employment

If All My Posts Could Be Titled Grumpy

Remember when I used to work with a grumpy ex-chef? I refer to him as”chef” or I should have. Well, occasionally, in random impromptu training sessions he would offer a scenario to the office a typical client scenario. But he would offer “Initials start with” then he would just pick someone in the office that was present and just use their name. Yes, Helen Caligiuri featured regularly. It was a moment to smile because I wasn’t in his bad books. But it was just an amusing way to throw someone under the bus.

The example I would give for an impromptu training session I once gave, was beconing all the Admin in to the front of my desk. I held up a very long and colourful police check and I asked, “should this client go to do their mutual obligation in a school or an aged care facility?” One woman looked at me with so much fear. She did not want to read the actual police check. Our clients had some colourful police checks. It is fair to say most would be license or loss of driving license or driving without a license related. Stupid but what’s the clientele coming through our doors 20 years ago one might expect?

It is also to say, a general rule of thumb Chef gave me was if a client was outside a primary school dealing drugs, you would not place them in a school to do their mutual obligation. No. God NO! That said, those were our locally born and bred young clients and then I had one Dickhead of a colleague! What? You think he’s reading my blog? Did I name and shame him? Initials or otherwise? Wish I could. He delivered me half-signed/half filled-in paperwork on my desk. It included a half-arsed police check.

I know this staff member was employed as the T.P.O. (Trading Placement Officer) however, while I was only an Admin he had not retained the wisdom of what I could legally enter on the government system with only half the forms filled in. And I was over it. Our Supervisor watched as I called the TPO over. I held up the paperwork and demanded. “What am I supposed to do with this?” Chef looked at me, not actively backing me but not telling me to step down. TPO asked “what?” He had no fucking idea. So, I explained to him his error in judgement. “I cannot lodge this!” Then I had to unpack why, “It’s not signed! Dated! Or completed!”

I suggested he put it on the government system, but I suspect he didn’t know how, not that he understood why he legally could not. Part of our admin process was that we “certified” that the original documents had been dated and signed. He told me to put them aside until Friday, two days later when they attended the office again to attend the Induction where we would normally officially place them on the system and therefore we would finally get PAID. What he failed to realise was that those clients fuck-all turned up two days later.

It has just occurred to me my current mental state might have me being too pissed off to politely complete this post but I think if half of you read next weeks post. My obvious attitude will be explained. Christ! I digress, where was I?

Those damn clients! If they turned up, I wouldn’t enter those documents because they were therefore out of date and I would need to have the clients complete new ones and then I would need to post-date their Induction timesheets and their start date. It’s a whole big fraudulent thing, yeah?

Just say yes!!!!!!

Acromyms 1

ACRONYMS! Part 1

In the early naughty (2000’s) I got a job with an NGO. I started as a client, I was a considerably consistent client and then I was a very consistent staff member for 3 years, despite every 3 months being made to apply for my job again. And consistently being passed over so they could give someone else a much needed position, knowing another position would soon be available for me, so I could have some permanency.

On one occasion I was passed over for a job I was already doing and then I was left to be in the office to train that person. Anyway, I’ll let you guess what kind of job/industry it was with this clue.

The industry was rife with ACRONYM’S!

They had then for EVERYTHING!TAF

First, clients were REF (referred) to us.

Here’s some others –

ETS: Expected to start!

P: Placed!

DNS: Did not start!

PR: Participants Report!

Now, this might give you some ideas what industry I was in. If not here’s a few more – when the clients were finished with us. These were other codes such as:-

END: Contract ended

EX/PTW: Exited/Part time work

EX/FTW: Exited/Full time work

EX/RTW: Exited/Return to work

My very favourite exit code was “WUK”

It was a rare one but when it came someone would ask in the office. It was the kind of environment where there was little privacy. But you learnt by osmosis!

WUK: Stands for “Whereabouts Unknown!”

When I started in this job I was an Administrative Assistant, I never understood what it meant to be in “Admin” but basically means you do whatever needs doing.

Later, when the organisation/company (they ran like a company) restructured. I managed to keep a job and was kindly given the title of T.P.O. (Training Placement Officer) which was a job I had long been doing on the Admin salary. But they made me Part Time! Making it very challenging to do a full time job!

I was only paid to do 19 hours a week. I often stayed after the other girls left at 5pm, I would finally do my job, as I was training 2 Admin girls and a TPC (Training Placement Co-ordinator).

On Wednesday, I would arrive at work and announce to the girls, “Get your questions ready and line up at my desk!”

I’ve done the maths and I should be out of here by lunch!”

The papers would ruffle and there was panic in the air. And my boss would come out at midday and ask me to stay.

I would still be there at 4pm.

Apparently if I’d been doing full time hours for 2 weeks, company policy was that full time hours should have been made permanent.

One day I was walking through the Bourke Street Mall in the city of Melbourne. I had received a call from a new recruit back in the office. I kept walking so I could concentrate on training the Admin Assistant now to use a very graph-heavy government database system, it was very “it’s the thing, above the thing and the thing!”

In the end due to a HR issue I was restructured out of my job. Two incompetent women in office claimed I was bullying them. It was actually the other way round.

After I was gone, they soon followed Effectively, I got the shaft!

Unlike others I had no real presence in the industry as I’d always been in the office working.

I eventually found some work with a TAFE, doing the same job and while they all ran around like headless chooks, they had me “culling exited files.” I was under-utilised because they didn’t trust my ability to do a job.

Rather under-utilized. Sadly that job too ended. This was a job I had in my early 30’s for about 4 years. And because it was very stressful, my medical condition started to show, some odd symptoms and I was diagnosed in the same week, I was let go from the 2^nd employer.

That was a really shitty week.

So if you didn’t work out the industry from all those ACRONYMS. I’ll give you one last one to help.

W4D: Work for the dole

CWC: Community Work Co-Ordinator

And around the office we had many nicknames for it “Work for the coffee scroll” being one of them.

I used to think I was good at my job. I was nice to the people who needed it and I laid down the law and was the “hard-ass” to those that needed it! I was the only one in the office who knew how.

There is one big thing this job prepared me for and that was the understanding of ACRONYMS!

Please be prepared for Part 2 to this.