Welcome to government work!

                                             

On the 16^th of July I commenced my placement at the Department of Sport and Recreation in the programs and services area. My first day was a blur of introductions and paperwork as well as health and safety briefings. I’ll admit that I was only able to remember a small portion of the people I met that day.

My first task assigned to me was to fix the Clubs online database. The database is very important for the organisation as it embodies their main value of encouraging physical activity, health and recreation for people of all ages in Western Australia. The database contains just under 3000 clubs and allows members of the Perth community to search for a club nearby that they are interested in participating. The problem I was faced with however is that most of these clubs had not been updated since the concept was launched in 2007, meaning many of the emails sent out to the clubs were being bounced back. While I understand being able to communicate to stakeholders and publics is a very important factor for success in public relations I can only hope that I will be given some more tasks during my time at DSR to complement my skills and prepare me for the real world. Although it has given me the opportunity to improve my skills in excel and creating spread sheets which were lacking.  

An issue I was having during my first few days at the department was my lack of understanding as to what the other staff members did, what their role was. It baffled me that every morning at exactly 10am half of the staff would leave to get coffee, while I remained at my desk trying to fix a very large database. While it is only early days I am not sure government work is for me, I am very passionate about sport and health and desperately want to work in the industry one day but I think I would like to be involved in something more community based that provides me with more interaction with different people, maybe the not for profit sector! In saying that, I have enjoyed my first few days at DSR, everyone is friendly and helpful but I do hope I can be given more tasks to get my teeth stuck in to during my time here.

Lucy Morrison