Time to spare, or not to spare? That is the question....

Ha ha.... It's not everyday that your manager sends you home and tells you complete that job application!  Yes, ma'am.  I will.  Yes, and I will send it to you on the old email if I have time for you to check the personal statement bit for me, thank you very much!  Ah, I love her - she's terrific!!

But it makes sense.  I've been volunteering now for 7 months and almost a half, and doing 4 days a week of project work - be in stuff on the Wandle Valley Regional Park or the community garden in Bellingham.  It wasn't until about 3 or 4 months ago that Carla, my manager and I sat down together to do a future plan of my work that she suggested that I spend one day a week on my 'Personal Development' (or Per Dev).  This entailed working on job applications, updating my CV, on top of the regular administration and filling in timesheets etc....  What an awesome idea!  This really helped me get things done.  Helped me that is, until I started letting project work creep into my Per Dev time. 

The community garden in Farmstead Road was getting desperate, Giovanna my project manager didn't have enough man hours to cover her and the Community Gardener.  So since I, along with a young lady who was working under the Future Jobs Fund (FJF), Khristine were "free", we were asked to carry out lots of work that Giovanna simply could not afford to ask paid staff to do.  It didn't help that one of the residents of the community garden innocently bought a summer hut for the site in memory of her mother - and it only cost her £200 from eBay.  In fact the summer hut has cost us loads more in terms of man hours to discuss the matter with the landowners via email and telephone conversations, time to discuss it with the steering group and the lady who bought it, hiring a truck to collect the thing, time to dismantle it, my travel expenses to come in and do the planning application and money to submit it.  Yes, probably an extra few hundred pounds of money that we really didn't want to spend on a summer hut.  Especially when we already have a shed.  Blimey..........  So no, I wasn't entirely happy, and nor was Giovanna.  And nor is Carla because I need to do some Per Dev. 

Not only that, I also found myself volunteering to help out on other projects that needed extra hands at the cost of my Per Dev time.... Whoops.  Yes, I know.... Bad Maya. 

So the other day, Carla and I had another discussion about my work.  This time things were different.  She very wisely suggested that I do 3 days a week in the office and one day at home - that day being my Per Dev day.  That way, I wouldn't be distracted and I would just do my job applications without project time creeping in and the rest of time I could do my project work.

Anyway today, I was at a launch of some working groups for the Wandle Valley Regional Park where I spoke to a friend, Peter who also has a blog called Non-Stop Birding.  He attended the conference that I'd coordinated in April on the regional park (see my first post) and was one of the not-as-enthused delegates to join a warm up that some of the local school kids came to perform after their amazing trout dance, until I pushed him into it (sorry Peter).  So anyway, after the launch, I then went to measure the summer house for the community garden so that I could put some drawings together for the planning application, and I've come home to do a job application that I need to finish by midday tomorrow.  And having been reminded about my blog by Peter at the launch, I decided to write an entry...  The job application?  Yes, it's slightly complicated.  I would love it if I got the job but it's a hard one... I have to go to work at the pub in an hour.  And I'm writing a blog post.  Peter - I blame you ;-) and the lack of the trout dance - they knew you were coming!  Oh dear, procrastination has got the better of me... OK, I will at least make a start on it now.....  Really, yes, I will....!!!