Off the Grid

Today is Saturday and it’s a day I let myself go ‘off grid’. It’s a way to survive, I’ve broken so many of my own rules today.

1. I turned on my mobile phone.
2. I put on a bra (not really).
3. I left the house.

I walked ten minutes to the tram and caught the tram to the city. (it takes thirty minutes) Had about four conversations by the time I got to the city. WENT TO MY FIRST EVER RALLY.

It was a Taxi rally, or a rally for Taxi drivers to be paid appropriately for their Taxi licences. Oh Yeah!

4. I checked emails.

Emails feel like work, without the luxury of sitting at a desk in an office.

These days, I maintain two emails. One for personal “stuff” and the second for blogs. (The ones I follow and the one’s that follow me.)

Emails need to start only taking four hours or less a day. This is why even when I’m on a tram between appointments, I’ll cull emails.

Multitasking, Multitasking, Multitasking.

I should mention the Pedometer on my phone normally tells me I collected twenty-six steps, which must have been from midnight and 2am when I take my phone to bed to charge.

Today, 2,810 steps and I don’t carry my phone on my person, so all the steps I did doing laundry, chores and baking after getting home.

Think I’m going off-grid tomorrow instead. Going to be sore tomorrow. Yeah you are….

Nearly thirteen years ago, I was doing a job that apparently required a certificate IV in work place training and assessment. While I had been and admin assistant, I did the work of a TPO (Training Placement Officer).

I had twice attempted the course while I was in the role, but while I passed the practical I hadn’t had time to do the written.

After three years in the role, I was seriously shafted. Bullied by other staff who were incompetent and just didn’t want to do their job. Turns out putting your head down and getting on with the actual ‘work’ didn’t prove enough that you weren’t the problem.

In HR terms, I was the easier person to get rid of and worst of all, I was dumped out into the market place at a time no one in the industry was employing, because contracts were up for renewal. I managed to score a job with a TAFE with their work for the Dole area and they had me ‘Culling files’. The staff running around the office like chooks with their heads cut off and I could tell they were struggling however, they didn’t trust my knowledge of the contract. (How their business operated) so they wouldn’t give me any responsibility. They kept me as a casual until they knew what ongoing contracts they had.

I had to interview for a position back in the region I had spent three years working for the first orgainisation and I could manage the clientele very well.

The clients were all ages and the bulk of my workload was the “You don’t understand! I’ve been a student for the last fifteen years, I need to take a year off.”

Yeah! Damn eighteen-year old’s who think High School was going to be enough to set them straight. Never fear, I had a few clients that were the complete opposite, remembered not by name, but by the black Doc Martin boots she wore with purple laces.

She had, had a job getting up at 4amworking with horses. She would do a job again with that kind of start time. That job gave me a half a day of conflict resolution training by someone who trained people at Quantico in the States.

There were some clients in that region when they left the office, we would sigh with relief, clean up the destruction they left in their wake and mutter to each other “That one! Clocktower with a rifle! Next week!”

Slight exaggeration, but still. The sentiment was not far off.

I made a little fib about ‘having’ my Cert IV for that job! They put me in an office without net, that was not fully set up. No networked computers. I had dial-up internet and I was on ‘graphics-heavy software’ and I was often the ‘Helpdesk’ over the phone to untrained staff at another office.

To make my point, everything was slow. My printer was also a fax machine and my phone.

For safety purposes, I should not have ever opened the door for anyone. I did for clients and I had to hope for the best obviously. More experienced staff who never came to my office rang for contacts I had maintained from my previous work.

Once they had my knowledge and expertise, they got rid of me. Sorry, that was so long and painful, however trust me, that was the short version.

Next, stay tuned for a lesson on how to correctly wash dishes… No really.