Work pressure
How does one cope with prolonged work pressure? I sought medical leave when the stress and pressure were more than I could bear. Waking at 4 am and not being able to get back to sleep, thinking of what I needed to do to get through the next day meant that I was always worrying about work. I was undertaking complex tasks while sleep-deprived. This became extremely mentally challenging. My work involved travel between the campuses of the college; undertaking tiring, unforgiving, and often thankless tasks.
For all the money in the world, I couldn’t continue. The anxiety, the constant feeling that I needed to work on weekends so that I could manage for the following week, was too overbearing. I was craving something more after working in the same office for almost 30 years.
My work life wasn’t boring in any sense and I made sure that I continued to learn new skills and develop further knowledge across industry areas. The pressure, and the expectations kept on coming. As a state public servant, this needn’t have been the case.
It became obvious that I was putting in more than I was taking. I was highly motivated, eager, and proactive, and would seek all manner of opportunities to share my knowledge of teaching and learning with the broader VET community at conferences.
CONFERENCES
One conference presentation led to another and so on. I received an invitation from the department to participate in a discussion. This was a welcome reward for my passion and work in teaching and technology. It involved being a panelist at the WA Training Provider Forum, in 2017. The topic was The 21st-century student – What are the learning styles of Gen Z and how will these affect teaching practice?
So I was pretty pleased to be sitting on the panel alongside Dr Gilly Salmon who at the time was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Innovation) at the University of Western Australia. I had previously looked her up on LinkedIn and followed her. She was everything I wanted to be in the VET space.
Tegan Mossop, a lecturer who won a ‘Trainer of the Year’ in 2016 from North Regional TAFE was also on the panel, as was Ashlee Donkin, a student who was currently studying a Diploma of Graphic Art remotely, and in isolation.
One conference, in particular, was the 2018 MINTRAC, From Paddock to Plate (Meat Industry National Training Advisory Council). As a keynote speaker with Tim Rawlings from Price Waterhouse Coopers, I humorously used the example of being a meat producer, with three daughters, all of whom are vegetarians.