Lost and Found

Last night we had a few of our colleagues over for drinks after work. One woman was the third employee that the company had hired, after the CEO and CFO. This is an interesting fact for two reasons. Firstly because she was only hired 12 months ago and we are now at about 150 people, and secondly because she is a Nutritionist. This gives you some understanding of the importance the organisation places on the Health of the Indigenous, basically why we are here.

She is a remarkable woman. She spent time working in Sudan, Afghanistan and Somalia over the past 10 years. She made a comment which really got me thinking. She said that the state of Indigenous health, or ill-Health as the informed call it, is the worst of any country she has worked in, in relation to the country itself. So, put another way, you expect the health standards of a third world country to be pretty low. But, in a first world Country like Australia, you would think that on average people would be quite healthy. But this is not the case.

The stats are widely publicised. Indigenous Australians die 17 years younger than their European counterparts, and infant mortality, children between 0 and 5 years of age, is triple. I had previously thought that starting to embed good health principles in children would have the biggest positive impact on life expectancy, but this isn’t correct. My colleague explained that to improve longevity they must improve the health of those aged 17 to 35, the age when most chronic illnesses gestate.

It’s not all doom and gloom however. Significant headway has been made in the past decade and the stats are improving. My company is still very young but we are playing an important role in this. There is still a long way to go.

Although most of the stores we manage are in VERY remote locations, a few are near main cities. One is about 20 minutes from Darwin.

The Store Manager there had some problems with her system this morning and called our Service Desk in a distraught state as she could not open the doors for business. There were three of us in the car heading out to our normal offices. We bandied around some ideas on how to talk the Service Desk through fixing the issue. Then we realised we could get to the store in 15 mins ourselves.

The store is run by an Indigenous Family who have not had the benefit of spending years with computers as most of us have. The error was simple, and the Wellingtonian was able to fix it in 20 mins, much to the delight of the Store Manager.

The moral here for me is that we could have wasted an hour finding out who to call to fix it, as is our normal process, but instead decided just to turn up. Having a friendly face there with them trying to solve a problem that is stopping them from trading is much better than wasting time on the phone. If only we could provide this type of service for all our stores. But, with some of them more than 2,000km from Darwin it would take a bit longer than 15 mins to drive there.

It seems Snakeman is getting a bit of a workout around our offices here, which I mentioned previously are about 20 mins south east of Darwin proper. At this site we also have some temporary portable accommodation for people who are attending training. One such person got home last night at 8:30 and jumped into the shower, only to be greeted by a King Brown Snake. Referring to my trusty Kitchen Wall Mounted Snake Almanac I can tell you that it is the second deadliest snake in the world. The trainee was a lady…

I don’t know about all of you, but when I stay in accommodation on holidays or away from work I often ask myself if I would buy the property I am staying in. Obviously if you are only staying somewhere for a day or two the answer to the question isn’t that important. But, when you are living somewhere, say, for 10 weeks, the answer has much greater importance.

When I got the keys to our new apartment up here I asked myself exactly that question. The answer to which is an overwhelming yes, if I could afford the $1.1m it would probably cost to buy it. Darwin real estate is now equally as expensive as Sydney it has been found.

My favourite feature of the apartment is the fridge. Not only does it complete its obligatory duty of keeping things cold, it also has a door-mounted Ice Machine! I remember the Brady Bunch had a fridge with one but I never thought too much about it. Living in Darwin we are making regular use of this engineering marvel. This fridge has now taken pride of place at the top of my list of favourite gadgets (above my trusty Swiss Army Knife with its tiny screwdriver for tightening my sunglass arms).

I finally managed to get the lease on the new apartment sorted out. I am now in my third accommodation in less than two weeks, but it is by far the best. You can see the before and after shots below (oh so Extreme Makeover isn’t it). I’ll be living here until the end of my contract in December.

I’ll be sharing the three bedroom apartment with one of my colleagues, the Wellingtonian I have spoken about before. It will be good to finally prepare some home cooked meals, something I haven’t had in more then two weeks. And the best news is… no more not-so-Fantastic-bloody-Noodles!

My company have posted a new Emergency Contact list out the front of our offices. After the standard Triple-0, Police, Hospital etc there is a listing for ‘Snakeman’. Now, I am guessing this isn’t a nickname he was given due to a tattoo he got as a drunken teenager. An intelligent guess is that it probably has something to do with his line of work. It goes without saying that his number is now firmly embedded in my mobile phone… just in case the ladies get scared.

… it appears my powers of persuasion are faltering. I ended up dining alone, however the food was great. I did invite some others (pictured below). They looked really hungry, scratching around everywhere for food. But… no response. Impolite little bastards.

I am off to Kakadu National Park tomorrow for the weekend, back on Sunday night. I have been warned repeatedly (by my Fiancée amongst others) not to attempt to pat the Crocodiles. I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. Steve Irwin made it all look simple?!? Anyway, I’ll let you all know how I go.