52 for 52. Instalment 4.

Copy Writer.

“Can you shoot through a list of Awards Jacqueline has won”

Immediate Loop.

“I am so sorry Jacq, I tried to get them to understand how that made you a stronger contender”

The first request? Last week.

The second sentence? 21 years ago.

The time mentally between the two? A split second.

That one sentence that I immediately looped to last week was uttered late one night in a bar, without warning, from someone who was in the executive leadership team of one of Queensland’s biggest Government Owned Corporations. A client, and because we lived in the same seaside village, also a friend and colleague.?

We had bumped into each other at the Bar and whilst we were waiting to order our drinks he disclosed that he had in fact been on the Judging Panel for my Category in The Australian Institute of Management, Management Excellence Awards.? Until that point I had not known he was a Judge, nor that he was on the panel for my category…which was exactly as it should be.?

But he knew me, respected my work, and the Judge’s decision had been weighing really heavily on him.? So what was it that should have made me a stronger contender – instead of as the person who lead the votes against me stated, “If she was really of the standard we are looking for, that situation would never have arisen in the first place”.

What was it that I got so wrong that it could swing votes against me, and cast me as ‘not good enough’??

It was this.

Soon after stepping in to take over the Recruitment Business owned by Mother, we were hit with a Log of Claims by the AMWU for 4 Defence Secured Sites across which we ran the facilities maintenance contracts.? This was an annual occurrence we could almost set our clocks by.? So I simply checked in with Mum, engaged our Industrial Relations Advisor, and settled in for the paperwork shuffle that would ensue before we went before the Commission.?

To give you context, at that time those sites were ASIO secured and ‘out of jurisdiction’ for our existing industrial relations systems.? It meant we were running common law contracts to employ our staff on remote, fly in fly out, 28 days on, 7 days off rosters with 10 hour days. They were paid really well AND with being out of jurisdiction we could be really creative in how we paid them – school fees paid, mortgages salary sacrificed, health insurance paid, cars paid for, whatever made sense for each person. ?

And every single year when the Log of Claims hit the Commission, the Commissioner would rule the sites were out of Jurisdiction and the way we operated would continue.? It was pressure tested, legally, every single year. ?And found to be compliant and legal.

Until this particular year.? We stepped into the video conference call ready for the usual process – so relaxed I wasn’t even really paying attention because our Industrial Relations Advisor (a Union Breaker from mining) was running our response.?

Until I heard the words ‘Jurisdiction applies”. “Retrospective” “Ad Infinitum”.

As I struggled to put these words together (and I pray you never have to) I looked down to our Advisor and I could tell by the look of shock on his face that these five words were not good.?

Essentially once jurisdiction applied we had to pay our staff in accordance with the awards that covered them.? Retrospectively. Back to the start of our contract with the Prime Contractor on those sites.? In accordance with the rosters.

The devastation it wrought?? Any non-cash benefits – the school fees, the mortgages, the health insurance, the cars, all of it – could not be considered in the resulting back pay calculations. ??Only the actual cash salary and wages paid could be used in the calculations.

Our first calculation of the backpay adjustments – before superannuation and payroll tax adjustments – was in excess of $750,000. And once it became known that this ruling was in place, every single person who had ever worked for us on those sites demanded their backpay.? There were names I did not know landing in my inbox from people who had not lasted even a week, late alone an entire swing, and we had to respond to, calculate and pay every one of them.

The impacted costs were huge.? At one point I realised that I needed to stop the continual carnage and I built a strategy and a case to sit down with the Union and negotiate a full settlement across all claims.? That one move – and massive negotiation period – resulted in the final number being just over $500,000 plus oncost adjustments and I extended the payment window from 30 days to 15 months.

Something I was told – negotiating that terms of a judgement after the judgement had been awarded – could not be done.?

Unlocking the cash to cover that sort of impact in a low margin business (predominantly temporary staffing and labour hire) drained our reserves, forced us into massive cash generation strategies to find the balance, had me strip the business back as far as I could without destroying it – and yet we made it.? We made it through.

Team intact, clients intact, and with substantial revenue and profitability growth.

And that was what I was proud of.? That is what I showcased in my application and my interview.?

And that is what cost me the Management Excellence Award.? Because a majority of one agreed that if I was ‘any good’ then I would not have had to deal with such a situation in the first place.

Which is why as that client I loved poured out his frustration and anger on my behalf in the dark recesses of a bar on a Friday night in 2003 I decided that I would never subject myself to such a subjective and invalid process again.

And why that quick request from the Copy Writer last week hit so hard.? Because I haven’t gone after a single award since that day.? I kept my commitment to myself.? And to be truthful I have mostly congratulated myself, in the quiet whispers that know us best, on staying strong and sticking to ‘principles’.

Except it isn’t sticking to principles.? As I dig deeper into living with CPTSD I realise it was a full blown – very sophisticated and well hidden – trauma response.

Of being judged not good enough, not valuable enough, of the very things I brought to attention being the things people wanted to ignore and pretend did not exist.? That if I was a ‘good’ person those things would not have happened in the first place.

We speak all the time about the itty bitty sh^tty committee that lives in our head.? Well I allowed an actual physical itty bitty sh^tty committee dictate staying invisible, not being recognised for the work I have done, and I allowed it to control the narrative for the last 21 years.

And as I unwind it further, will I start applying for business awards?

I literally have no idea. But one thing I do know is that decision will no longer be ruled by one sentence uttered 21 years ago.?

?Jacqueline x

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This year I turned 52, making a deeply personal commitment to write each week in a blog series called '52 For 52'.?Not SEO enriched, not to hold a call to action, simply to express where my lived experiences take and, often, push me, to explore the thinking that bubbles in shower moments and long walks and in the midst of great books.?Soon these will all be published via a dedicated blog site, but for now, I am sharing them with you here each Monday, as I build the rhythm and the cadence that will edge me ever closer to realising my deepest dreams.