I got a Jobby Job!

Hello All!

I am sitting here on the couch after a wonderful weekend with John. I always love whenever he has a day off. I know this sounds fundamental but in this biz any day off he has is golden and I never take them for granted.

In addition to his crazy work schedule I am adding my own to the mix. Nothing major but I did get some volunteer work.

I know you may ask, why volunteer work? The answer is threefold .... #1 We are only going to be here until the beginning of October and don't really have any plans for staying past that time. Not that I have tried much but I assume that it will be hard for me to find paid employment for such a short period of time in the kind of work I do. I would either have to lie and say we were staying longer or I would have to quit after 4 months which wouldn't do anything for my recommendation or resume. #2 I have been thinking about trying out the non-profit sector for some time now. Not that I wasn't good at my sales based job but I really want to try doing something more fulfilling, something that makes me feel really good about what I do and that makes a positive impact on the world around me. #3 I have no desire to spend 70 hours a week of my time here in an office being a slave. I still want to enjoy this experience and do some exploring not just working. Plus John and I both have really enjoyed having one of us at home during the week to do all the little things we never had time for in LA when both of us were working all the time.

So as altruistic as it sounds I did some poking around into volunteer positions a while back. I ran into a lot of roadblocks because some of the places I applied for seemed to have restrictions and back asswards ways of doing things. But that's par for the course in Oz. I won't go into that, just see my rant about setting up the internet and apply to this topic. LOL!

I filled out some online forms and registered with some organizations but didn't hear anything back for a few weeks. I had kind of given up when I got a call from someone with SPARK, the St. Vincent de Paul Society Assisting Refugee Kids. Basically they are a social services organization run through the St. Vincent de Paul Society's state office here in New South Wales. They help refugee children from over 20 countries, mainly Sudan, with education and housing placement, after school programs, ESL education, child care and any other services they might need.

The position is an Administrative Assistant to the program coordinators. One of my many jobs before we left LA was Administrator to our sales team at PromoShop so needless to say I was very comfortable with the task ahead.

I hadn't written a resume or had a job interview since 2001 if you can believe it. It isn't a life or death situation if I didn't get the job either so it was perfect practice for me. I went in for the interview last Tuesday and felt really good about it when I left. They told me that they were going to interview a few more applicants before I would hear back that Friday. I got a call around noon on Wednesday saying that they were very impressed and weren't going to do any more interviews. I got the job! WOO! It feels so good to put myself out there like that again and come up victorious.

So I will be doing general admin work on the other side of town every Thursday for the next few months. They will probably up it to two days a week later on. I'm really excited about it. It shouldn't be very difficult but I will be trying my hand in a new industry and gaining some experience in a different field while still using the skills I have learned over the last 10 years in my career. Its PERFECT!