Started casual work on 25th August, full-time on 20th October 2008

(Wow! 30 jobs in 30 days! It’s like I planned it or something! 🙂

After my Channel 7 gig, the business manager at college offered me some casual reception/office work when I wasn’t working my other job (database admin). So I appreciatively took them up on their kind offer. The receptionist here had taken extended leave and they weren’t sure if and when she was coming back, so it was a week-to-week arrangement which suited me fine at the time. About a month later, they offered the job to me full-time and after very careful consideration, I accepted.

When I let my part-time employer know that I was resigning (I stated that I needed full-time work and gave a whole month notice), they counter-offered a full-time job at their company. It was a LOT more money, and longer hours. I did consider this offer – let’s face it, the money would have been really great and I would have had a high-responsibility position, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

So I made a lifestyle choice and stuck with my original decision to work full-time with the college. They weren’t overly happy and they tried to bribe me with chocolate (my one weakness! besides red wine that is…) but it wasn’t to be.

So I began full-time employment here at the college just over a month ago and it’s going great. I have a 30 meter commute to work and so much free time on my hands that I don’t know what to do with! Though, I’m sure I’ll find something! It’s also very social here and not only do I work with lovely people, I get to have lunch with Hubs most days (bonus!) and there’s always students coming in and out of the office which gives the place a nice atmosphere. AND they all stop to have coffee at 10:30am (just like YACMU!) AND they have a special staff morning tea every Wednesday! It’s great!

So that’s it folks. Scary? Yes. A little depressing? Sure. Frustrating? More than you can imagine. But here I am, in a job that I like, feeling like I make a difference (maybe a small one, but a difference none-the-less) and enjoying a very nice lifestyle. What more could a gal ask for?

August 2008

Whilst looking for another permanent part-time job to complement the database administrator job, I picked up some temp work through my old recruitment company (they’re Australia-wide) in Channel 7’s Olympic Call Centre. It was pretty crazy! I had anywhere between 50 and 150 calls per day, with callers mainly asking about programming schedules. And the Equestrian. (wha..?) Unfortunately we didn’t get the schedules that regularly, so we often didn’t have much to tell callers, which made it interesting at times!

Again, I worked with great people and the money was good so I was feeling a little less financial pressure. We had moved in to College by this stage and the bills had started coming in, so it was nice not to have to worry about money. This job was obviously only for the duration of the Olympics and since we had to know exactly what was going on, there were big screen TVs in all the call centre rooms, so I got to watch sport all day AND get paid for it! It was super!

July – October 2008

Now, obviously I have absolutely no regrets about us moving to Melbourne (LOVING IT!!) but I found it a little frustrating/ironic that I had finally found a job situation that I was really happy with, and I had to leave and start all over again. Such is life.

When we arrived in Melbs, I was determined to start work straight away, which means I perhaps didn’t get the most suitable job. I had the idea to do the 2 part-time jobs down here again, but it wasn’t to be. I was hired as a part-time database administrator which was okay, but it turns out God had something even BETTER lined up for me. I can’t say much more about this without giving too much away, so I’ll leave it at that.

(We’re so close to the end of November now!!! It’s been fun!)

June 2007 – June 2008 (part-time)

How could I say no? My old project (Child Safe Church) was getting another face-lift, and YACMU wanted me to be a part of it. So they offered me part-time work of 5 days a fortnight to manage the project. Although I loved working at Southern-X, doing the job full-time wasn’t very challenging, so I applied to cut back to part-time and only do 2 days per week. They were okay with that, so I started my new work routine.

I worked at the hospital Mondays and Wednesdays, and at YACMU Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings. This meant that my weekend started at 12:30pm on a Friday! It was sweeeeeeeet! I was also at the beginning stages of planning our wedding so this gave me some free time to look at dresses, flowers, decorations and all wedding-related things. It was also nice to be able to have lunch with family and friends or catch up for an early pint at the pub.

This type of work situation really suited my lifestyle and I felt that I had FINALLY found my dream job/s.

March 2007 – June 2008

Finally! A job that lasted more than 6 months! I started here full-time as an MIA – Medical Imaging Assistant. I assisted the radiographers in MRI, CT, Ultrasound and X-Ray, and assisted the Doctors with cannulations (inserting teeny needles into veins to inject contrast dye) and a few other procedures (some not-so-pleasant). The MIAs were the gofers of Southern-X, so we didn’t get huge amounts of respect from some of our colleagues, but we were adored by the patients. The money was pretty lousy but I got HEAPS of patient contact which I really loved.

I worked with heaps of people – other MIAs, Radiologists (the doctors), Radiographers (the button-pushers! tee hee!), Nurses (they were all lovely lovely lovely), admin staff, orderlies, and patients and I really enjoyed my work, mostly. I DIDN’T like working in “stores” or working with “The A-Team” (they thought they were just SO GOOD), but that only happened every couple of weeks so it was okay.

After a few months, I dropped back to part-time, which I’ll explain in my next post!

(Sheesh! I’m running out of days in November!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

January – March 2007

I resigned from my last job the week after the Christmas party. I mean, I didn’t want to be a party-pooper! It was icky and horrible and I couldn’t wait to leave to be honest. (To be fair, most of the people I worked with were great and heaps of fun.) I had been offered a 3 month temping contract with Qld Health’s Population Health Unit in Windsor, working alongside another good friend of mine. This job was okay, but since it was only a 3 month contract, I was already looking for my next job. The problem with me + government is that I like things to be done quickly. This is not something that happens much in government. Plus I spent most of my days at one meeting or another, not really sure why I was there or what outcomes were being achieved. Again, I worked with lovely, wonderful, fun people and had a great time, and that always makes it worthwhile.

In the mean time, I had been to see a careers counsellor who did lots of cool tests and analysis on me, to see if I could get a better idea of a job that suited me.

To be honest, this would have been really helpful 5 years earlier. Anyway, I found it really useful and even considered going back to uni. But then I remembered my desire to have babies in the next 5 years, and the fact that Hubs was going to be studying for the next few years as well, and decided it might not be such a great move. I WAS however interested in working at a hospital again, so I kept that in mind when I was looking for my next job.

July – December 2006

A friend of mine worked here as a project officer and a job as the Division Secretariat came up so she suggested I apply for it. It was pretty much in the bag once I got to the interview, and the money was FANTASTIC because employees could salary sacrifice pretty much everything! It did mean that I moved to “the dark side” (southside) of Brisvegas, but I was living with Khicken and Kturtle so that was cool. Not that I was ever home. Right… back to the job…

After 2 or so months, they asked if I’d like to manage Aged Care. I thought that would be great! So I got stuck in to that and felt like I was just getting the hang of it, then after another month they asked if I wanted to manage Mental Health! (My friend who worked as the Mental Health project officer decided to go back to her old job at a different Division, so she had resigned.) So I was a bit put out by their management, after all the work I’d done on Aged Care, but thought I’d give it a go. Another month or so later, they wanted to re-shuffle me again, at which stage I’d had enough. They just didn’t know what they were doing and I felt like it wasn’t going to get any better. So while I was at a week-long conference on the Gold Coast (the same week that Hubs and I got together!) my OTHER friend told me about a temp job that sounded right up my alley!

(By this stage I was getting a reputation amongst my family and friends as a job-hopper. It kind of got me down (and still does from time to time) but mostly I was just getting frustrated that I couldn’t find a job that I liked.)

October 2005 – June 2006

YACMU made me an offer I just couldn’t refuse (I NEVER can!) of a contract to re-write the Queensland Uniting Church’s Child Safety Policy and training materials. It was a huge job and I really threw myself into it. I was very happy with the final product and proud of the job that I did. I was considering pursuing a career in Workplace Health & Safety at UC and combine it with my Child Safety position, but management had different ideas.

It was an absolute pleasure as always to work with the YACMU crew, and they really got me through some tough times. And it was so nice having some great gals to work with – usually I was surrounded by smelly boys! (ha ha. You know I love yas!)

So as my June 30 end date approached, I had a few interviews and settled on my next job.

2 weeks in October/November 2005

This was a bit of a fill-in temp job through my recruitment agency. I worked in the area that prepared all the documents for parliament each week. It was crazy busy ALL the time which was super fun! Lots of deadlines, visits from Beats himself, (the Queensland Premier at the time) and LOTS of leftover morning teas and lunches that we got to sample. Yummy!

I would have been happy here for a while, but I was being called “home”.

August – October 2005

After my last job (at the Council), my confidence was rock-bottom and it took me a while to get back on my feet, both physically and emotionally. I took a few weeks off before I started my next job, (that I also got through my recruitment agency) and was a bit hesitant about what was to come. In fact, this next job was perfect for getting me back on my game. It was a 3 month contract with the Suncorp IT Department, organising their corporate volunteer days.

Suncorp pay their staff 1 day per year to go and volunteer somewhere for a day. A lot of groups use it as team-building and everyone wins! So I set up some interactive calendars on the intranet for people to “book” their own days. I had links to websites, contact details and all sorts of fun and interactive things! I had never worked on a website before, and I really enjoyed it!

The people I worked with were really great and always had 4pm meetings on a Friday… at the cafe/bar across the road. I worked in a team of 6 and they were all in their 30s and 40s and were very welcoming to little old me. We actually used to go to the cafe next door to the church Hubs and I later married in! As I said it was exactly what I needed to get back on my feet. I just wish it could have gone on longer, but I was just too efficient and completed my part of the project in the designated time.

So I was back on the phone to my temping agency (who loved me by this time!)