Customer Service Skills

So my job hunt continues. I’ve had a few close calls recently where I’ve made the interview round but not landed the role. Job hunting is a frustrating sort of endeavour, because it doesn’t matter how many occasions you are ninety five percent successful on, at the end of the week if you haven't made the extra five percent you still have absolutely nothing to show for it. There’s nothing more disheartening than being told over the phone that, while your application was great, your interview went well and you’d absolutely be capable of filling the role, someone with 17 years’ experience in a similar role is also out of work at the moment. Or was until yesterday. Sorry about that.

Actually there is something more disheartening: being told by a computer that you don't measure up.

Recently I applied for a couple of jobs as front office tellers with two major Australian banking corporations. Both banks had very similar application pages to fill in, requiring me to show that I had the right to work in Australia, that I wasn’t a criminal and that I was sufficiently culturally diverse. As one of the most diverse individuals you’ve ever met, I obviously nailed those pages.

Both banks sent me automatically generated emails advising me that I had made it to the next stage of the application process. Both of them had me sign into an online aptitude test. Both of them were obviously too lazy to do their own HR work, because both of them sent me the same test, run by a third party HR consultant. It tested cash-handling ability with a fun game that most primary school students would be able to do. Then it gave me a multiple choice quiz on my reactions to a bunch of hypothetical customer service situations.

Once the test was complete, the computer thanked me for my time and advised me that a notice would be sent to me based on the outcome of my aptitude test.

Within two days, both banks sent me automated email letting me know that based on my results, I didn’t have enough experience in customer service. At no point during either application was I given the chance to speak to a human being, which is a shame, because there was nowhere in the multiple choice quiz test to record the fact that:

• I have worked in a financial institution for more than two years

• I have plenty of front-line customer service experience working as a teller in branches across the Top End.

• For over twelve months, it was my job to train new bank tellers how to be bank tellers.

• After that, it was my job to lead the entire front office operations team in providing good customer service and excellent banking services.

But apparently the computer knows enough about me to determine that I don’t have what it takes based on a fifteen minute internet quiz. Kind of like the ones that take eight questions to determine that if I were a Firefly character, I’d be Doctor Tam, when it’s patently obvious to anyone who knows me that I’d be Shepherd Book, however much I might want the answer to be Mal.

Two weeks later, I received a phone call from an actual human at one of the banks’ HR departments in Canberra. She was calling to see if I would be interested in a new position that had come up in my area. I happily chatted with her for about twenty minutes about my citizenship status, my criminal history and my cultural diversity. It seemed to be going well, until she finally got around to asking me if I would be comfortable with a commute to Groote Eylandt every morning. I informed the charming HR executive from Canberra that Groote Eylandt is an hour and a half away from Darwin by plane. At that point she got upset with me for wasting her time and we terminated the interview.

But apparently it’s my customer service skills that aren’t up to scratch. Make of that what you will.



Garry with 2 Rs

Selection Criteria

Kim and I are currently having job seeker competitions to see which of us can apply for the most jobs in a given week. You get one point for a ‘send us your resume’ application and three points for one where you have to type up a response to selection criteria. So far she’s definitely winning.

It doesn’t take long before the criteria start to meld together and each application letter starts to look disturbingly similar to all the others. For no other reason that because I’m fed up with it all, here are the responses to selection criteria I wish I could give. And yes, this totally counts as three points.

1.    A tertiary qualification in a relevant field, and at least six years’ experience in a similar, related or, ideally, better position.

I hold a Bachelor of Journalism and a first class Honours degree in Linguistics, both from the University of Queensland. Before you put this application aside under the arrogant assumption that this has no relevance to the online marketing field you’re so smugly trying to engage, consider not only the value of the professional communication skills that come with a degree in journalism, but also the evidence of self-directed research, independent operation and dedication that come with an honours degree in anything.

Also, I corrected the grammar in the criterion statement for you. You’re welcome.

If I had six years’ experience in a position like this, do you really imagine I would be applying to be your part time junior communications assistant? This is Darwin: You yourself have probably not held this role for more than eighteen months. The only reason you want so much experience is so I can explain how all this stuff works for you. Which is fine; I’ll have a handle on it within a fortnight or so. I’m really clever.

2.    Excellent written, oral, non-verbal and telepathic communication skills. Ability to learn Slavic languages instantly would be well regarded.

I have thirty years’ experience in the field of communicating, and in that time I have developed from primitive crying to the point that I can respond to online job advertisements and spell better than you can. In most of my previous positions I have been required to communicate with other people on a daily basis, even in situations where this was clearly a waste of company time. I have also developed an instinctive ability to read the minds of managers, customers, co-workers’ computers and the canteen lady, purely as a survival strategy.

3.    Demonstrated ability to manage multiple competing priorities and deadlines, to work under pressure in a fast-paced environment that is super-charged, stressful and under water.

This is a bloody stupid thing to ask me. Basically you’re advertising the fact that if I get this job, your expectations are going to be unreasonable from the word go. Telling me what I’m getting myself in for from the outset, while appreciated, does not make it a more acceptable or professional way to treat people. Everyone multitasks. Telling people that yours is a high pressure job place does not make you look impressive and cutting edge. It makes you look like a bad manager. Chill out.

4.    Exceptional organisational and time management skills.

This week I quadruple booked myself on Tuesday night. I told four different people that I would be at their gatherings at the same time. This has nothing to do with me being a poor manager and everything to do with me consistently letting other people tell me what to do. I was supposed to have a series of meetings spread out over a period of a couple of weeks from all the high-pressure fast-paced multitasking of social obligations I routinely undertake, but for whatever reason, all the other stake holders in the groups decided, one by one, that they couldn’t possibly do it any other night than Tuesday. So I told them all they could do it, and went to One Body practice instead. I’m confident they all managed just fine without me.

Yes, okay. I should probably buy a diary or something.

5.    Please indicate whether you are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent.

Why?

I understand that you consider yourself an equal opportunity employer. I applaud you for your selfless and community-spirited endeavour to provide employment opportunities for Indigenous people (how much government money does your organisation get per indigenous trainee, by the way?). But unless this job requires me to work in indigenous communities, there is absolutely no reason to ask people to specify their racial background.

The only reason to include this criterion is to make a distinction between people of different racial backgrounds. This is supposed to be illegal. And if the purpose is to address indigenous disadvantage by giving special consideration and opportunities to Indigenous people under some ironic application of the word ‘equal,’ then that’s fine, but what possible motivation could I have to say ‘no’ and immediately remove myself from consideration based on my race?

Prefer not to disclose.

6.    Demonstrated extensive experience in the fields of project management, financial planning, problem solving, hostage negotiation, space travel, molecular biology, gymnastics and early Renaissance impressionism.

In my current capacity as Communications Officer, I regularly pretend to know things about just about everything. I have produced written material on space travel in the past and am capable of producing one to one and a half pages on just about any subject that would convince the likes of you that I know what I’m talking about. Hell, I’ve been writing this blog for six years now, and no-one seems to have caught on.

I am available for interview anytime, and I look forward to hearing from you. Yeah right.

Yours insincerely




Garry with 2 Rs

Back to Work

So the goodish news is that I’ve scrambled myself a new job. Sort of. It’s only a temporary part time gig, but it’s better than unemployment by a fair margin.

I’m working with YouthWorX NT, and my official title is Communications Officer, which is great, because at last I’ve finally got a job title that in some way resembles my skills and qualifications. Hopefully it will grow into something more permanent, or lead onto something bigger and better.

But for now, it’s back to eight o’clock start times. Ouch.

Make of that what you will.



Garry with 2 Rs

Unemployed

So it’s a new financial year, and a new financial situation. For the first time a four years, I’m now completely and utterly unemployed.

It’s a strange feeling, going from a place where I really felt like I was having meaningful input on projects that actually mattered, to waking up and knowing that I’m not making any meaningful contribution at all to society at large.

I’ve got a few weeks of leave payout to cushion the financial blow, so you can all move our fingers away from the panic buttons. I’m not going to starve. But I am looking forward to finding out how my life might look different without a job to revolve it around.

So far the answer seems to be that my life looks hairier. Or rather, I myself look harrier. Not having to look professional every morning means not having to shave and I for one am enjoying it. We’ll see how long it takes until my face gets so itchy I want to tear it off, but for now a change is as good as a holiday.

You know what? That’s complete rubbish. I’ve just changed my facial hair policy. It is no-where near as good as a holiday. When was the last time you heard anyone say “a week in Bali is as good as cutting down on saturated fats?” Who writes these platitudes?

Not me. I don’t do anything.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with2 Rs

Anti-Social Media

Following on from last month’s theme of 'ridiculous things people expect Garry to be good at,’ on Friday my boss sent me to a Social Media Marketing conference, with a view to improving the office’s presence on online social media. I’m not sure why they sent me specifically. I’ve no qualifications in marketing and I’m not especially sociable. It’s got absolutely nothing in common with anything else I do at work.

It might just be because I’m male and under 30 (just) and am therefore naturally assumed to be good with computers. This is foolishness, but I didn’t mind a day away from the office where I’m assumed to be good at project management, which is also foolishness.

It was more a training event than a conference, run by a crew from America called SkillPath. It was a two person team who were in town as part of a whirlwind tour of Australia, shining the light of social media into the deepest depths of cultural cynicism, represented ably by me in the back row.

It didn’t start well. I had to give the Americans points for trying to contextualise their data for the locals, but pointing out that some people were likely to be following Julia Gillard on Twitter, while others were following Tom Abbott (sic) didn’t quite have the desired effect. And the presenter’s revelation that she thought she was in Queensland, and didn’t actually have any idea where Darwin was, was just downright hilarious.

However, the obligatory mocking of visitors from America having been indulged, the content they presented was quite interesting at times. And some of the examples of how not to use social media were fascinating.

Possibly the most cataclysmic outcome of the conference for me was that I’ve finally been convinced of – if not the virtues – then certainly the utility of Twitter. I’m only ten years late. You can follow me @GarryCondoseres, but I can’t promise I’ll lead you anywhere useful. Next thing you know I’ll be posting pictures of other peoples’ cakes to my Pinterest board.

I don’t have a Pinterest board. One step at a time.

#MakeOfThatWhatYouWill.




@GarryWith2Rs

Buku Gora, Yaka Buku Gora?

I spent all last weekend at a Language and the Law conference which was held at the NT Supreme Court. It wouldn’t have been my first choice for weekend recreational activities (I was there for work), but nonetheless I found parts of it very interesting.

The main focus of the conference was exploring ways to make the legal system more just and accessible for speakers of languages other than English. We heard a lot of input from academics about how messed up legal English is, even for people who speak English natively. But more importantly we flew in about forty Aboriginal language interpreters from all over the Northern Territory to have their say on issues affecting them as language practitioners in remote areas. There were a bunch of speakers of migrant languages there as well.

It seems really boring (probably because it is) but if you could get through all the really long-winded talking, it was actually a chance to make a very real difference to the way the courts operate. It was a great chance to actually, and indeed literally, stand up and speak against injustice, with an audience full of people with the authority to do something about it.

The most interesting bit by far (although I may be biased here, having had a fair bit to do with the production of said bit) was a “roles reversed role play” which we put on for the afternoon of the second day. A troupe of our Yolngu Matha interpreters learned a script, and then got dressed up in robes and wigs a la Supreme Court. The team put on a mock court hearing, with one of the local Supreme Court Justices acting as defendant.

The whole hearing was run in Yolngu Matha, with both the defendant and the audience completely reliant on the interpreter to understand what was happening. It was a huge hit with the conference delegates and was a very powerful spectacle to watch, as English speakers, who are so used to having the run of things in this country, found themselves on the other side of the language barrier.

For the record, the defendant was found guilty of disrupting a ceremony and was sentenced to two years banishment from Arnhem Land and five years of having his name changed to Mudskipper Face.

Make of that what you will.





Garry with 2 Rs

Super Supreme

My new(ish) job as a researcher with the Aboriginal Interpreter Service does on occasion require me to do research. Most of the time I can do this just fine with a combination of Google, Wikipedia and … making it up and finding a source somewhere who agrees with me. But every now and again I actually have to go and look something up properly like a big boy. This week was one of those weeks.

In my capacity as legal interpreting team researcher, I’ve been granted access to the NT Supreme Court Library. That doesn’t sound very impressive, mainly because it isn’t, but the weird part is that you can’t just wander in there and use it any old time. Your name has to be on a list of approved library users. My name is now on that list. How exciting.

I presented myself at the Supreme Court lobby for an introduction to the library systems. My first challenge was getting past security; Supreme Court lawyers can smell an arts graduate a block and a half away, and won’t hesitate to press the button that releases the hounds. I showed my ID to the security guard, passed my bag through the X-ray scanner and sprayed myself with the specially made salve that would help to prevent me from catching fire once I was inside the library itself.

The security guard waved his swipe card over the lift controls and I was transported into a magical world of academic nirvana, where the walls were made of wood panels and the floor was made of gold. It was hard to believe it was the same building, just three floors up. But here, suspended high above the rabble of the public gallery, even the quiet hum of the air conditioner seemed to whisper “You don’t belong here.”

I prised open the enormous wooden doors and approached the front desk. The record keeper from the Jedi archive, or possibly her sister, greeted me with a stare that could have frozen a bottle of vodka. I introduced myself and apologised for existing, but explained that I needed a tour of the research facilities.

She was kind enough to point out which shelves held dusty old books that hadn’t been touched for centuries, and which shelves held different dusty old books that hadn’t been touched for centuries (Yes, I know the Supreme Court building is only twenty years old. These books were here before we were, I’m sure of it.) Then she introduced me to the SC online catalogue.

SC computers do not have direct access to the internet at large for whatever reason, but have access to what would probably be a very impressive list of research databases if I had any idea what they did. The librarian was very excited to show me the Lexis Nexis database, but unfortunately it wasn’t working that day due to a problem with a login script, so she decided to show me AGIS instead. That wasn’t working either. Instead she showed me how to use the simple SC internal catalogue, which was much more interesting until she pointed out that you can access that externally via the commoners’ intertron. Eventually even that logged me off and asked for more passwords, which I wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of being asked for. Even the computer system seemed convinced that I really wasn’t supposed to be there. Fortunately I had written the details of my article down, so I just went and found the book on the shelves myself. Sometimes (actually, most of the time) that’s easier.

I thanked the lady for her time and got myself the hell out of there. I had passed my initiation, and strode from the lobby with my head held a little higher with the knowledge that I was one of the elite now. I was a library user. Fear me. And while it may not have been particularly useful, my visit to the elite world of exclusive libraries has at least given me something to write about, which is, I suppose, what libraries are for after all.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

Two Weeks Notice

It’s only taken me eighteen months, half a dozen or so whingey blog posts, at least ten rejected applications, six months of near-inhuman despair and the combined efforts of prayer chains across three states, but last Friday I finally walked out of the credit union for ever.

The period of limbo between when you give your two weeks’ notice and when you actually walk out the door is always a strange one. People ask all sorts of inane questions like “Are you going to miss us?” or “Are you looking forward to starting your new job?” or (possibly the dumbest) “You know you’ve only got three days left here?”

The last day in particular was particularly bizarre. Obviously I spent most of it packing things away and getting ready to vacate my office. Of course, having maintained a clean sheet on discrepancies for a year since taking up the ops job, it would be that on my last day the safe count was $2000 short. Fortunately the money showed up about three hundred kilometres away in a community outside Katherine, so it was fine, but that was a pretty crazy way to spend my last afternoon at the company.

This week I’m settling into my new job with the NT Government. It’s already about six times less stressful than my old job, and that’s with the foot and a half deep pile of resources I need to read just to get my head around everything. But there again it’s nice to finally be in a job where knowing lots of stuff is actually valued. But that’s another post for another time.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

Greater Things Than These Shall Ye Do

How awesome was February?

I swear it was so good, they had to give it an extra day this year just to fit in all the extra awesomeness floating around the place. It would have been enough that I was finally able to get a One Body service going, and then got to spend two weeks playing journalist at the NT News. But there's more and it’s about time I shared the news that can even top all that.

I was out with friends last night for dinner. We were discussing the merits of various TV shows, because apparently we have no actual life, when the woman sitting next to me made the most amazing revelation:

“I don’t really think David Tennant is attractive.”

The room went quiet. The pianist stopped playing and started staring. Somewhere a baby whimpered to itself in the night.

“What’s the matter with you guys?” she asked.

“”You’re being absurd,” I explained. “Nobody thinks David Tennant isn’t hot. Hell, even I think he’s hot.”

“Yes,” explained the strange woman, “But that’s just because you’re a geek.”

At this point I’d heard enough. Normally I’m not given to overt signs of outrage (I just post them on my blog like the good little product of my culture I am), but I felt I could not let this slide, especially in the presence of ladies. I felt it was my cultural and gender stereotypical obligation to correct the error by tipping the thoughtless wench out the window into the marina. So I did.

Also I got a new job this week. I start in a week and a half at the Aboriginal Interpreter Service. Farewell credit union, hello governmental bureaucracy, but at least this time I’ll be working on something I’m interested in. I’ll let you know how I get on once it all starts in March. I’m sure you can’t wait for that one.

Be kind to foxes.

Garry with 2 Rs

Getting Things Started

I don’t know what it was about 2011. It seemed no matter what I turned my hand to, it just didn’t work. Things which should have been straight forward were ridiculously complicated, and things which would have been complicated anyway ended up being flat out impossible. Last year, while I may have had nine and a half resolutions set out on my side bar, really there were only three things I actually cared about. And I didn’t get any of them done.

I’ve wanted for ages to get a combined worship service going in Darwin again. I’ve wanted it to be intercongregational, or ecumenical, or interdenominational, or whatever your preference of term for “all in it together” might be. My friend and I have come up with “intercongradenomonagalactical.” If that sounds stupid, that’s only because it is.

But the point is it’s happening. We’re booked in for the 4^th of February. One way or another, I’m making a start. I don’t have a drummer, a drum kit, or anyway of getting the word out apart from right here on CTC (and maybe Facebook), but come what may the movement is starting in two weeks. Stay tuned.

Probably the biggest disappointment from last year was my utter failure to get myself a vaguely interesting job. Sure, I made the move from staff trainer to operations supervisor, but even though I counted it has half a point on my checklist, it really wasn’t what I was looking for. I tried a few strategies to get into a job with more to do with media, communications or writing, but just couldn’t make anything happen. I started to get pretty despondent about the whole thing towards the end of the year there.

This year, I’m determined to turn it around. I have a two week placement booked with our local paper, the highly esteemed NT News, which is more than I’ve managed to achieve in two years up to this point. I’ve spoken to some friends who work for the paper. They’ve unanimously advised me not to work there, as apparently it sucks the soul out of you. But when it comes around, I’d rather work in a sould destroying job doing something I like than work in a soul destroying job doing something that I have no interest in whatsoever. It’s a pretty bleak view of the universe I suppose, but there again, I don’t imagine there are that many people in the first world thinking “Hooray! Time to go get a job!” anyway.

And then there’s resolution seven. That link goes to some post about Dan geting married. I think it's the only one with an overt mention of resolution seven on it. I was going to write a post about it at some point... but I didn't. Basically last year's resolution seven was "fall in love".

No. Still nothing to report on that front. But the way I see it, it’s not even the end of January yet, and I’ve already achieved a gazillion time more than I had in the two year previous. Two out of three major life goals in the pipeline, and one that I’m not really in control of anyway. Geez, if I could just generate the self-discipline to stop playing with my new computer and actually do something worthwhile, I might just change the world this year.

Probably not.

Garry with 2 Rs

A Crisis of Faith at Eighty-Eight Miles Per Hour

I remember as a child being extremely confused by my utter and consistent inability to remotely move objects around my room by faith. I would read passages from the gospels like “I tell you the truth; if you had faith the size of a mustard seed you could tell this mountain to go jump in the lake, and it would” (or something like that), and later I would come back from some church camp or big youth rally with my heart “totally on fire” (that was our metaphorical expression of choice in the charismatic church during the nineties. It’s a bit odd when you think about it) and so absolutely convinced that I knew everything I needed to take the city for Jesus. I would focus all my will on my collection of lego men and boldly command them in Jesus’ name to fly up out of the corner and onto my desk. It didn’t matter how resolutely I believed that I could do it, it didn’t work. Not even a little bit. There was one time my sister walked in in the middle of it and kicked them all over. I counted it as half a point.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that I was getting Christianity confused with Star Wars. Proper faith has very little to do with telekinesis, and much more to do with finding the strength to keep going and keep believing when things around you continue to suck the big one.

I got another job application rejection letter this week. Normally I would just add it to the pile, but this one was just a little more disheartening than usual. I made it all the way through to the interview stage, and felt like I had successfully put my best foot forward. Not only that, but the timing for this job would have been perfect. I could have walked out of a job which is, inch by inch, killing me and taken off to Perth for Daniel’s wedding and come back to job that I actually might have some basic interest in. I was so determined to get through this time that I got prayer chains in two cities backing me up. I prayed up, suited up and rocked up, and it didn’t work. Not even a little bit.

I think somewhere along the line I’ve gotten Christianity confused with The Never Ending Story, where if you can believe something hard enough it comes true. Yeah I know… find the strength to blah blah blah suck the big one.

For my next trick, I’m going to try confusing Christianity with Back to the Future 2. I don’t know what that will look like, but if I’m going to keep on living my life in a series of complete delusions, I might as well make it a good one.

Let's see if you bastards can do ninety.




Garry with 2 Rs

Winners Are Grinners

It’s amazing what taking a month off blogging will do for your life. September has been a month full of… other stuff. Not having the nagging feeling of “I should be blogging about now” hanging over me has been great. And although I’ve missed Cum Tacent Clament (Is that weird? It feels like it might be weird), it’s also true that in the absence of blogging, September was month full of victory.

Victory number one came for our Wednesday night C-grade mixed social volley-ball team. I’m now the proud owner of a trophy, upon which is inscribed “Wet season mixed C-grade division winner”. This in spite of the fact that we played in the dry season and we only made it to the playoff for fifth and sixth. And we lost. But a trophy’s a trophy, right? They must have had some left over from last year. So everyone’s a winner. Yay!

Victory number two came in the corporate environment. The company I work for was nominated for an award for excellence in staff training and development. Sure, we nominated ourselves, but that’s beside the point. It’s just nice to be recognised. What’s more, we won the award for employer of the year. What an honour! So in the finest tradition of nominating yourself for an award and then winning it, I’m nominating Cum Tacent Clament for the Booker Prize, my keyboard Samantha for Most Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Metaphorical Anthropomorphisation and myself for Female Eskimo Entrepreneur of the Century.

And last but not least, my cricket team took out the D-grade premiership. There isn’t anything to mock about this one, it was a proper win in a proper competition. I could mention the marked increase in success the team experienced when they finally got around to relegating me to twelfth man, but since this blog is about me and how awesome I am, I won’t. I'll just point out that I am now an award winning cricketer, volleyballer and staff member and a second place getting Inuit woman.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

P.S. The next couple of weeks are going to get pretty insane as Princess Ida rehearsals go into top gear. Watch this space for the opening night wrap up!

Just Beneath the Surface

I’ve been doing some thinking lately about what faith looks like. I’ve decided it looks like uncoordinated British tourists in Bouly Rockhole. I expect the metaphor is clear enough, but just in case I’ve made myself a little too obscure, allow me to elaborate. Or you could get over it and go read XKCD instead. Whatever.

Bouly Rockhole is a popular swimming hole in Litchfield Park, just outside Darwin. In the wet season, the current gets quite strong, but in the dry there’s still enough water going through it fast enough to make it really pleasant and not too cold. It’s a series of large rock pools, linked by small cascades and it’s one of my favourite places in the world when it’s not packed with loud tourists. Unfortunately it almost always is.

Most of the rock holes aren’t very deep. The deepest ones are maybe a couple of body lengths for an adult. But because of the way the water rushes, if you keep your head above water you don’t actually see how close you are to reaching the bottom. So every time I go there some stupid English woman swims out into the middle of the current, feels it start to pull against her and then panics. She kicks her legs around like an electrocuted cane toad, but can’t quite touch the bottom, so she gets swept toward the lip of the next cascade. By the time she reaches it, she’s run out puff and can’t do anything to stop herself being swept arse first over the waterfall. It makes me laugh every time.

The thing is, if she would just duck under the water, she would realise that she’s only a foot or so from the bottom. She could kick off from there to the side of the pool without any trouble and save herself some embarrassment and a bruised scapula.

That’s what real faith in a secular culture is like for me. When I’m getting yelled at by all three of my bosses because the three things they’ve asked me to do at once aren’t being done fast enough, I tend to freak out and start kicking around like I’m out of my depth. In the craziest parts of my day, it’s easy to feel like God, the rock, is miles away.

However, I am no stupid English woman. If I pause for a moment and go deeper, just below the surface, there He is, like He always is. I can set my feet, push off and start swimming again. No sweat.

It’s not a perfect metaphor. For instance, periods of intense reflection will not cause you to suffocate after three minutes. Also, living for more than forty minutes won’t necessarily cause the skin on your fingers to wrinkle up. Although I suppose that does happen eventually. Furthermore, in the great rock pool of life, whether you are sitting on the bottom or falling over a waterfall, there are no spaceships. And that’s a problem for me. My comparative philosophy demands more spaceships, both metaphorically and … aquatically?

Shut up.



Garry with 2 Rs

Career Path

I’m at a strange point right about now. I’ve been reflecting a lot on the things that really matter to me and the things that really don’t.

In March I took up a new position with the company I work for. It’s still in the financial services industry, so it still has nothing to do with anything I’m educated in or passionate about, but it was a step up in terms of money and lifestyle (not so much late notice travel out to the middle of nowhere) so at the time it seemed like a logical step. But more and more lately I feel like I’m in entirely the wrong place. I’ve realised that, as glamorous as it might seem from the outside, I really don’t care that much about the Financial Services Regulation Act.

As a company, we’re having a drive at the moment to update all the contact information we have for our members. We’ve had a lot of trouble implementing the drive because we’ve discovered that most of the staff, including me, have an automatic script that runs in our heads as we verify a member’s identity and tell them how much money they don’t have. It has taken an inordinate amount of effort to convince people to add an extra step to ask members if their contact details are up-to-date. It’s a little bit depressing to realise that your job is running on auto-pilot to such an extent that you can’t change your routine even if you’re supposed to.

So I did something a little bit weird this week. I put in an application to join The Punch as a cadet.

In Sydney.

It would be a dream job for me. After five years of Far From Home/Cum Tacent Clament the idea of writing online articles for a living is almost too good to be true. And in a lot of ways it is. I would imagine that every journalism student in Australia will have applied for the position, so I’m philosophical about the chances of even making the shortlist since I 1) don’t live in Sydney and 2) am a little old to be a cadet (I turned twenty-mumble plus one today. Egads).

So now I have to figure out what’s more important: My dream of actually being able to call myself a writer instead of a blogger, or my dream of investing my time into acheving something meaningful for the local church in Darwin. I felt compelled by the sheer awesomeness of the position on offer with the Punch to apply for it, but if I leave Darwin now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to look myself in the eye.

I’ve got another job application pending with the Northern Territory public service as a media liaison officer. As usual the Business and Employment Department are taking their sweet time about getting back to me. Taking on that would be a much more conscionable idea, although if the unthinkable happens and I have to choose between them, the indecision I’d feel would almost be enough to split me in half at a quantum level, resulting in two Garrii, one of whom could go be a writer for a national website while the other put his head down and got on with actually achieving one or two of the things he’d promised to.

So for the time being I’ll keep banging my head against a wall of FSRA compliance requirements and crazy old ladies wanting to check their balances.

Make of that... whatever you can. Good luck.

Garry with 2 Rs

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

Ten Things That Make Me Happy

My job often takes me out to remote communities for a week at a time. Sometimes this is an uplifting experience; a chance to get away from the bustle of the big smoke and to spend time with people with a fresh and reinvigorating outlook on the world. A chance to live a more straightforward life, if only for a week.

I dutifully arrived at the airport on Monday morning at half past ungodly in the morning, ready for my flight out to Maningrida. I found out I had actually been booked on the afternoon flight, contrary to what I had been told, so I taxied back home and sat around for half a day waiting for my flight. I finally made it to Maningrida at three, just in time for the branch office to close. So much for Monday’s program.

The council workers generously offered to drive me out to my accommodation for the week. Most of the places I have stayed in at remote communities have been simple, but comfortable. I had heard nice things about he guesthouse in Maningrida, so I thought I’d be in for a nice week.

Nope, the guest house was booked out. I was in the temporary accommodation out the other end next to the airstrip. When I say ‘accommodation’, I actually mean plastic box in the sun, reminiscent of the emergency dongers they bought in for my friends at college that time when Edale block burned down. Except not as spacious. And the air conditioner didn’t work properly.

I wandered into the common kitchen area to find a mean looking lady reading a That’s Life magazine as if it were a copy of War and Peace. She told me she was a nurse with an Ear, Nose and Throat team that had come out with the intervention. I told her I was a trainer with the Traditional Credit Union.

ENT Nurse: So what kind of skills do you train them in? Cooking, cleaning, gardening, that kind of thing?
Gw2Rs: … ? … No, we’re a credit union. I train them to operate as tellers in the bank.
ENT Nurse: Are you here with the intervention too?
Gw2Rs: No, I’m here with the credit union.

She sniffed at me and went back to her magazine. I went back to beating the microwave with a saucepan until it turned on.

We had a new starter at Maningrida, so the next morning I took her over to the West Arnhem Shire Council office to get her a letter from the council identifying her, so we could order a copy of her birth certificate, so the police could run a police check, so we could sign her up officially. A lot of people in remote communities don’t have passports or driving licences, so they get ID from the shire councillors.

Gw2Rs: Could we please get a letter of identification for Anita (not her real name)?
WASC lady: Does she have any ID?
Gw2Rs: No, that’s why we’re here. She needs a letter to get some ID.
WASC lady: I’ll need to see some ID before I can issue a letter.
Gw2Rs: …
WASC lady: Otherwise how am I supposed to know who she is?

Eventually we convinced the extremely helpful shire receptionist to issue the letter by producing Anita’s medicare card. For our American friends who might be new to this concept (That’s another thing. My blog has four public followers and, with the emigration of my sister and K.Kim, they’re all women in North America. How did that happen?), a medicare card has neither the owner’s photo, nor address; simply a government issued number. Apparently that did the trick.

Finally that afternoon we sat down to complete the training program. Of course, the computer crashed. I negotiated with our extremely friendly IT staff back in Darwin (370km away) to fix it. So much for Tuesday’s program.

On Wednesday we finally got some work done. My trainee was pretty good at the computer stuff once we finally got the damned thing working and managed to balance up at the end of the day without any trouble. Things were finally looking up.

On Wednesday night I was attacked by a pack of wild dogs.

Yep. For the sake of dramatic emphasis I decided that sentence deserved its own paragraph. Furthermore it’s true. Whilst walking around the block after enjoying a meal of dim sims and chicken … somethings from the delightful local takeaway I was accosted by an unfriendly band of local canines, possibly due to being an unfamiliar person on their territory, or possibly to the lingering aroma of inadequately processed meat. I felt more alive than I have for months as I stared down my aggressors with cold composure reminiscent of Mick Dundee and Charlie the buffalo and then, with all the dignity and masculinity I could muster, turned tail and ran for my life, with the noisy assailants in hot pursuit.

And there’s another thing. What kind of backwards looking takeaway shuts at four in the afternoon? And furthermore, if you’re going to shut at four in the afternoon, and if I come looking for a punnet of fried rice at a quarter to four only to find the front door locked, then … Blegh! That’s right, I said blegh! So much for… pathos.

So by Friday afternoon you can imagine I was more than ready to board my plane, leave this backwards town of nasty dogs and stupid West Arnhem Shire Councils and make my way back to civilisation. And when by ‘civilisation’ I’m referring to Darwin, you might begin to suspect there’s a problem.

Our plane broke down.

The air hostess (Is she still an air hostess if she’s standing on the ground looking disgruntled?) informed us that the plane had a flat battery. And apparently that’s not the sort of thing you can fix with jumper cables. They had to fly a replacement out for us from Darwin.

The Centrelink contingent in town, who were keen to return for the weekend, rang up their bosses in Darwin who magnanimously arranged to fly out a charter just for them. We gave them all a clap as they climbed aboard a private plane and took off to beat us home by about an hour. That was the fastest I’ve ever seen Centrelink arrange anything, and I suppose they felt there was a really good reason they couldn’t hire a bigger one to pick up the rest of us. We all got on the regular replacement plane and I finally got home at around ten o’clock that evening to find my housemate had once again fallen asleep in front of the television, which was still at full volume.

And somehow, in my absence, the freaking Labor party got back into government. Like my week wasn’t palm-to-the-face inducing enough as it was.

Oh yes, it’s been a while since I had a really good whinge. It’s somehow depressingly theraputic, whether that makes sense or not. Either way I feel better for it. All I need now is to run into a drunk Englishwoman. Or a communist.

I really don’t look good in watermelon pink business shirts.

...




Garry with 2 Rs

When is a Rectangle Not a Rectangle?

Yesterday, my employers booked a group of seven of us into a workshop with a motivational speaker. We weren’t really told what the sessions would entail or even what they were about. We were just told the program was called “Brilliant Attitude” and would be “unlike any other training we’d ever done before”.

The whole thing was run by a guy named Bob Allwright, whose business card describes him as a leader, mentor and inspiring speaker. He opened by showing photos of Richard Branson and other multi-millionaire entrepreneurs whose names I’ve already forgotten. It came with the usual questions about what made these people different from anyone else, and the questionable assertion that the difference between me and Richard is essentially nothing. It was suggested that all I would have to do to be as rich as Richard Branson is do exactly what he does, which I suspect is complete baloney.

According to Bob it all comes down to attitude. Essentially all we need to succeed in life is to believe that we can. The only reason we’re not all multi-millionaires is that most of us are held back by our own fears of failure or judgement. A simple examination of domestic economics renders this a questionable theorem, to say nothing of the global economy. Street kids in the slums of India aren’t going to become millionaires simply by believing they can. They have to go on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” like the rest of us.

I don’t want to be too judgemental about this. The idea of improving your life by starting with your own attitude is a valid one and it is, I’ll grant, an incredibly powerful thing to change your view of the world by changing your view of yourself.

But here is where it started to get weird.

The guy drew three rectangles on the board, and asked us what the drawing meant. My first thoughts were “They don’t mean anything, they’re just rectangles”. But Bob encouraged us all to look deeper, to find what the deeper symbolism of the rectangles might be and how we might apply it to our lives. After we all gave answers ranging in profundity from “a failed domino run” to “the fear of rejection in abusive relationships” we were given Bob’s interpretation. His answer was “They don’t mean anything. They’re just rectangles. Isn’t it amazing, the sort of deep meaning that our brains are able to give to completely meaningless things?”

At this point, I began to suspect that Bob might just be a complete wally.

Then he went on to give us the old post-modern chestnut about how nothing has any inherent meaning apart from the meaning we ourselves give it. His point was that the only person who can stop us from achieving and give us an attitude of failure is ourselves, and that’s all well and good. But since when was I charge of the rest of the universe? If it’s true that I’m the only person who can control me, then it’s also true that I’m the only person in the world that I’m in control of. So not only does that leave me with no more personal empowerment than I had in the first place, but it also leaves me with a rather disconcerting sensation that the entire world is hurtling toward anarchistic self-destruction. Personally, I think that’s of much greater consequence than the question of whose fault it is if I get angry while I’m driving a car, but for some reason Bob didn’t mention the more troubling implications of his philosophical statements. He was too busy telling us to give ourselves more success in life by looking at ourselves in the mirror and smiling.

Actually, from a Christian point of view, Bob got it half right. Unfortunately it’s the half he got wrong that has all the important implications. The Bible is quite clear that outside of God, nothing in the material universe is of any real cosmic significance. The things we fear, the things we trust in, the things we struggle against and the material things we worship don’t actually have any power over us apart from the power we give them in our own minds. The rectangles are just rectangles.

It’s Bob method for breaking free from those cosmic rectangles that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The idea was to break through the powers that bind us in our lives and keep us from achieving the things we want by believing in ourselves. To put it in religious terms, we can be saved from the troubles we have brought on ourselves by faith in … ourselves.

Now, my self-esteem is as healthy as the next guy, but I’m not for a moment convinced that putting faith in me is a good idea. Yes, I’m intelligent and ambitious, and spirited and deep and all the other things that make humans so brilliant, but I’m also arrogant, deceitful, envious and fearful and all the other things that make humans so full of crap. Furthermore, I’m also the one who got myself into this mess in the first place, remember? This, in my view, is where post-modern humanism falls into a pit of its own construction, and where the notion of an external creator, redeemer and sustainer begins to appear a more plausible explanation for the continued success of the human race.

Bob’s final demonstration was to get us all to write down the things that are holding us back on a piece of plywood, about 18mm thick. I wrote down a few things that have been troubling me lately, but honestly, by this stage I was done with taking Bob’s instructions seriously. On the other side we wrote down the life we wanted to lead, where those problems were gone and we could have the things we desired. Just to stick my point to Bob, I wrote down “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD (Zechariah 4:6).

Bob told us we were going to break through the problems and reach our dreams by breaking through the plywood with our hands. Honestly, looking at the thickness of the wood, I doubted if I would be able to punch through it. Bob told us that the secret was to look past the board, believe in ourselves and know that we had the power to reach our goals.

Actually, the secret was to place the board between two chairs, kneel on one of the chairs and bring our full weight down on the plywood. I probably couldn’t have broken the board with the strength of my arm. I sure as hell couldn’t have broken it with the power of my mind (sorry Bob). But no plywood board is going to withstand 90 kilograms coming down on it through the two square inches at the base of my hand.

So there you have it. I may not have the brilliant attitude Bob was looking for, but at least I came away with the knowledge that, while I may not be able to turn myself into a billionaire by believing I can, at least I have the ability to spot four hours worth of philosophical hokum when I’m force fed it. That, and a broken piece of plywood.

And that’s the way it was.



Garry with 2 Rs

Not Remotely Interesting

Yeah, yeah, I know. I was hoping to slip an extra post in before the end of February to keep up the illusion that I’m not completely neglecting my blog, but … I didn’t. And you know what? I’m okay with that. After the disaster film that was the start to my year, I think I’ve had more than my fair share of events sufficiently noteworthy to warrant their own blog posts. It’s not that nothing at all has happened over the last few weeks, but more that I’ve been bustling about keeping up with a series of completely normal stuff.

Oh, I’ve also been travelling a bit again. It’s not quite been an intercontinental odyssey, but in many ways it has been just as eye opening and in some cases, better accommodated. Work has been sending me out to work with staff at remote branches all over the top end. I’ve just come back from a week in Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) and the week before that I was in Galiwin’ku (Elcho Island). In the past month or so I’ve also visited Numbulwar, Maningrida, Milingimbi and Ngukurr.

If you haven’t heard of any of these places, it’s because they don’t often make the news, and they certainly don’t feature in too many top ten tourist destination lists. They’re all Aboriginal communities located in Arnhem Land and Kakadu National Park, and are among some the most remote settlements on the planet. This time of year, the only way to get out to some of these places is by light aircraft, since the only roads in are all cut off by monsoonal flood waters. Go and Google map them if you don’t believe me.

It’s made for a nice change of pace. Okay, Palmerston might not be a thriving or bustling metropolis, but it’s hard to think of a more peaceful way to end a day of providing the only banking service for several hundred kilometres than by sitting on a rock watching the sunset over the ocean, eating a hamburger and listening to the sound of the local kids playing AFL on the sand behind you somewhere. It sure beats the hell out of sitting at a desk, pretending to type stuff.

I’m back in the office this week and everything’s back to its usual pace. Actually it’s faster than it has been since I’m now re-equipped with a new and improved Ford Focus. The new model’s a step up form the old, Voyager grey instead of TARDIS blue, a hatch instead of a sedan and has fancy wheels and cruise control. I haven’t decided whether or not GSS Tarrdis mk2 is really an appropriate name for a car that isn’t blue. I’m open to suggestions on that, but as usual I fully expect that there will be absolutely no comments on this post.

Shove it




Garry with 2 Rs

The way it should be

I had the best Australia Day that I’ve had for a good many years. Brunch with the closest thing I have to family in Darwin, and then a barbeque and game of cricket at Lee Point, followed by a critical review of the Triple J hottest 100, and a public discussion on how much more awesome than England we are. It wasn’t extravagant, deeply-moving or particularly well organised, but as I stood with my cold coke at deep mid on and watched my friends and compatriots trying to bowl outswingers with a tennis ball, found myself thinking

“Yeah, this is the way it should be.”

It was such a gloriously simple affair that it made me realise how simple it can be to have the absolute time of your life. All we needed was some crude sports equipment and a critical mass of friends around and we were set. To me, it was all the evidence I needed that Australian culture, while unable to be defined by academics or social commentators who think they’re academics or self-opinionated bloggers who think they’re social commentators (Yes, I do include myself in that last category) is actually tangible.

It’s hard to believe that all that was just 24 hours ago as I now sit here at my desk at work. I’ve once again come to the end of my list of things to achieve today (it’s currently 10:00am as I write this) but all my supervisors are too busy and important to set me anything new to do.

The simplest answer would be to just sit here and browse the internet and make myself look just as busy and important as everyone else. Unfortunately my desk is immediately adjacent to the HR manager’s desk. My HR manager (who, by the way, is English; make of that what you will) has been known in the past to make less than subtle observations to me if she hasn’t heard my keyboard making any noise for a while. So now I’m writing a blog post at work, because in order to keep HR off my back, I need to make sure my keyboard is making noise.

“Yeah, this is the opposite of the way it should be”.

I realise that most people don’t like having to work for a living, but I’ve come to the realisation that I really don’t like my job. The idea of what I’m supposed to be employed to do sounds magnificent, but the amount of time I spend actually doing that seems to be minimal.

To top it off, my car is still sitting in the Ford mechanic’s car park waiting to be dealt with. There’s a whole other post coming on that epic and tragic saga, but suffice it to say that despite my grand dreams of a new decade in which I’d be zipping all over the city working on outlandish schemes for whoever needed me, four weeks in I’m still grounded and now spend my weekends whinging about my job to… whoever happens to bother reading this (I’m going to go with… no-one, with the possible exception of my sister who will get a link on her blogger dashboard).

Furthermore, I still haven’t generated a convincing sign-off line, so for this week I’m going to have to borrow someone else’s. I promise I’ll give it back when I’m finished with it.

Thanks for watching Spicks and Specks. My name's Adam Hills. Goodnight Australia.




Garry with 2 Rs

And the big news?

I've landed a new job in Darwin! Cue the fireworks display.

I'll be working as a training officer for a credit union up there. No-one (including the credit union staff) is exactly sure what a training officer's daily duties will look like, but then "difficult to define" has always looked good on me.

I'll be moving into a unit with an old friend in Palmerston (eek!) from the beginning of November. Hallelujah!

Far from home




Garry with 2 Rs