Day 1 of Life after ...

Day 1
Well, actually, it’s Day thirty-something, and I am trying to recall as much of what has happened since 14/3/07 as possible. A hopeless task I’m afraid. It’s all called Day 1, by the way, because it is all such a blur, and I want to pull it back into focus. I woke on Wednesday 14/3/07 at the usual time – 4:00 am, when Soxie jumped on the bed and said “Let me out or I’ll report you to the RSPCA for animal abuse.” He’s been doing that ever since he was a kitten big enough to jump up on the bed. My first thought was that I wouldn’t be going to Boot Camp that day. It’s a long story.

For those who don’t know, or haven’t been all that clear on the details, I had been working as a Job Search Trainer in a Job Network organisation for the past three and a half years. I really liked the job, and was always operating at full stretch, delivering sessions in the morning, dealing with non compliance issues, inducting people into the program, doing administrivia, and most importantly of all, giving personal assistance to people who, having been made aware of the issues involved in best practice in job seeking, tried to put it all into practice and sought my help on aspects of their endeavours. Then just before Xmas 2006 all the trainers were called to a meeting (I have given it the title Boot Camp) at which we were told, among other things, that as of 2/1/07 we would be delivering twice as many sessions in the three week cycle of JS Training. And we were given 7 new training modules that we had to start delivering from that date. Which meant, of course, that we had to spend the Xmas – New Year break swatting up on them. Not that that was expected of us. Oh no! But how else were we to be ready unless that’s what we did? So come the appointed date, I was ready, but quickly came to the decision that I was not prepared to endure the stress of the new regime. Doubling the number of sessions to be delivered meant a doubling of the amount of non-compliance (in theory – in practice it more than doubled it.) It also reduced to less than one third the amount of time available to do everything other than deliver sessions and induct people into the program. Clearly, something had to go. Since records are of paramount importance, it was client support that got the chop. It also meant that three days out of five I would go home with significant amounts of administrivia not done and would have to pick up the pieces the following day. There’s more, but I’ll spare you the details. I told the HR Manager at the end of the two day Boot Camp, when everyone else was gone and I could speak my mind (it is the kind of organisation in which you can speak your mind at such gatherings, but no one ever does) that we were being asked to undertake a massive increase in our workload. “Oh, do you think so Paul?” she whined, “It’s just a pilot. It’ll all be reviewed in three months. We can deal with any difficulties then.” The clear implication in that statement was that if the workload was, indeed, too great, it would be dealt with accordingly. It proved to be as I foresaw, and at the end of the first week back I resigned. The reaction was so awesome that I felt compelled to reconsider. “How could you leave us for you kids?” about sums up the response. No, really, it wasn’t like that at all. People were genuinely dismayed and pleaded with me to reconsider. I offered to withdraw my resignation (which was graciously accepted) and slogged on for another couple of months, becoming more and more angry about the situation. When asked for input to the agenda of the soon to be reconvened Boot Camp, I said that there were many issues that I could put on the table, but that there was only one that I wanted on the agenda: the new regime is too much work and client support has not just suffered, but virtually disappeared. It was soon made clear to me that that issue was not going to be on the table. So I resigned – again. Day 1 of my new life was the very day the trainers met for the reconvened Boot Camp.