"What will I be?"

By Gill England, Practice Advisor with Careers New Zealand

Those older Gen X-ers reading this will totally remember Doris Day trilling through their childhoods:

When I was just a little girl

I asked my mother: What will I be

Will I be pretty?  Will I be rich?

Here’s what she said to me:

Che sera sera.  Whatever will be

The future’s not ours to see

Che sera sera

OK so 60’s housewife sentiments aside, I kinda get the notion of Che Sera Sera at the moment.  We expend a lot of energy longing for things to be “better” in our lives and wondering what is going to happen next.  We long for things, attainment, success, romance. 

Work Life Balance

Guest post by the Accidental Civil Servant 

Work Life Balance…such an understated phrase for the holy grail of modern life!

I have worked many different contracted hours over the years for as many different reasons: childcare, part time degree course, even a sabbatical for foreign travel.

What I know is this:

• Never forget the customer is King (be it your boss, your team or the public) and your own flexibility/creativity will be essential.
• You fully achieve “balance” if you are completely present in the area of your life you are currently in! (Sobbing in the office toilets because you’d rather be with your baby, or contemplating juggling your team’s Xmas leave requests whilst watching the school nativity is not balance.  However it’s the reality for most working parents at some point – forgive yourself these moments.)
• Working part time in any middle/senior management position inevitably means working harder than most full time peers – e.g. you still go to the same number of meetings even if your area of work is proportionally smaller.
• Working part year will mean treble the planning, communication and investment in all your staff (be they your deputies or those at the coal face.)  If a crisis is going to happen (usually in the form of customers, personnel or both) it will kick off an hour before you leave the building for six weeks! You need to know your deputy is confident enough to look you in the eye and say “Go, I’ve got it!” You then need to reward them when you get back.
• A sense of humour, perspective and genuine appreciation for those who keep the plates spinning when you’re not there is essential. (Pay into the karmic pot! People will only cover well for you if you have it in the bank. I’ve personally covered staff’s extensive bereavement leave and domestic emergencies, try to always say thank you for the little things and never run a team meeting without providing cake!)

Despite occasional mental melt down (in the office and at home), I like to work.  I’m confident my daughter will remember I spent most of her school holidays with her.  I can only hope she will forget the time I forgot to send her to school with a packed lunch, or was late picking her up from music lessons!

My final advice is this:

• Smile
• Breathe
• When it does occasionally all go pear shaped say to yourself “no one died…now what wouldn’t I do next time!”

Our guest blogger this week is a British Civil Servant who chooses to remain anonymous.

Charlie’s Angels in the pink for breast cancer

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We did it!
Charlie’s Angels raised $349.00 at our Pink Ribbon Breakfast for the Breast Cancer Foundation held at Pukerua Bay School hall today.

We've been fundraising for worthy charities for a couple of years now and was originally formed by Pukeruvian Lucie Reece for the first Porirua Relay for Life in 2010.

“I wanted to support my friend Charlene in the UK who is fighting cancer. I wanted her to know that although we are on the other side of the world she’s never far from our minds,” says Lucie.

Fighting Cancer with Cake: Charlie's Angels Pink Ribbon Breakfast

By Jane Comben

The Charlie's Angels new challenge has been decided.

What with winter drawing in and the fact we haven't found a physical challenge we can all agree on (I'm not keen on a swimming leg of Lake Taupo), we're hosting a Pink Ribbon Breakfast. Well, It's a morning tea but let's not get pedantic. One of our neighbour's is currently battling breast cancer so we thought we'd show our support.

So this week, we're doing our bit in our lovely school's hall and showing "The Big C" that there's some other pretty powerful "C" words.

Introducing "Kickstart your future"

We're excited to announce our new workshop coming up next month. 

Click here to register and for more information.

We look forward to meeting you,
Ange and Jane

Meet the 'Mum Squad' - my support team

By Angela Bensemann

We are often thrown together with people in life through a set of circumstances not of our own choosing.



This happens a lot when you have children.  You end up making friends with the mums of kids your kid is friends with, or the parents who wait outside the classroom at the end of every day, or with those freezing to death on the side-line of a rugby or netball game in the depths of winter.

Sometimes you click with these people and sometimes you don’t.  It’s all about finding your team.  The people you enjoy hanging out with.  If you’d told me I’d find my team on the side-line of a kids' cricket game I would have told you, you were nuts.

I hate cricket.  I’ve always hated cricket.

Imagine my dismay when my child – age five - announced he wanted to play.  He could not be dissuaded so it seemed.

He is now into his seventh year playing and a funny thing happened along the way.

I’ve come to love my Saturday mornings in my deck chair cheering the kids on and gossiping with the Mum Squad.  Of course the Dads are there too but it’s the Mum Squad who keeps things going.

The ups and downs of working from home

Duncan helping with this post
by sitting on my notes.

By Jane Comben

As with everything in life, there are pros and cons to working from home. After five years here are a few of mine.

Work in your PJ's and no one will know.
You could work naked if you want, just check the webcam's off before you take that skype call.
Work in your PJ's or your oh-so-comfortable saggy track pants and next thing you know it's slippers in the supermarket. It's a slippery slope, that's all I'm saying.


Ditch the commute and getting out the door as a fully functioning human being by 7am.
Ditch the commute and walking to work no longer counts as exercise.

The downside to downshifting

The final installment in a three part series by Rob England - a consumate downshifter, Dad and model train enthusiast!

Part Three

Nothing is perfect. Any improvement comes at a cost. What can downshifting cost you?

Money
As we said, you need to have lower expectations of income and wealth. You just might end up better off, but don’t plan on it. The corollary to reduced income is ironically reduced freedom in one respect; I miss the freedom to go anywhere in the world I want, and I miss the freedom to buy anything I see. I give up these freedoms in return for freedom of time and freedom from authority and freedom from b.s. emails from management and Marketing.

Security
Consulting can be a nerve-wracking game when things are slow and you cannot see where the next job is coming from. Running a business is even more so. You need to have the confidence that you will always be able to turn a buck, even if it is a much-reduced income that just meets your much-reduced expectations.

Development
Without a big organisational nanny, you must see to your own training and growth.

Golden handcuffs
By not giving me continuance of service when I changed countries my employer made the decision easy for me by taking away any golden handcuffs. For others it is hard to walk away from potential redundancy payments. If you really want to be free, you have to see it as unreal money, and go after the real money you can make for yourself.

World’s toughest boss
Sometimes I wish I worked for anyone other than myself.

If you've enjoyed our series of blogs by Rob England then check out Rob's blog.

Why I downshifted

The second in a three part series by Rob England - a consumate downshifter, Dad and model train enthusiast!

Part Two

Paid by the hour you have a good idea how much you will be making in ten years’ time. One catalyst for my downshift was a report from a financial planner who said I only had another eleven years to go before I would have enough saved to downshift to a lower-income job and still have a secure retirement. Eleven years at that job was not an attractive option. About the same time my father dropped dead. So did a neighbour younger than me. That was it! If I was to get any lifestyle other than grinding away for a third decade as a salary-slave, I had to take a gamble.

The gamble is to become an entrepreneur. Never mind the details (get your own ideas), by chasing business ideas and opportunities my future income is less determinate but potentially much higher.


I can make enough money from occasional odd-jobbing contracts to keep us alive and still have many months a year to spare to work on various projects. So I give myself five years to make two million dollars. If I succeed I retire; if I fail, I start my eleven year grind five years late. Not attractive but hardly the end of the world.