My contract was extended from ending 31 December last year to end 31 March. I have been feeling for some weeks that the current project I am working on is at the stage where my work is almost complete. Also, there is much talk about restructuring and the 'feel' of the organisation is such that I thought it unlikely my contract would be rolled a further 3 months. Well, it was confirmed yesterday that my contract will not be extended after 31 March. I came here originally in October 2008 on a three month contract, so to last three and a half years is pretty good but the run has come to an end.
My wife has resigned her job as she could no longer work with her immediate colleague. My disabled son is at a critical stage where he needs to go out into the world but this will take some time (and money) to put in place and I may not have time. No income will necessitate selling the house (+$1m) and moving out of Auckland into a cheaper 2 bedroom house and semi-retire on as much of the house equity we can realise. Our son cannot join us as the services he needs are only available in large cities such as Auckland and not in small town New Zealand. But that will take time. The extra mortgage we ended up with as a result of the incompetent builder and council and our leaky house will also cost us dearly, as the settlement of the legal claim only met about two thirds of our costs.
I am of an age where people will not hire me and this is why I have stayed here so long. I have constantly searched for permanent work and other contracts but to no avail. My network is now very small. Many of my bosses and former colleagues are now dead, retired or overseas. I am quite worried what I am going to do. In the past I have faced redundancies and contracts ending but as a qualified professional with a lot of experience, I was never unemployed for long. However, now I am at an age where there is no work. I can beat the 'thumb suckers' around me at Excel, Powerpoint, Word and they often come to me to provide solutions to problems using these applications. I read widely, all the financial and business journals and papers, to keep up to date with the latest business trends, theories and practices. I am not sure what else I can do.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
THE NEW COMMUNICATION
My mother-in-law died last week, mid afternoon. She was born in Scotland, had immigrated to NZ in the 1950s lived in Blenheim for 10 years, lived for many years in Wellington and then moved to Auckland with my family in 2000. Her deceased husband's family live in Scotland and her family had emigrated to Australia. We had the immediate family phone numbers but the following day we turned to her address book for contact details for the extended families, the myriad of her friends and distant relatives. She was 82 and her address book was largely incomplete, with only snail-mail addresses because that is how someone of her age communicated with people. Toll calls were rarely made as the memories of their cost in past years still resonated and of course email was a complete mystery.
We telephoned at least one person in each of the extended families in Australia and Scotland and a number of m-i-l's close friends and asked them to disseminate the news. My disabled son has been the keeper of the family network as he has had a computer since age 5. The day after m-i-l died, at our request he went on Facebook and announced the news, as did everyone else in the immediate family with a web prescence, including me.
Within 2 days we had a long Skype conference with the extended family in Scotland, including aunties, cousins and grandchildren. Her sister-in-law, herself in her 80s, kept remarking in her scottish brogue, "This is much better than a telephone call - and it's free!" One second cousin who we had not seen since about 1971 when she was about 4 years old, got in contact via Facebook and drove the length of the North Island to attend the funeral. One young woman who regarded m-i-l as her second mother arrived from Colorado for the funeral! We were blown away. She had read the news on my Facebook page.
But there was a downside. We rang my brother-i-l in Sydney within minutes of m-i-l's death to tell him the bad news. He was obviously very upset. His daughter from his first marriage was very close to her Nana. The b-i-l needed some time to compose himself before he could think about tracking his daughter down and telling her. She lived in Queensland, was always changing flats and never had money for her mobile so it was often difficult to contact her.
Meanwhile a "partner" of the immediate family (i.e not married to), jumped the gun and got on Facebook late on the evening of m-i-l's death and announced the news on her Facebook page. The missing daughter went on Facebook that evening and rang her father in hysterics about the news and demanded to know why she had to find out this way. Of course her dad was forgiven but the whole family was very annoyed at the "partner" as it was not seen as her place to announce the news before the family.
The only person we could not track down was m-i-l's cousin in England, who had been her closest friend as a young woman. We tried every trick we could. We found her address on the net which allowed us to interpret m-i-l's illegible, frail handwriting. But, no phone number, international toll enquiries could not find a telephone number despite the address and the cousin has no web prescence or links in view of her age and because she has no children/grandchildren who might have one. We will have to write to her.
Overall, however, the whole process was a stunning demonstration of the new, linked communities we now live in.
We telephoned at least one person in each of the extended families in Australia and Scotland and a number of m-i-l's close friends and asked them to disseminate the news. My disabled son has been the keeper of the family network as he has had a computer since age 5. The day after m-i-l died, at our request he went on Facebook and announced the news, as did everyone else in the immediate family with a web prescence, including me.
Within 2 days we had a long Skype conference with the extended family in Scotland, including aunties, cousins and grandchildren. Her sister-in-law, herself in her 80s, kept remarking in her scottish brogue, "This is much better than a telephone call - and it's free!" One second cousin who we had not seen since about 1971 when she was about 4 years old, got in contact via Facebook and drove the length of the North Island to attend the funeral. One young woman who regarded m-i-l as her second mother arrived from Colorado for the funeral! We were blown away. She had read the news on my Facebook page.
But there was a downside. We rang my brother-i-l in Sydney within minutes of m-i-l's death to tell him the bad news. He was obviously very upset. His daughter from his first marriage was very close to her Nana. The b-i-l needed some time to compose himself before he could think about tracking his daughter down and telling her. She lived in Queensland, was always changing flats and never had money for her mobile so it was often difficult to contact her.
Meanwhile a "partner" of the immediate family (i.e not married to), jumped the gun and got on Facebook late on the evening of m-i-l's death and announced the news on her Facebook page. The missing daughter went on Facebook that evening and rang her father in hysterics about the news and demanded to know why she had to find out this way. Of course her dad was forgiven but the whole family was very annoyed at the "partner" as it was not seen as her place to announce the news before the family.
The only person we could not track down was m-i-l's cousin in England, who had been her closest friend as a young woman. We tried every trick we could. We found her address on the net which allowed us to interpret m-i-l's illegible, frail handwriting. But, no phone number, international toll enquiries could not find a telephone number despite the address and the cousin has no web prescence or links in view of her age and because she has no children/grandchildren who might have one. We will have to write to her.
Overall, however, the whole process was a stunning demonstration of the new, linked communities we now live in.
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