Thursday, June 22, 2006

Lessons bearing fruit

Lessons learned from the world of Work internship programmes are finally bearing fruit. Remember the issues on BEE, employment equity (will give more details about these later), professionalism and all that? Well I can testify that I have had a personal experience with all of them. The issue of power dressing for instance.

I remember Kim telling me that we are supposed to be formal down here you see our organisation is structured in wings there is the east and the west wing. The west wing is where you find the Executive Director Mr Herbert Mkhize, the Coordinator in the Executive Director’s Office, Ms Kim Jurgensen the Special Events, Section 77, Publicity and Sector Summits Coordinator, Ms Ntibi Maepa the Finance Administrator, Ms Sharon Lerumo, the Chief Financial Officer, Mr Umesh Dulabh and the Support Adminstrator Ms Sibongile Pheeha whom I share an office with. The rest of the staff is in the east wing and some are downstairs where the reception is.

So when I first came to Nedlac I was dressing real formal and smart. After observing my colleagues’ dress conduct was puzzled. It was less formal, casual like. I decided to ask my colleague Bongi “what’s the dress code for Nedlac”?

And she said “no you can just dress anyway you want” and form then on every thing went helter skelta and I started wearing anything jeans, jean jackets the whole causal works thing you know! So Kim told me that because I am situated in the east wing where there are always unlimited visitors it is imperative that I dress smart. So now everything is back to normal I am back to smart and formal. And my dressing now has not escaped Kim’s observant eyes, she has noted several times that I look very good and it makes me happy.

Writing skills have come out prominently. I remember the first time I send out an email to the coordinators telling them that I would be approaching each one of them to discuss issues in their chambers and identify stories for publication. Only one person responded to the email. I was very puzzled because I was coming from a background where one responds or acknowledged any form of written communication.

Being creative is also something that is very important in the organisation for instance I found myself having to seek advise from Kim about the colours of the Nedlac booklet so those thinking caps Roy spoke about do mean something. I also have to be able to initiate my own ideas where work is concerned.

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