing minor renovations to and I'm really enjoying it here. This is not to say I don't miss my family and friends back in Qld.
The hardest thing I have found down here is making good friends. In Qld I had a really supportive mother's group and some library professionals that are good friends. I miss my regular interaction with these people and am yet to find the same network here.
I don't miss the traffic, pollution, dodgy neighbours, constant road works (although with any luck we will be having some road works in the near future to relocate the highway from our town), shopping (ok I miss it a little bit) and crowds.
So this is how I got to be where I am. I am heading up to Qld, with my daughter for a holiday today - which is why I am up at 5am. I will emerse myself in city life and enjoy it while I'm there. I have a packed schedule to ensure I catch up with family and friends - especially those I missed last year due to the floods - yes I was in Qld during the floods last year but that's a whole other story. And then I will return to my haven here and think how lucky I am to live here.
So how did you get to where you are now?
PS I will be entering into a place where I will have limited internet access so will try to post the final post for #blog12daysxmas tomorrow.
Ok back in 2006, I took 12 months maternity leave. After that was finished I didn't return to my previous POW and managed to pick up some casual work which lead into a relieving position for a staff member on leave. This was to be for 12mths.
While I really enjoyed working there, I realised that there was a high possibility of there being no full time, permanent position for me once the 12mths were up so I continued to scan the job market. Also, on the home front things were not going well. We had some neighbours that were intent on making life not too comfortable. This was resulting in a lot of stress and the realisation that perhaps this wasn't the place we'd like to raise a child.
Low and behold an add for my current position appeared in my work email inbox. It is quite funny because I recall it was on an elist that I have no recollection of subscribing to. Perhaps it was meant to be.
The position was a manager/supervisor role and I had not yet graduated from my BALIS - however I did have my LT quals and 15 years library experience. So I thought I'll give it a go. Let it be known that I had no idea where Bellingen was. My husband and I did a bit of research and discovered that it wasn't far South of Iluka - we had frequently spent holidays at Iluka and also had our honeymoon there. We always wanted to live there. So I thought it would probably be a nice place.
Well I got an interview, which I did over the phone and thought I'd totally stuffed it up. But then got asked to come and meet face to face. They organised for this to be done at Grafton so we wouldn't have to travel so far. We only had the Friday and Saturday as I had to work on Sunday so we decided that regardless of the outcome we would travel to Bellingen after the interview and stay overnight - just to check it out.
I got offered the job and we had a very surreal overnight stay in Bellingen. Reality hit when we got home and realised we had only 6 weeks to relocate interstate and put our house on the market.
Rental accommodation in Bellingen is hard to come by so it wasn't until the week before moving that we had secured a house. Talk about stressful!! But if it is meant to be then it will work out.
We have been living down here for just over 3 years now. We bought a house in Urunga which we are currently doing minor renovations to and I'm really enjoying it here. This is not to say I don't miss my family and friends back in Qld.
The hardest thing I have found down here is making good friends. In Qld I had a really supportive mother's group and some library professionals that are good friends. I miss my regular interaction with these people and am yet to find the same network here.
I don't miss the traffic, pollution, dodgy neighbours, constant road works (although with any luck we will be having some road works in the near future to relocate the highway from our town), shopping (ok I miss it a little bit) and crowds.
So this is how I got to be where I am. I am heading up to Qld, with my daughter for a holiday today - which is why I am up at 5am. I will emerse myself in city life and enjoy it while I'm there. I have a packed schedule to ensure I catch up with family and friends - especially those I missed last year due to the floods - yes I was in Qld during the floods last year but that's a whole other story. And then I will return to my haven here and think how lucky I am to live here.
So how did you get to where you are now?
PS I will be entering into a place where I will have limited internet access so will try to post the final post for #blog12daysxmas tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)