Opening and closing doors

So, a lot has happened since 29 June 2024.

My fixed-term contract at one place was coming to an end, and I got the offer of another fixed-term role in another government department. And it was in many ways as close to a dream job that I've ever had. It combined a whole range of my professional skills, from customer service, to data management, to catalogue maintenance and the role directly contributed to putting money directly into the pockets of Australian creatives. I worked with a team with colleagues who were passionate and dedicated to the creative sector. I loved it and was very good at my job, and was optimistic that new doors would open as a result - possible permanently!

Flash-forward a year... I still love the job, but the doors that I was hoping would open are experiencing something of a freeze.

But another door opens - one that I wasn't sure that I'd walk through again. And in September I'm on a plane flying to a Pacific nation, once again "bibliotheque bound".

I've been here almost five months now - living in a beautiful, expensive, welcoming, sweaty rock, only a three-hour flight away from Australia.

It's given me time and space to sit with my thoughts - and it's helped my realise a lot of things that I think I already knew about myself, but wasn't ready to admit until now. (Mostly that I am a cool climate person!) 

In the coming months, it's already time to start thinking about my next move - hopefully I'll have more to say about which doors I want to open once we get to June 2026!

Last day of blogjune

New adventures start tomorrow.

I’ll tell you about it in eleven months.

One week gone...

Well, as predicted, I fell behind in my blogging over the past week, which featured two big things - a four-day trip to Adelaide and finishing up in my job.

Adelaide

It had been three years since I was last in Adelaide - also for the Cabaret Festival. But it was a very different vibe. Last time was a very interesting time, and felt a bit like the world's biggest party before going back into lockdown in 2021.

This time, felt more like returning back to 'normal life' - or at least, the normal life for an 'artsy' city like Adelaide. I felt a sense of nostalgia for the cabaret scene in Melbourne, 10-15 years ago when I lived there. It was amazing just to go out and see a few shows a night, featuring world-class performers in an intimate setting. From the ridiculous to the sublime, this is definitely one of my favourite arts festivals, where any show that you pick from the programme is going to be a winner. And Saturday night - the final night - was the place to be in Adelaide, where the late-night show exuded with love and appreciation for the performers and programmers who had made the festival what it was.

It also made me realise that Adelaide is definitely a city that I would consider living in. Between the Fringe, WOMAD and the Cabaret Festival, there's not a lot more that I'd want from my non-work life.

We didn't stay up too late on the Saturday, because we also learnt that on Sunday was the inaugural Adelaide Wine Festival at the central markets. So, we were in bed by midnight, and by 10am the next day arrived at the farmer's market at the Adelaide Showgrounds for all kinds of tasty brunch food, and made it to the wine festival by lunch time.

Turns out, Adelaide has a lot of delicious wine. Who knew?

Monday was our final day, which was our last chance to explore. We made our way down to the Earl of Leicester for their famous schnitty, but sadly they had a power outage, so we ended up Unley for our obligatory pub meal. Since we were in the area, we visited the Haigh's factory, and then explored the gardens on the Southside, discovering an amazing Japanese garden. Then, back to the hotel, to the airport, and home to Canberra.

Finishing up

Returning to work on Tuesday, I had four days to finish up what I could, prepare handover notes, and say my goodbyes. It's always an odd feeling to leave a job, but this time felt especially so. Most times that I've left a job, it's because I've wanted (or needed) to seek out a better opportunity, whether in terms of pay, responsibility or upskilling - or all of the above. This time, it's more of a sideways step to another government agency, which is an exciting opportunity. But there's a part of me that feels like I'm leaving too early, and that if I had held out a little longer (even just the two months left in my contract) that I could have finished up with more of a sense of completion. 

Then I remember that I'm working in web content, which is never really going to be complete. There's always content that could be improved, built on, enhanced, etc. The nature of the work being operational and ongoing, there's always going to be a sense of unfinished business.

I really am looking forward to my new job. I get to work with some former colleagues from my library days. I'll be library-adjacent again, which means that I'll be drawing on a lot of my fundamental skills and knowledge, but it doesn't feel like I'm taking a step backwards. More like building and combining my broad set of experience. Plenty of people have also told me that it will be a good organisation to find new opportunities over the next couple of years, so I'm also looking forward to exploring what else is out there, and figuring out what my next move will eventually be.

Sweet dreams are made of these

Yesterday, I was having a bit of a debrief with a senior colleague before they went away on leave, and they casually asked me, 'What's your dream job?'

It's a question that I kinda deflected - I've been around the traps enough time to know that any potential job that you put on a pedestal is bound to present unexpected challenges if you actually got them, and when there are people whose jobs you see as being enviable, changes are that there are many layers of complexity and frustration that you are completely unaware of.

So, they rephrased the question: 'What kind of job would you like to end up in?'

It stumped me. Mostly, because in the past, I've always been really focused on planning my career five years in advance, and looking at the next 2-3 career moves that I need to make. In the library world, there's often been a linear progression ie. from library officer - senior library officer/technician - entry level librarian - senior librarian - and so on.

But now, I feel like I'm on a flatter trajectory, where I'm just working on broadening my skills and experience at my current level. My career path could be described as being more opportunistic than aspirational. I don't know what I want to do two years from now once my next job's contract ends. I'm open to what comes my way, but I won't know if it's the right job for my current path until I'm actually doing it.

I am optimistic, though. The idea of my new upcoming job does excite me, based on my conversations leading up to and during my interview with them. That's definitely a good sign.

Life is a cabaret (festival)

Tonight, I'm heading to Adelaide for a whirlwind trip to catch the end of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. I've been once before - in 2021 - which was an interesting time, to say the least. That time, three years ago, I few across just as South Australia was closing its borders to New South Wales, and the day after closing night (which involved many many people, including the SA Premier, dancing inside a crowded Spiegeltent, drinking wine and singing at the tops of our lungs late into the night), the state government imposed new COVID restrictions and closed the border to the ACT behind me as I flew back.

So, this time, it feels a lot more straightforward. I plan to see a bunch of shows over two nights, and it will be glorious. But I may not be posting here for a few days.

See you on the other side!

Career planning in the public service

This is a topic that you'll often overhear young grads talking about over brunch in a Canberra cafe, with conversations littered with terms like 'APS 6', 'EL 1', 'substantive', 'secondment', 'section 26', and so on.

People get obsessed with trying to 'crack the code' of career planning in the public service - and I think part of the reason is that there are no hard and fast rules.

Some people trying to race 'up the ziggurat, lickety-split' as it were, seeking out every promotional opportunity. The risk, though, is that they get promoted to the point where they're either incompetent and/or burn out. Others play the long game, staying at a lower level, and moving sideways, building a strong portfolio of skills, and a long-term understanding of how an agency works. In fact, my supervisor when I secured my first ongoing APS role at the APS 4 level advised me, 'Don't try to move up too quickly - you might regret it.' Of course, the risk here is that of 'getting stuck' and never breaking through past a certain level of responsibility (or pay!)

Other questions to consider including:

• Is this role purely operational, or do I build the capacity to contribute to strategic planning and manage projects?
• Do I want to work in a small organisation or a large one? In a small agency, there's more scope to use a broader set of skills and contribute across the organisation, whereas in a larger agency, you'll have a bigger team to support you and more opportunities for development and promotion.
• Are there opportunities to manage and/or supervise other staff? Is this something that I want to do?

I think the trickiest thing about trying to plan a career in the public services, is that there are no promises. We no longer live in a time where years of doing the hard yards will be rewarded by promotional opportunities. Nor is it even a case that, if you come on board as a temporary employee and you perform well, they'll 'find a way to keep you'. Even ongoing employment isn't a promise - just ask anybody who's been in an agency that's had a restructure.

There are only opportunities, often appearing when you're not looking for them, and being open to jumping at them when they arise.

(Of course, for me, I'm having all these thoughts when I'm approaching the end of one job, and about to start a new one at a new opportunity. It surprises me when people say, 'Oh, we'll be sad to lose you!' when they possibly never realised that I was only in a fixed-term role to start with. I even had somebody say to me, 'Oh, but fixed-term doesn't really mean anything,' when for some staff, 'fixed-term' has meant being unemployed at the end of that term. So, I do feel a bit sad to be leaving 10 months after starting, but also, in this economy, I can't really afford to be unemployed.)

Timing is everything

In my last post, I mentioned merit pools. I only realised that these were a thing when I started working in the public service.

Basically, if you apply for a job, and you are considered suitable for recruitment, but you're not the top ranked candidate, you can be placed in a merit pool. This means that, for 18 months from date of the job listing, you can be offered a job on the back of that recruitment process.

This is why I sometimes apply for jobs - even if it isn't the best time to be changing jobs. If it's something I see myself doing in the next 18 months, then it's worth putting in the application now, and if I don't get it, there's a chance that, out of nowhere, when I least expect it, I'll get a call asking me if I'm interested in that job.

Sometimes it never happens. Sometimes it happens when I've just started a new job and I have to turn them down. And, in some cases, it happens *just* on the same day that I write a blog post about needing to start actively job-hunting.

The paperwork is done. I start my new job on the 1 July.