Virtual Marketeers

Posts Tagged ‘Career’

Pondering on the thought of our own personalities and how they really do shape our business, career and our personal lives through the many choices that we make along the way.

One thing that really stands out in my own individuality is that I seem to be one of those people absolutely 100% made to work from home, in my own business.  I have been reminded of this time and time again throughout my life journey.  I love working from home, my focus is really good… performance is right up there; and so I tend to try to guide my business in this direction.

And yes, I have taken on roles working in an office environment.  Although I still do work that is very good, after a time I start to feel somewhat stressed and pressured by the experience, and this may in turn eventually effect my output, and my health and family life.

I see it as being a really positive and powerful thing that I am able to recognize this.

It’s interesting, I have some friends and work colleagues who, very differently to me have great problems with procrastination when they work from home.  They just can’t seem to be able to concentrate on the task at hand, and have great difficulty in achieving their goals.  They instead might find themselves doing the washing, or the ironing, or tidying an already tidy desk, just so that they don’t have to focus on the task at hand.

Again, it is really important for this person to recognize this so that they can guide themselves in the right direction.
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(My Journey Part 5)

It’s funny how in the end I did end up owning my own business.  I am really glad that I do, as it has been a dream to own my own business since probably even before I got married to Paul.  Anyway, what I want to speak about in this last part about my journey is where I see my business into the future and to provide a snapshot of the day in the life of Rachel.

Where to from here?

As a Mum I have family to care for.  I have some creative juices that tend to flow through me, and an adventurous streak that screams out “there just has to be more, we’ve got to find out what it is” absolutely all the time, I just can’t seem to knock it, not that I would want to hey!  So, that being the case I have a couple of business ideas that I am working on at the moment, this being one of them.  I have a bigger picture idea and inspiration for this blog, but you never know it might change as time passes.  I would like to develop this blog in small bite sized pieces because it’s bound to taste even better in small bites, lol!!

My days are really busy, I would like to see this settle down a bit; a lot actually.  I take most of the day Tuesday and all day Sunday off at the moment, but even when I’m not working sometimes work finds its way in there.  I would really love to have more time to spend with Paul and the children and can’t see this happening unless I change my situation – so here I am trying out something different that might help me to develop and grow and maybe change the dynamics  of my business a bit even!
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(My Journey Part 4)

I was really starting to enjoy life a lot when Paul received news that the service centre where he worked (he’s a mobile phone technician) in Adelaide would be closing as at the end of that month.  At the time I was visiting my Mum and Dad in Queensland and received the phone call.  This was a real hard one, it was difficult to decide on the next best move.  I could go back to my job in government, Paul could apply for other jobs in his line of work, or we could move up to Queensland – those were the three options.  We discussed and thought about it, but there did come a time when we did actually have to make the decision.  What happened?  I resigned from my position in government and we moved up to Queensland with our eldest child.  Our life was in absolute limbo for the first, I think it was about four months.  By the fifth month we were living in a rented place North of Brisbane and Paul was working the other side of town.

I had taken a job but it didn’t work out because our son had a major allergic reaction while he was in Childcare and we felt a need to pull him out of Childcare for peace of mind.  Besides the major allergic reaction we felt that he was withdrawing at home and we didn’t want to miss out on this very important stage of his life.  So, I stayed at home with our little one and did some rearranging of our family home so that we could cope on one wage.  Although we were able to establish a good routine where we lived and met a few people, it still didn’t feel like home.

Six months of renting a home came and went, and we purchased and moved into our own home in a different part of Brisbane, where we are now actually.  I had plenty to do when we first moved in.  There was the packing, then the moving and then the unpacking and the cleaning of the previous home.
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(My Journey Part 3)

As a result of my losing three babies through miscarriage I applied for a lower level position in this same office as a job share, part-time 3 days a week, in the hope that I might slow things down a bit in my life and reduce my stress levels.  This seemed to work after a time.  The fourth time I got pregnant we were so blessed with our first and eldest child.

Soon after I started in the new position I was asked to take on higher duties and assist with developing a more comprehensive financial reporting process for the Committee that I had previously provided secretarial services for.  At around the same time I was asked to provide bookkeeping and secretarial services to a not for profit Catchment Group and I volunteered in the role of Treasurer at the Church that I attended at the time. What did this mean for my workload?  That I worked about four out of the five working days a week which was absolutely fine with me.  Some times were busier than others, but the pressures were different and less.  I also really enjoyed the variety in work that this provided.

When our first child was born I took the leave owing to me, and one year unpaid leave on top of that.  I continued to assist with the bookkeeping for the Catchment Group and provide secretarial services to them also.  I also continued in the volunteer role as Treasurer at the Church.  As I worked less than two days a week I had the opportunity to attend Mum’s group, bible study group, visit friends and do all those things that I wanted to do, including cooking lots of yummy dinners, cakes and biscuits in our oven – and it was necessary to do lots of cooking, as our child has allergies to peanuts, seafood, eggs and dairy – and for allergies, especially when you first realise that someone has allergies, the absolute best thing to do is to prepare fresh meals for them and take notice of what is going into the foods.  I loved spending time in the house that my husband and I had chosen, and built together.  This was a great time for me, I really did have the opportunity to be a Mum and spend some really good quality time with our eldest child.
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(My Journey Part 5)

Within probably one and a half years of my commencing in the admin position within the Ministers Office there was a major restructure in government and I was moved back to the department to work with the person who was my supervisor to start with.  Although I went back to the same supervisor, everything was different as the actual department had undergone a major restructure previously as well, which I had actually seen the beginning of before I started in the Ministers Office.  I was not only in a new place, but I was also provided a whole new job description to when I had left.

I didn’t mind one bit, as I was given a really good mix of financial support, admin support and human resources support / liaison which was unique to this particular division – plenty of new things to learn and do!  Again I learned so much from this job and from the people who surrounded me and I grew immensely in my skill set and as a person at the time.  I learned so much more about database management, about human resource management (at a basic level), accounts and admin support. I provided support to the personal assistant to the director once again and was actually asked to fill in for her while she was away.  I was asked to fill in for other personal assistants within the department and I, at times assisted the personal assistant to the CEO of the department by filling in for the receptionist while she was on leave.

If my memory serves me correctly I also completed my first minutes of meeting while I was in this role, although these were probably pretty average and I needed a fair bit of practise in order to bring me to the level I am now with minutes of meeting and transcription.  I have to say that providing a comprehensive and accurate record of minutes of any meeting can be quite difficult, especially when you have not yet developed the skill set needed to do this.

This experience actually helped me in refining my skills even more, as I basically created this as a new position myself, including setting the processes and procedures within this position.
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(My Journey Part 1)

The purpose of the next few articles will be to provide you a picture of how I came to become a home based business entrepreneur and what it is like to own and run my own business from home, “The day in the life of Rachel Reeves” so to speak.

At the moment my business isn’t run fully from home, but that’s okay, because I am loving the interaction that comes with this.  I currently work for three very unique clients and am enjoying the variety of work that comes with this.  The amount of time I work is okay, but there are some tough times when either myself or my boys become ill, or even when I have something extra on in a week.

The Start of My Career Journey

There are a few things that have shaped my life and my career so far.  I started out as a trainee at a small town primary school.  Actually it was with one of the primary schools I had attended, which was in a small country town.  At first I had heaps of trouble remembering to call my supervisor by her first name instead of Mrs S, which is what we all called her when in primary school.  I loved working there and found that I learned so much, because being that it was such a small school I was provided the opportunity to do a bit of everything.  One day I worked in the library, the next day I would be in the office checking off receipts, the next day I would be helping to organise the school concert and then the day after that I would be setting up computers or assisting some students with a software program.

I really loved the interactions I had with both the staff and students, the learning process that I went through and the variety.  I wasn’t paid very well, which you expect when you are a trainee, but I was living at home still with not really any responsibilities and so it didn’t really matter, I adapted.   I absolutely really wouldn’t trade these first ‘working life’ experiences with anything else – it was an awesome way to be able to learn.
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