My Job is Safe......

Maybe its me being a Virgo with Chiron the wounded healer in my Ascendant sign..... either me thinking the worse or just preparing for the worst..... In any case, our staff meeting with the big boss last Friday turned out way better than the similar meeting in the dept next door. That meeting they were told the dept would be shut down and so all their positions would be made redundant...... so Virgo me thought the same would occur at OUR meeting..... but not to be..... In fact there are no immediate plans for any job cuts and indeed our dept will not be shut down in the foreseeable future - this being the warehouse "Product Supply" for Distance Education, where we send learning materials to correspondence students. They are still continuing in their plans to convert all of the courses to online courses meaning eventually there will be no more dispatches of  books nor most other items, but its going to take a while yet before the process is completed. Of course there will be some job cuts once the process is completed cos the volume of postage will be drastically cut, but not for at least 12 months.

Furthermore, they acknowledge that certain things such as Science kits for the performing of Science experiments can never be converted to online, the student still needs the hands on experiences, so no plans to cut down on Science kits. And well it happens since a few months ago a part of my change of duties is to spend half day each day in the Science kits area making up Science kits. So even when there are job cuts, my job will be one of the safer jobs. It will be those exclusively working in the mail dispatch area that will lose their jobs first - and well I do work in the dispatch area but only 1/2 day now and that is only because there are still SOME mail that needs to be processed and sent out, there's still some books being printed, not all of the courses are online yet, and even some online courses still have some books. The ultimate goal of management is to remove the books altogether and for all learning materials to be online only, but will still be Science kits being sent out minus the books.

A lot has already changed since I first started in this job 16 years ago this month. Back then EVERYTHING were sent out by mail. The books, the CDs and DVD's and indeed in those days they still had cassette tapes that were also physically sent out by mail. And many of the courses had kits with them, such as Science, Maths, Art, Home Economics and a few others. Furthermore the work that the students completed were processed by us, part of my job was to send the work back to the students after the teachers had marked and graded them.

Then one of the first things to go were the cassette tapes, most of them were just converted to CDs. Then many of the kits were cut out except for Science and Arts. The kits for the other courses were deemed to be unnecessary. Next to go were the CDs and DVDs as they were most easily converted to online format, though even this day there are still some DVDs that I send out, just not nearly as many as a few years ago. The student's marked work then drastically decreased in the last few years as more students were compelled to submit their work online, at first via scanning, then the format itself were converted to online.

However the major step which sent shivers down our job spines happened two years ago when all of the English courses were converted to online. That is books, DVDs, everything! This effectively cut out the English courses from our dispatch list. We knew then that our days in our current jobs are numbered!! Then last year more of the courses were converted to online only - such as the Accounting and Business Ed courses, and some of the Career Ed courses, Photography, and some others. This had significantly cut down my workload to the point where I often spent hours each day with nothing to do. This year, more courses were converted to online, such as all of the Humanities courses - Geography, Economics, Politics, and History, and also all of the LOTE (Languages) courses were converted to online except for Japanese. Indeed the only other courses I have left with stock on the shelves are the Science, Mathematics, Arts, Health Ed, and Woodwork. However in the Science courses many of the books have been converted to online, only the Science kits were to be physically sent out, and there were no books in the Arts courses, only the Art kits. And next year it is likely that most of the Mathematics courses will be converted to online.

So it was this year that my boss decided on some change of duties for me to keep me occupied, basically I spend the first four hours of the day in the dispatch area, then after Morning Tea break I would spend the rest of the day in the Science kits area. I get to revisit my passion in Science, remembering all those Science experiments I used to do at school !!!! Science was my favorite subject and I gotten my best scores in Science, indeed I won dux in Physics every year at school. Anyway it seems to be a most wise move on my boss part to move me to the Science area, a move that is most likely to save my job when the time finally comes for job cuts in our dept.

Now the football and I managed to get a massive 7 correct picks!! My best result yet. Of course I picked the Maggies but I didn't expect them to win by quite THAT much, I though Carlton was better than that, so being a first match of the round my points variance is shot out the window, but at least the Maggies won. And I did pick the Bombers though I thought I would deeply regret that decision, it is a VERY good thing that they managed to get over the line. I guess when it comes to tipping a win IS a win even if it is only by two tiny little points. And I did extremely grudgingly pick the Weevils, well it was only the Giants, its not as if they were playing some top team. True enough the Giants are doing better this year but being still a young team.... I judged that their trip to the distant reaches of the west coast would take a bit out of them, and well my decision was vindicated, the Weevils did manage a win..... ok it was a thrashing but then again it was ONLY the Giants and they still are a young team in the very unfamiliar environment of isolated Perth!!!

So next week the Maggies are first cab off the rank again with another Friday night match, and well its Geelong so am gonna back the Maggies again though I don't think they'll win by quite as much, so my points variance won't be so catastrophic. As for the Bombers, well after almost losing to the lowly Saints I'm going to have to back the Dockers especially being here in the distant reaches of the west coast. And the Weevils with their massively swelled heads will be brought back to reality with a THUD when they travel to meet the Port Power.

Anyway that were the major news...... hopefully this week will be far better than last week with no more mishaps nor close calls.........

Now some light heart look on spiritual topics.....

If Moses had a phone with GPS......

My energies after dealing with last weeks' near catastrophes......

The real reason why Stonehenge doesn't seem to be complete..... must have been from Ikea ;)

The never ending fight against ego..... the religious call it "sin", the spiritual community calls it "ego".... the irony in this cartoon should be apparent.... ;)

Now speaking of my job..... well I'm gonna be on the Chain Gang for some time yet...... for me it is in more ways than one as the song kinda suggest......