Archive for July, 2009
July 31 2009: My Value As An Employee
Filed under Uni/Work with 8 Comments
As if my ego couldn’t get any bigger after the positive feedback from my temporary job resulting in it becoming permanent, I’ve received further affirmation of my value as an employee from my weekend job at a baby store.
I won two movie passes (though I only got the tickets today), as the employee in my state who had the best value for hours ratio last week. That is, the employee who managed to have the highest per hour average sale, wins the tickets – with about forty employees across a half dozen branches, many of whom have been with the company for well over a decade and thus have greater product knowledge than myself. Yet, I won. The weekend casual who’s been with the company the shortest period of time.
Off the top of my head, I would have averaged about $500AUD an hour in sales for them last week. Considering I get paid between $21AUD and $34AUD an hour (depending on the day, and not including superannuation), I’m a bargain for the company!
What’s best I think, is that while I may have won individual honours, the branch I primarily work in won “best store in the state” honours – meaning we actually reached and surpassed our weekly target (we got to 133%), and got a gift card to spend as we please. In retail particularly, I think getting recognised as a team is more rewarding than individual recognition – you work together to achieve store targets, you tag-team on customers to make sure that they get enough attention, and you combine your energies to make the store a success and to boost figures.
Now the question is I guess, what movie am I going to see with my free tickets, and what am I going to buy with my portion of the gift card?
July 30 2009: Overall Happy
Filed under Life with 18 Comments
Oh boy. I took a nanna nap tonight as soon as I got home (sheer exhaustion) from work today, and woke up four hours later. There’s no way I’m going back to sleep for another few hours, as it’ll just make me wake up at some absurd time like 4am. I feel so old – it was only a handful of years ago that I could go for days without a proper sleep and still be bouncy and chirpy.
Anyway, some random tidbits:
- I got the permanent position! I interviewed for it this morning, and was told by the afternoon that it was a no-brainer, they’d been really impressed with my work thus far, and it was only due to regulations that they had to advertise and re-interview all candidates. So rather than a two-month temporary assignment, I’ve signed on as a permanent part-timer at my job in the disability sector. I’m trying to keep it low key, but I’m actually really fucking excited and I want to scream it from the rooftops.
- Because I’m now permanent rather than temporary, I can go back to scouting for homes and home loans as soon as I get my official letter of offer. I couldn’t as a temp because there’s no bank out there that will offer a 22-year-old a loan when they have no permanent position, but now I’m back in the permanent workforce, I can start looking again. Things are back on track!
- We’ve done really well in changing our eating habits. While we’re not overdosing on veggies 24/7, we have cut back on our junk food intake dramatically (no more driving out for souvlakis or Maccas at 11pm). We’re still juicing up the fruit and veggies we’re getting each week from my friend, but we’re also just buying groceries and cooking normal meals. And by “we”, I mean “him”, cause he actually enjoys cooking. He’s more of a cook, I’m more of a cleaner.
- Somewhat following on from the above point, I’m thinking of buying a Mr. T cooker. I suggested a George Foreman grill, but was informed that a Mr. T cooker was cooler (apparently George Foreman is so 90s) and fancier.
Like I told Stephanie…it’s all a bunch of OVERALL HAPPY. Life is good.
July 28 2009: Promising High Schoolers
Filed under Australia & Uni/Work with 4 Comments
In the past week, I’ve been coordinating and organising stalls about work within the disability sector at three different career expos around Melbourne. What I found most gratifying over my time at these expos, was the attitude of high school students towards the thought of working with people with disabilities. There is no longer the stigma of “duh, you’re a retard” that one would have encountered a mere handful of years ago. Instead, I spent time talking with students who had already seriously considered disability work as a career, stating things like “I have an autistic friend”, or “my mother works in disability”, or “I had learning difficulties as a kid, and my integration aide really helped me like I want to help others”. It’s very gratifying to see a generation of children growing up who have sincere appreciation of the benefits of a strong social and community network.
I suppose you would describe it as job satisfaction – I love that in this job, I have the opportunity to promote an essential role in society. It’s especially important considering that the average age of a disability worker in my state is the mid to late forties – we need to get some new, young, blood into the sector. I love that I do the essential back-end work that allows the hands-on care to take place – I keep the disability sector in my state ticking over, and allow its members to keep up to date with new policy developments, to gain further education and training, to network with fellow professionals, etc.
On another note, one of the expos that we exhibited at today was located 100kms out of Melbourne in Warragul. Driving there, I was simply astounded by the sheer beauty of the Australian landscape. Rolling hills, gullies, bushland…it’s stunning. And all half an hour out of Melbourne on the freeway. Like my attempt to see my city through tourist eyes, I really should learn to simply go on day trips to small rural towns and see more of the surrounding countryside. For example, Phillip Island is only about one and a half hours drive from my house, but the last time I went was when I was fourteen!
I sense some local sightseeing in the near future.