all over the place
I started my contract with the TV station yesterday. I am now officially their archivist, which is great and a little daunting because I am not a trained archivist. But I did maintain a tape library in Hobart for a year and a half. About 1,000 video tapes of stuff, which had to be accounted for. I’m hoping my little bits of experience here and there will help with this role.
Probably more important than the actual archiving is managing the Work For Dole people. The TV station pretty much is funded by Work For The Dole. There’s two other paid staff members and me, all paid by the government. Word For The Dole is paid to organisations who can provide participants with training in certain areas that are deemed “in-requirement”. Archiving is one of those areas. (Hairdressing is another skill shortage in Australia, btw. How strange is that. My brother’s girlfriend has looked into training as a hairdresser in order to remain in Australia should their de facto application be knocked back. It’s a little odd but whatever gets you through.)
I have some ideas about projects. I literally spent yesterday in the archiving room poking through many random piles of video tapes and cds and bits of paper thinking “what is that? and what is that?” By the end of the day I had some idea of where to go next and what needs to be done.
Already there was once incident with one of the participants, who became angry about a certain situation. His anger escalated. I have, a long time ago, completed a 12 week training course for volunteer counselling. I am in no way under the illusion that I am a counsellor, but I know the bare basics about what to do when in a confrontational situation. I was able to manage the situation, and wasn’t upset by it, but I’m glad I had been forewarned last week about the possibility of this happening, and had already done some mental preparation.
I came home last night feeling like life had been sucked out of me via my nose. But my mind was full of ideas about how to make the archives better and how to get the participants more involved and excited about the idea of what is pretty much data entry with a fancy title.
I was sorry to miss the poker tournament though. I like chocolate very much :).
well I am sure you’ll be back for the next one.
Sorry to be poking around your archives several months later, but I was just interested to do some catch up and see what you’ve been up to. Your job sounds extremely interesting. Hope you are enjoying it.