Category Archives: Work

Parenting, Work

The birthday rules

20 Comments

Dear Hugamuga and Dippity,

This is what I expect on my birthday.  

Be aware this is the minimum requirement of you, feel free to exceed expectations.

1.  I expect you to enter my bedroom (after knocking) and wish me a happy birthday before I get up.   Cup of black tea optional but welcome.

2.  I expect a card, handmade or bought, with a loving wish.

3.  I expect not to have to nag you all day to clean up after yourselves or to contribute to the general tidiness of the house.

That’s it.

Love,

Your mother
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x

Yes, it’s my birthday.  Groover somehow managed to find a dress that fits me perfectly with the perfect hemlength.  Totally impressive, especially because I really didn’t want to have to iron on my birthday and some serious wardrobe gazing was before me had I got the pool lounger I asked for.

I also received a lovely pair of silver earings, an ipod nano and a voucher for a facial and product from Jurlique, lots of text messages and phone calls and generally I felt loved. 🙂

I do like having to work on my birthday. First of all we have a thing where the birthday person has to bring in a cake.

This is a fine thing.

It alerts everyone that it’s your birthday and you always have a cake YOU like on your birthday.

When I came home my little darlings had rallied and I was greeted with a clean(ish) house, another charm for my Pandora bracelet and a homemade card.

Then we all went out to dinner.

All this and I’m STILL in my early 40s.

rant, Work

Knobs on it!

15 Comments

Warning: Rant ahead.
What is it with young people these days?  Do none of them learn to drive properly?

Twice this year so far I’ve come up against people – both in their early 20s – who can’t drive the work car because they don’t know how to drive a manual.

When I was a young lass everyone learned manual gear changes.  

In fact, I’ve never owned anything other than a manual car.

Now I don’t know whether manual 4WD’s are better than automatic ones – possibly it makes no difference – but that’s not the point… 

It’s just laziness!

And it’s soooo irritating.  
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Honestly it’s not that hard to learn – my 13-year-old can drive a manual car – and it means that you can drive any car.

It’s like never learning to ride a bike when you were young. What’s up with that?!  I did in fact meet someone who had to hire an enormous tricycle on Rottnest Island because they couldn’t ride a bicycle.  

Yes.  They did look like a big knob.

I’m over it.

Get with the program people and spend the time to learn how to drive manually.  Do us ALL a favour.

Jeez Louise!

And I can tie a proper Windsor knot too, but don’t get me started.

Extracurricular, Work

An insight into the Australia Day Awards

5 Comments

This year I was invited to sit on the WA panel to select the 2009 WA candidate for the Australian of the Year awards… filling in for my boss.

I felt completely unworthy to judge such amazing men and women and as I read through the applications – neatly filed for me – I felt even more selfish and callow.  And humble.

Anyway I made my notes and my shortlist and went along to the meeting in which we were to discuss and vote for our candidates.

We were upstairs in a board room at a city hotel and found ourselves with coffee in hand and mints at the ready sitting around a large U-shaped table… cabinet style.

The chairman sat at one end and explained to us how we would select the candidates.  First Australian of the Year WA, then Senior Australian, Youth and finally Local Hero.
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First up we each put forward our top 5 shortlist.  Then after some discussion we had a second vote – this time giving 3 points to our top candidate, 2 for our second and 1 for our third.  Then we looked at the candidates again to make sure we were happy with the way the votes fell.

I was pleased to see one of my favourites make it into the top group.  Maybe I could do this judging thing. 🙂

It was a really rewarding day and I felt proud to be an Australian with all these fabulous worthy extraordinary people really contributing to my society and making Australia a great place to live.

Anyone can nominate anyone else and really, if you know someone who is worthy of recognition it is a worthwhile thing to do.  Next year’s round will open around July 1, 2009.

Dippity, Extracurricular, Work

Royal Show Redemption

8 Comments

A couple of years ago I wrote about the bogans at the Perth Royal Show. I was quite scathing. Now, it’s not that the show has suddenly become a bogan-free zone – quite the contraire – it’s just that – for the first time in about ten years I went to the show and I actually enjoyed it.

Far from the jaded worn out parent from a couple of years ago, dragged from one show bag stall to the next overpriced ride, this year I left the elder at home to play Spore (thanks to his Aunty he is now SUPER popular) and simply dropped the young one off to volunteer at Animal Aid Abroad…

Where she stayed happily content all morning.

This left Groover and me free to wander the showgrounds at our whim and act like young teenagers in love – without the heavy petting in public.  

It took me back to my younger more impressionable years and my Grease-like fantasies of what teenagers did at Royal Shows… or at least end of year carnivals…

Okay so he didn’t hit a mallet and win me an oversized stuffed dog twice my size (this year’s choice prize) but then, I’m not actually a teenager and so didn’t miss it, nor miss finding the wretched thing space in my over-cluttered house.

Back to this year’s Royal Show…  does anyone else find it distasteful that they sold the naming rights?  It just doesn’t sound right to have the [insert advertiser name here] Perth Royal Show… did they ask the Queen first?  Wrong wrong wrong.

And would you go on a rollercoaster propped up on stacked wooden blocks?

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Groover and I did go on one ride though, which seemed to be made for teenagers, or at least smaller people than us.  It was the best ride I’ve been on at a local show.  And so it should have been at $10 each.  Highway robbery.

Didn’t seem to be putting off the masses of people in sideshow alley though.

Anyway after our free time we picked up Dippity, had some lunch (a lovely wood-fired pizza), Groover left and Dippity and I did a bit of wandering before doing another volunteering stint at another exhibit.

We finished the day exhausted and I learned a few lessons.

  1. Get your kids to volunteer for a stall – it tires them out and they spend less (of your) money
  2. Volunteer yourself and get free entry to the show – saves $24/adult ticket
  3. Leave kids at home or get them to go with someone else and enjoy the show 
  4. Check the base of all rollercoasters you intend to ride

Blogging, Work

A new model for powerful presentations

1 Comment

You know how I feel about Powerpoint presentations… well how’s this for a good model for a seminar day:

5 minutes
20 slides
Slides change every 15 seconds automatically

See how it worked for Matt (as in Where the Hell is Matt?)
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Nice.

Well… short. I like the finale. 🙂

Introspection, Work

Stop. Think. Compliment

3 Comments

Ennuin July 2008

Today someone took the time to tell me what a good job I was doing. And that person is someone I manage.

I felt really good.

No. REALLY good.

The lesson was learned.

It’s not enough to give positive feedback down the chain – it’s important to also send it up the chain.

Yes is feels brown-nosy and sucky, but in a world where you usually only hear from people when something is going pear-shaped (and I’m not talking about my figure), the smallest drop of kindness stands out.
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But doesn’t it feel awkward?!

Finding a moment to stop and tell your boss that you appreciate what they do and how they lead is not easy… it’s uncomfortable. It’s not “the Australian way”.

The thing to do I’ve discovered is to hold on to that good feeling you get when you’re complimented and push it outwards… with your courage.

It might make their day.

It made mine.

Work

Powerful presentation

5 Comments

Presenting…has NOTHING to do with PowerPoint.

Oh the agonising sessions I’ve been to! I once had to sit through a presentation of 82 slides! 82! Madness. Boring and irritating.

I’m thinking about good old PowerPoint because of Cromley – who points out that people sometimes get PowerPoint confused with Word.

Well that would explain some of the text heavy slides I’ve seen in my time.

It seems to me that PowerPoint has made us lazy. We don’t have to learn our speeches off by heart any more. We don’t have to think of ways to “entertain” our audience.

And because speakers are so focussed on their slides they don’t see the eye rolls, the yawns, the snores… those glazed looks when people just have their eyes pointed in the right direction but are not actually seeing anything.

When Groover worked for GE Capital a hundred years ago, they had a corporate policy on PowerPoint: Only ONE slide per presentation. One!

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Maybe that’s a little extreme – but then, maybe the MD like me had been bored mental by Powerpoint presentations.

Personally I think if you are going to have slides they need to offer something that you can’t in your speech. A graph. An image. A video. A groovy animation – which PowerPoint is quite good at making.

One speaker I saw who used it very effectively had an automatic presentation with a soundscape running behind it. He used images which just smoothly changed from one to the other. At the most there was maybe three words, if any at all, on the slide. He just told his story and the slides ran in the background. He didn’t talk “to” his slides at all.

Do you use PowerPoint? How do you use it effectively?

Update:  If you enjoyed this article you might want to read my article on public speaking.

Creative Commons License photo credit: adactio

School, Work

Can you live with bad spelling?

Me… not so much.

Sure I’m not perfect. Definitely has always been a tricky one for me and just the other day bolognese had me a bit flummoxed but if I notice a mistake – I can’t go to sleep knowing that it’s there.

I write a lot for my living and I read a lot, and let me tell you that bad spelling, especially on a job application does not impress.

Sure on radio you could argue does spelling really matter? – it’s not like anyone can actually see the words – but it does matter.

If you’re reading a script and you notice a bad spelling you check yourself. The read can become stilted, can sound read as you try and decipher what is being meant.
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Bad spelling can change the meaning of the sentence… and worse really bad spelling can make you giggle – and laughing on air – well what if it was a script about a serious subject – an obituary for example.

Frankly if it’s typewritten there is no excuse.

Handwritten? Should I be grateful they can write at all? Well everyone makes mistakes I guess. I’ll allow one or two but no more.

This guy? Well I can hear he is frustrated with the bad spelling he encounters everyday – my advice – never give up!

Colin – I join you in your crusade!

Random, School, Work

Privacy at school

The new classroom at CCGS

I drove past the new buildings at Christchurch Grammar School the other day and took this photo – quickly because of course the lights turned green as I was getting my camera out.

I hadn’t really looked too closely before but the lights were on in the upstairs classroom and I could see a student wandering around.

It occurred to me that I’m not sure I’d be too comfortable as a teacher or a student in a classroom that could be seen from the road. By people picking their noses at traffic lights. Not that I was but you know what I mean…

Oh c’mon! I was scratching it!

I also wouldn’t feel that great if the general public could see me at my desk at work. It would feel like an invasion of privacy.
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And that’s a bit odd because we have regular tours through our offices – I guess they don’t go near my desk.

Do you work in an office where the great unwashed can walk by and watch you?

I’ve seen a few banks in New York who have desks right up against the window – just a pane of glass separating them from the shoppers, office workers, tourists and homeless.

I don’t think I would like that.

And I certainly wouldn’t have like my parents seeing me misbehave at the back of the classroom when I was at school… not that I did Mum…. that was a joke! Really.

NSW, Work

Across the Nullabor in pictures

Finally took my photos off my camera – here are a few from my recent trip to Sydney.

Farmland from the window
The farmland was looking reasonably green.

The Nullabor
And then we hit the Nullabor.

A fun night in Sydney
We had a fun night at a cheap and cheerful restaurant… I think it was BBQ King… something like that …yummy Chinesey food anyway.

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A fun night in Sydney
Still at the restaurant.

At Henry Henrys
At another bar the next night… but I was good.

Cattle Class
Cattle class on Qantas – I swear the seats are getting closer together.