My story as a Linchpin
As a life long quiet achieving linchpin I’m not a workplace sycophant, never undermine other people, create drama nor bully. I don't seek to get ahead, be a high achiever or different for the sake of any glory or praise. It's not my choice to question the status quo and strive for innovation, it's simply the way.
The purpose of this text more than portfolio is an expression of my life as a Linchpin to reach out for collaboration with other people or businesses "who get it".
I'm also a cheat
Since as early as I can remember I’ve cheated on every major exam up to and including my High School Certificate. Creating gadgets with secret compartments containing notes, rolled up, sliding out and clicking into place. While I love learning and didn’t actually mind studying, the way I was being taught just didn't cut it for me, I needed to make some changes to suit my learning style.
The point is I’m not actually a cheat, what mark I got was irrelevant, in fact I didn’t want the top mark, somewhere in the upper end was fine, it’s a linchpin's motivation beyond learning or the task at hand, a second challenge, made-up challenge, a different approach.
A thorn in the side
I started my first job in retail the day I was legally allowed to and loved it, excelling in planograms. Shortly after I was selected to be the new union delegate. Coincidently I was into Psychology, like serendipity I executed and testing with impressive results every self taught psychological trick I read about at the library after school.
What I learnt gave me the techniques to support staff and deal with managers over workplace injustice and bulling to signing up almost the whole store, over 150 casual and full time staff to the union. It was probably the single greatest learning experience in my career. As a teenage linchpin I unified the whole store, took psychology from the book to real life situations and made a real, powerful, positive difference at that moment for myself and others. A thorn in the side of management but respected none the less.
Just passed for a certificate
With a love of tech and art I wasn’t going to waste 4 years studying Graphic Design when technology was being developed so quickly, opting for a 1 year College course. Unfortunately it was mostly tradition learning so I was marked down for using a computer I’d saved hard to buy and really wanted to apply. I also took loads of time off to do work experience, leveraging off the course to arguably learn more on the job.
As a linchpin in my own life I was paying for the course, brought what I needed together and knew what was needed to get the job that suited me, it wasn’t going to be traditional.
Didn’t get the job
In 1995 along with around 100 candidates I applied for my first real job as a Graphic Designer. On the first day there were two of us. They didn’t think much of my design skills but created a tech oriented role for me. At my 1 year review I’d reached the peak of that role almost doubling my base pay. Within 5 years my role evolved to client technical support, troubleshooting, training and mentoring.
Quitter
At 24 I decided there were things that needed to be explored now, at a young age, in that mindset, before the chance slips away forever. I spent the next year studying and exploring every interest conceivable while still working, most notably a 6 month part-time acting course. Also saving to be out of work for 2 years (default being 1 year) doing all the things I couldn't do while working full time.
Unemployed
In 2000 I worked hard on my fitness to qualify for entry to the Australian Army Reserves. For patriotism and the experience, a military way of learning, teamwork and leadership. The legacy of thousands of years of military efficiency drilled into me didn't disappoint. After 45 days of gruelling basic training I marched out a soldier along with less than a quarter of the people that started, followed up with 4 months specialist training as a Combat Engineer, successfully and brutally completing all 4 modules. Between training I freelanced in the creative field and explored various interests. Also out of curiosity I took advantage of an opportunity to be a taxi driver giving it my all doing 600km on one shift.
Making them look bad
Looking for some stability I started work at a large printing company. Shortly after other staff openly asking me to slow down. The boss later telling me I probably doubled their whole teams output and reduced errors close to zero, something they hadn’t considered.
Resignation not accepted
Now everyone was looking good, I was still doing the Army thing and offered a plant operator course for the 2nd time, again my boss said "no I cannot give you 3 months off" so this time around I resigned, he gave me 3 months off. I returned to work qualified to operate almost all earthmoving, load shifting machines you can think of. Huge Excavators, Dozers, Front End Loaders, Graders, Scrapers, and Forklifts, Rollers, Bobcats and Trucks. I’ve never worked in that field since but it ticked a huge box and taught me a lot more then playing around in a dust bowl.
Put myself out of a job
In 2004 I was asked to apply for a job at a large publishing company. I was pretty happy where I was but recognised it was an amazing opportunity to get my hands dirty in a management position. A memorable moment in the job interview was answering a question by telling the CFO and Operations Director "I’ll put myself out of a job". I almost got there only to be appointed the additional role of manager of Photography.
2 hour lunch breaks, every day!
In 2008 the publisher I worked for was purchased for $96,000,000. Every department except mine had to drop staff. My current boss went off at me after a meeting with the new owners who justified my lean team by putting down the quality of images in our magazines. I calmly explained to him if that were true they will be hiring a lot of staff for us to improve the look of our magazines.
Due to all the initiative I’d applied over the years we had 1.5 staff looking after 30 magazines they have 1 staff member per magazine. Upon moving to the new business responsibly for photography was taken off me and there was nothing much left to manage, nor work for my team to do. Bored I would send the staff out window shopping eventually all shopped out and happy to do whatever work came up. I lived in the city at the time 5 minutes away so made the most of this anomaly for over a year till we were integrated back into the old way of doing things.
Helping hand
Eventually every person in my department including myself was made redundant after offshoring our jobs. In 2014 I was brought back in to work in a technical support role on a 9mil workflow project. The role later changing to a trainer of over 200 designers to bring Retouching in-house to save money offshoring, almost 10 years after applying that as one of the initiatives to put myself out of a job the first time around.
Now, Father, Husband, Self Employed
Looking to collaborate on interesting and innovate projects, keeping one eye open for an employer that has a challenging full time role for a linchpin in an inspiring team.
