Operations Supervisor

One of my goals for 2011 (check the right sidebar) was to get myself a new job. Just three months in, today that dream becomes a reality.

Sort of.

It’s true that my applications to join the glamorous and untouchable ranks of the local media posse have yielded a big fat zero. I’ve also been flat out rejected by the Northern Territory Government (to be fair, I don’t exactly endorse them at the moment either). And Channel Nine’s copywriting team sent me the nicest rejection notice I’ve received in quite a while.

So I’ve gone internal. I’m taking up a new position with TCU. Gone are the days of Garry the training officer. Now I have a shiny new badge that says “Operations Supervisor”. I had to make it myself, and it doesn’t really match my uniform, but that’s not the point.

It’s a slight pay bump, and it will mean a lot less time spent in plastic boxes behind reinforced fences in the middle of nowhere. So in general, it’s an improvement, but there’s no getting around the fact that I’m taking the next bold step along a career I don’t really want in the first place. The senior management announced the promotion last week at a staff meeting, and everyone has been very enthusiastic in congratulating me, which is nice. One of the senior managers even went so far as to say “That’s great. You’ll be one of us in no time”. He meant well enough by it, I’m sure, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more frightening prediction, and that includes the time my Scripture Union mentor told me if I kept playing keyboard at church, I’d end up married within five years by sheer force of numbers.

That also turned out to be complete rubbish, thank God.

I spent most of today moving my stuff from my old desk to my new one. I’m responsible for the tellers, branch coordinators and receptionist, and it’s now my job to make sure that everything that has to happen each day happens each day. Which basically means that instead of my boss calling me to cover for whatever part of the process can’t happen today, now I’ll just do it myself.

Make of that what you will. I know I will.

Garry with 2 Rs

An Awesome Weekend - Part Three

I'm not proud of it. I'm not even sure how it happened. As I woke up I felt instinctively that something had gone horribly wrong.

"Sleep well?" asked the not unatrractive complete stranger beside me.

Just kidding.

Somehow I managed to stuff up my alarm two nights in a row. Instead of waking at six, I had woken at half past seven and my flight left at half past eight. Thankfully everything was already packed, so it was just a matter of dashing out the door and calling a taxi instead of walking to the train station. It was going to be tight, but experience told me I had just enough time to reach the airport before boarding closed.

Experience hadn't accounted for the inner city charity bike ride that passed through Corronation Drive and held us up for fifteen minutes, or the road works on the expressway that cost us another ten. Fortunately I only had carry on luggage, so I was hopeful of being able to just check in at the extremely helpful self service machines and then dash through security and onto the plane. Unfortunately the machine threw a tantrum because I was five minutes late and told me where to go (I returned the favour). Unfortunately it told me the wrong thing, and by the time I had been redirected to a different service counter at the other end of the check in lounge my plane had already left.

The Qantas staff were able to rebook me on a flight via Cairns. It meant I had five hours to kill at Brisbane airport and another three in Cairns on top of two two and a half hour flights. But that was alright. That's what airport bookshops are for.

By now my head had managed to completely fill itself with snot. Landing in Cairns, and again in Darwin, I felt like my sinuses were preparing to go critical all over the seat in front me, which is a safety hazard during takeoff and landing.

Finally, just fourteen and a half hours after cursing the births of all recreational cyclists everywhere, I dumped my backpack onto my bed and dumped myself into the shower. Later, as I quietly sneezed myself to sleep, I looked back on 2011's most action packed weekend yet, satisfied in the knowledge that I'm just as awesome as ever.

Make of that what you will.







Garry with 2 Rs

An Awesome Weekend - Part Two

At six fifteen I was awoken by a text message asking me where the hell I was. I had managed to set my alarm for the wrong day. I had developed a tickle in my throat overnight, but I managed to grind out a coherent apology over the phone and my friend graciously agreed to come and pick me up from the motel. In the meantime I stumbled into my suit and threw everything else into my backpack. By the time my lift arrived I was the sharpest dressed zombie in South East Queensland.

I am not well known for my navigational skills. Or, to put it more accurately, I am well known for having a catastrophically poor sense of direction. And that's just in Darwin, which by rights I should know like the back of my hand by now.

Incidently, as a by-product of spending four and a half years typing up these incessant blog posts, my familiarity with the back of my hands is up there with best of them.

The point is that when my friend handed me a print-out of Google's instructions on how to get from Indooroopilly train station in Brisbane to Stanthorpe Presbyterian Church in Stanthorpe it did not bode well for the journey ahead.

Interesting (well...) fact: Despite having a population of just five and a half thousand, Stanthorpe has both a Uniting Church and a continuing Presbyterian church (plus all the others you'd expect in an Australian country town). I don't know what the story is there. And if you don't know why that's intriguing in the first place, don't panic. Within a generation or two it won't matter anymore.

The plain fact is that I'd be utterly incapable of giving you useful directions to either of them without consulting the satnav at least twice. This is one of the reasons I'm so rarely invited to join street evangelism missions.

There are others.

We made it to the wedding with five minutes to spare. The bride and groom had asked me to do one of the scripture readings, which would have been a great honour if not for the fact that the reading was taken from the Song of Songs. If you know your Old Testament then you'll realise that's a magnificently awkward choice for a wedding ceremony. If you don't know your Old Testament, then TURN OR BURN, HEATHEN!

The reception was delightful. As always it was a great chance to catch up with old friends, relive old times and reassure each other that we're still awesome. After spending the previous evening with platinum selling rock stars, taking lunch with assorted doctors, aerospace engineers, international missionaries and federal parliamentary journalists led this particular training officer to the conclusion that some of us needed more reassurance than others.

By the end of the trip back to Brisbane later that afternoon my throat tickle had developed into a dry cough and runny nose. I had planned to spend Saturday night catching up with a few Brisbane friends who hadn't gone to the wedding. I ended up tending to my exasperated sinuses in front of a hastily selected DVD and then turning in at about ten.

But first I took great care to correctly set my alarm for the following morning so I'd make my flight home.

An Awesome Weekend - Part One

"Whenever I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story." - Barney Stinson, How I Met Your Mother.

Every now and again I nick off to Queensland for a few days. There's always an official pretext to the trip, but the main point of these south-eastern sojourns is to prove to myself that I'm still every bit as awesome as I was in my uni days. As time passes (and it does, I assure you) it's a claim that's becoming more and more difficult to substantiate.

Recently even the pretext has been becoming increasingly predictable; an old friend will do something silly like get married and I'll trip off to Brisbane to attend the ceremony and concurrently catch some sort of international music act. Last time, I popped east for a wedding and a U2 concert. Last weekend I went for a wedding and found by complete coincidence that New Zealand rock sensation Six60 were playing at The Zoo on Anne st. I'm sure the Six60 boys won't mind me saying it; U2 in Suncorp Stadium is not quite the same thing as Six60 in a converted community hall in Fortitude Valley, but that's not the point. The point is something closer to the incredible coincidence of being in Brisbane for less than twelve hours and yet timing it so perfectly that I got to hang out with Chris for a few hours and finally hear the band live. A coincidence which was further compounded when we discovered that as well as staying in Brisbane at the same time, we were also staying at the same motel.

I've never really imagined myself as the 'I'm with the band' type (That's probably because I rather fancifully imagine myself as the 'I'm in the band' type). Hanging out with Chris backstage after the show I got to experience the crazy collision of worlds that happens when you're chatting with friends like old times but you have your conversation interrupted periodically by fans asking for autographs.

A particularly enthusiastic pair of followers claimed to be Six60's biggest fans ever. They passed a band shirt around and asked us all to sign it. I was confused, but willing enough to oblige her. If she was as big a fan as she claimed, she might have realised she had more signatures on her shirt than Six60 has members, but I guess we'll never know.

In true rock and roll style, after loading the gear into a white mini van (hell yeah!) we continued celebrating a great show into the small hours of the morning. This was another great way for me to demonstrate that I'm still awesome, despite having taken my newly discovered I'm-with-the-bandism to the level of actually impersonating said band to it's own fans.

It was also a really stupid idea because I needed to be up ridiculously early the next morning to meet my lift to the wedding. It was a morning ceremony and lunch time reception in a town several hours' drive from Brisbane. I set my alarm for half past four to make sure I had enough time to get ready and catch a train to rendezvous with my friend at six.

A Soft Touch

In the last couple of posts I’ve been very excited about the fact that I’ve started going along to sepak takraw training again. I’m very aware that most people in the in English speaking world probably wouldn’t have any idea what that is. As always, CTC is here to help with up-to-date, accurate, un-biased and completely reliable information.

Sepak Takraw is the name of the first independently owned Australian registered interplanetary transport ship. Commissioned in 1942 as a secret plot to evacuate the entire world in the event of a NAZI takeover, it now operates as an orbital tourist resort and the first war memorial to be launched into space.

Would you believe a species of short-snouted turtle?

Fine.

Sepak Takraw is a Southeast Asian sport that is like a cross between soccer and volleyball. Thailand and Malaysia both steadfastly claim to have invented the sport, and the modern international name for the sport reflects a compromise between the two, with ‘sepak’ being the Malay word for ‘to kick’ and ‘takraw’ being the Thai word for the type of ball used. Traditionally the ball was made of woven ratan cane, but international standard takraws are now made of plastic.

It’s played between two teams of three (apparently two on two games are played, but that seems dumb to me) on a court roughly the size of a badminton court, and with a similar size and height net between the two halves. The principle is similar to volleyball; three touches on each side, with the goal being to put the ball over the net and have your opponents drop it.

The soccer part comes in the ball handling; you can use your legs and head to touch the ball, but not your torso or arms. It sounds crazy, but it’s great to watch. The YouTube footage available seems to be disappointing both in quantity and quality, but the best and most competently filmed demonstration I could find is this one.

If you’ve watched the footage, you may be of the opinion that a slightly overweight, mildly arthritic, completely Caucasian and utterly uncoordinated fellow like me has no business walking into the same room as a sepak takraw court, let alone getting on it. And you’d be right.

The thing is, I learned to play the game when I was in senior high school and was younger, healthier and had less respect for gravity. While I’ve never been able to turn a back flip or hang in the air like the spikers in the video, there was a time when I could at least control a ball thrown at me from across the room using just my feet and could get my legs up high enough to put the ball over the net with some force. I played for the Northern Territory in a couple of Arafura Games, and was all set to go and play for Australia in the World Cup, but I got foiled by year twelve exams and the fact that world cup was cancelled that year due to political unrest in Malaysia. I remember my old mentor telling me the key to controlling the ball was to stroke it like a beautiful woman. At the time I didn’t really know what he meant by that.

A decade or so later, I still don’t know. But I’ve still got the ball the coach gave me all those years ago, and it turns out I can still kick it. Sort of. My control is all over the place (much like my understanding of beautiful women, come to that), but the new coach says I’ve still got the basic techniques, I just need more practice and to get back into shape (just like… actually, never mind).

The Arafuras are coming up again in May this year. I won’t have time to get my skills up in time to play this time, especially if I’m playing cricket and volleyball at the same time, but I’m looking forward to hanging out with the NT team and watching some of the teams who can play properly (Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia usually send a couple of teams each, and they really mean business). And it’s the one sport I can play that I don’t seem to inherently suck at, and where being slightly bow legged actually provides an advantage.

And if I ever do meet that special lady, I’ll be sure to take my old mentor’s advice, and kick her like a takraw. Make of that what you will.

Actually... just forget it.



Garry with 2 Rs

An Unexpected Development

Strangely enough, I’ve received a few comments from friends in the three dimensional world regarding my list of goals for 2011. Most have suggested that there’s a certain goal on the list that doesn’t quite seem realistic, or at the very least seems to be well outside my ability to influence it. Given my lifestyle, attitude and general health lately, I would ordinarily tend to agree. However just recently there have been some very promising signs suggesting it may be time to take the red pen to my to-do list a little earlier than we had anticipated. And obviously as a blogger and compulsive attention junkie, I feel compelled to tell you all about it. Aren’t you lucky?

I’ve joined a social Wednesday night mixed volley ball team. I’ve been getting to know the other girls and guys on the team a bit over the past few weeks and we’re getting along really well as a social unit, if you know what I mean. As a volley ball team, on the other hand, we are utterly abysmal, and haven’t quite managed to win a game yet. But we’re having fun.

By pure coincidence at the same as this has been happening, the inter-congregational social soccer game has started up again on Sunday afternoons at my old school. I love getting out and hanging out with folk from other churches, as well as having a run around with some social soccer. You never know who you’re going to bump into there either.

On top of all that, now I’m playing Sepak Takraw two or three nights a week as well. I’m still working on a write-up on that for those of you wondering what’s going on. Stay tuned. Couple that with an intention to get back into cricket once a few other variables in my life get sorted out and we’re looking at the makings of a veritable, if not capable, sports nut. I'm sitting in my room typing this up and enjoying the first night in almost a week that I haven't been out doing something active. It's crazy, I tell you.

And if I can keep this sort of regime up, I should get myself down to 90kg in no time. I never thought it was possible until it started to happen to me.

Make of that what you will. And don’t look at me like that.




Garry with 2 Rs

Rage Against the Machine

It seems the robot uprising has begun. Yesterday the Commonwealth Bank was bought to a grinding halt by computer errors that caused ATMs to hand out thousands of dollars to disgustingly greedy and opportunistic users. Meanwhile in the US (where else?) some clever cookies have developed a program that can beat human competitors at Jeopardy. And only three hours ago my brother was attacked by a giant robotic canary which exclaimed ‘expatriate’ and began faxing yoghurt to the Bavarian Consulate. Also, my spell check is coming the raw prawn and keeps defaulting back to US English. Apparently it can recommend the wrong spelling of ‘favour’ and ‘recognise’ but still can’t do anything to prevent that sentence about the canary. So that’s one to me, I suppose.

Sorry about that.

I’ve written before about my distaste for the new computerized customer operated check out stations at the supermarkets. Since then, the stations have been installed in every department store (or what passes for department stores in Darwin) in Darwin. I’m sure tech heads all over the city are rejoicing in the advent of the robotic revolution while owners and managers are gleefully rubbing their hands together at the thought of all the wages they don’t have to pay anymore.

I am just about ready to take a cricket bat to the stupid things. I’m all in favour of technological progress when it works. But the self operated checkouts don’t work. Every time I try to use them, they’ve run out of cash, or the weight scale isn’t working, or it won’t recognise the barcode on my biscuits. Generally I show my antagonism for the devices in a way which is less inclined to cause damage to a perfectly good cricket bat. That is, I just boycott them and only use the stations with human beings working at them. But during the last two days I’ve been pushed over the edge.

Last night I went to buy some new shoes for Sepak Takraw. Sometime later on I’ll get around to posting about how cool it is that I’ve taken up Sepak Takraw again, but for now I’m all revved up about evil department stores.

Last night, not only were the automated stations in Kmart beeping at me rudely, but when I went to deliberately and obviously not use them, I found I had no choice. Kmart did not have any human beings working the registers at all. There were two assistants supposedly on hand to help with the machines, but none of them seemed to pay the slightest attention when it took me three goes to get the thing to read my credit card correctly. I was ready to forget the whole thing and walk out, but I needed the shoes. Sort of. Admittedly it was six o’clock at night, so we might expect the shop to have been a bit quiet. But that should also have meant that service was exceptional since there was nothing else to do.

I also don’t want to single Kmart in this particular debacle. As I said, all the department stores and supermarkets, with the notable exception of Coles, have put them in, and no-one seems to have got them working properly yet.

This afternoon I realised that the only food I had in the fridge for tonight was pasta, and that if I cooked pasta tonight, I wouldn’t have anything to put leftovers in (I recently moved house and am still getting some of the basic things sorted out. Like a roof) so I went to buy some plastic microwavable containers which so prototypically embody a single man’s kitchen.

I tried Big W first, and once again was disgusted to find only one human being serving at the checkouts, with a line right back to the ladies’ lingerie section. My desire not to be late back from my lunch break overrode my desire to avoid the inhuman checkout operators and I gave it a go. After being told by a recorded voice that I need to remove my items from the bagging area and then put them back three times in a row I got over it, left the items where they were and made a great show of storming defiantly out of the shop.

No-one noticed.

I went back to Kmart and found that once again there was only one human-operated station open, despite the fact that is was lunch time and the shop was teeming with customers. I queued for twenty minutes and finally managed to buy my plastic containers. The poor check out chick was obviously struggling to cope with constant demand from old ladies who couldn’t use computer terminals and twenty-something year old professionals who just had to be difficult.

I’ve written complaint letters to both Big W and Kmart, but I’m philosophical about the chances of corporate strategists putting the concerns of one old-fashioned consumer over the chance to save millions by not actually providing any kind of service.

Maybe the robots have taken more control than we realise.



Garry with 2 Rs