It's the end of day three of my Australian working life and it seems timely to share (tactfully) some first impressions. I'll probably come back tomorrow and add in some pics because they will be worth a thousand words in this case.
Most of my Wellington readers will instantly get a totally false impression when I tell you I am on a three month contract at Queensland State Archives. They will instantly think of National Archives and coffee meetings in the cafe which is the polar opposite of State Archives here.
The two buildings are huge and surrounded by - parkland isn't quite the word - as while it is lovely, probably regenerating, bushland (none of the trees are very big) it isn't cultivated in the way the word parkland implies. You feel like you are miles from anywhere though. There are 96 linear kilometres of storage in the buildings and just under half of that is full. When you come in the staff entrance the first door is to the staff room and that is the ONLY place on site you can have food and drinks other than bottled water. They are obsessive about preventing pests. So you drop off your lunch etc before you go anywhere.
That was probably the first major culture shock - unlike the NZ public service, and most other employers, here tea, coffee, milk and sugar etc are not provided - you have to bring your own. Did I mention that Archives is in the middle of nowhere? The second shock which may be unique to this context are work hours, you aren't allowed to start before 8 a.m and if you are still in the building by 6 p.m. security will escort you out. There are two standard working days 8.30 - 4.15 and 9.15 - 5.00 with two ten minute tea breaks and 30 minutes for lunch. It gets drummed into contractors that you are not to work more than 8 hours in a day as you get time and a half!
Back in NZ I had heard it said that hours aside, the NZ public service works harder than most countries and Education's expectations in terms of projects managed per staff member is higher than most. After three days I'm already going a bit stir crazy because I have one piece of a project to progress. There is the equivalent of two senior policy analysts, and two senior advisors working pretty much full time on implementing a single initiative. They are behind because of staff turn over and related issues, which is where I've come in, but to be honest I'm kind of wondering what I'm going to do next week.
It helps that the Senior Archivist likes the "short story" but I've already whipped out the overdue comms plan to final draft stage, tested and content reviewed a new website subsection (and yes I think the vendor was a little startled to get full test feedback, web standards compliance requests and technical challenges) and drafted a submission to the Director General. And gone through a full induction process and been trained in the electronic document management system. The degree of surprise at what I've already produced wasn't entirely unexpected, but today I realised that the luxury of only having to get my head around ONE initiative had a huge part to play. But lets face it - it could well have a huge part to play in my being bored to tears inside another week!
Last but not least I've realised how much making a hot drink is a ritual when I'm settling into a piece of work. Having to get up and go and have coffee and FINISH it before I go back to my desk is really difficult. The HR person who did the induction commented she drinks far more water than she ever did and I've noticed I'm doing the same. I am a bit concerned though about how I'll do with the email announcements I have to write tomorrow which would normally require a decent latte to mull over as I write. I may end up talking to my manager about taking my laptop down to the staff room when I need to write creatively!
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