Staff Retreat (yesterday) for the Festival
I do need to post about work for a minute or two, regardless of other things happening in my life...
As I mentioned yesterday in this entry, Monday was the Staff Retreat for the festival. They discussed the recent layoffs -- and the plan for the future of association staffing.
So...
Prior to that meeting, I had no clue whether Jeff would mention me or not -- but Marilyn was pleased to report that I was included in the plan. I'll be taking over the role of IT for the festival -- so hopefully I'll be getting some heavy-duty training in that area soon!
Marilyn also informed everyone of my intention to become volunteer staff on a regular basis -- going in two days a week all year round from now on. I guess people were amazed by that -- in a good way.
Anyway, I'm going in on Thursday to start setting up my space there (again). The following are photos I took (God knows why) back in February of this year, when I had the cube right near Jeff's office.
They don't show the space very well, actually. I must have been messing around with my camera to see if I could shoot the wallpaper on my computer desktop. (I don't recall right now.) Anyway, Marilyn had suggested I take an office (!!!) upstairs, but I really want to be in that same cubicle. While I've always preferred actual offices (with doors you can shut, if need be), I've spent lots of years working in cubes or main offices (etc.). It's a really big cube, by the way -- originally designed to be a duel-station for two people. There's a large desktop and two large overhead storage containers. I figure we can move a bunch of the historical stuff back into those (we had some of it stored in one, back at the first of the year). They lock, so that's handy for valuable items.
I want to move a decent computer in there, anyway, as I'll need to have a good one for the sort of work I do at the festival...
So that's my plan for Thursday, anyway. To go in and move what's at the desk in the IT room (back) down to that cube -- and bring in some of the stuff from home that I took out early this year.
I used to have a chair in there for visitors/meetings, but I noticed recently that it's gone. So I need to find one and replace it.
I don't know what the plan is with everyone else who is still on staff, but I've heard that some people will be shifted around. That includes Amy, who was always right by my cube. I'll miss popping directly over to her for help, but I'm sure it won't be that big a deal to go to her (new) office, after she's moved.
Anyway, Marilyn said the meeting went well. Hopefully everyone is feeling more settled and less angry and upset. As I've said, it's time to move on and work to save the festival!
Oh. And according to Marilyn, Jeff did a GREAT job during the meeting! I should also mention (in case I didn't previously) that she said he gave a GREAT speech at the Summer Board Meeting, too...
It's going to be very interesting to start working inside the office on a weekly basis during the off season of the festival. I've done it now and then, of course, during the past three decades (!!!), but it's been a long time since I worked anywhere other than my home office on a week-to-week basis. I'm excited about it, actually. And about learning more about the maintenance of the in-house computers and the network -- backing things up and so on. Networking is one aspect of computers I don't know that well, though I have helped to set up several home networks now, believe it or not...
For me, the opportunity to learn anything new about computers is a very big deal. And I'll love working with Kent (the contract festival computer tech) -- and Amy, too (as my backup). Amy will take care of thing with the computer that pop up when I'm not there, as I'll probably only work two days a week. (I'm thinking Tuesdays and Thursdays right now, but we'll see how that goes...)
Yes, again, this is volunteer work -- so there's no salary involved. Frankly, the festival needs to start using more volunteers in the office, to help with the workload there. Especially after these layoffs...
It would be nice to start getting a lot more cleaning done here at home, anyway. That's part of my plan -- to tackle the entire house. I want to eliminate clutter, so I can make it easier to clean. But it's rough -- as we have so much STUFF everywhere! (sigh)
I do have some work to do here on my home computer, too -- so I should try and get to it!