22 Aug: Vol 24, #12 - UWA News staff magazine - The University of ...

16 UWAnewsthe last wordFonts fu nding faxI came to Australia some 35 years ago on aworking holiday, started work within a fewmonths of arriving and have kept workingever since. So it’s time for me to revert to theoriginal plan.Once you have decided to leave, the next issue is what to sayin your resignation letter.I remember staring at a blank computer screen about 4:30 inthe morning for ages thinking about what I should say in my letterto Russell Candy.Should I review my working history over the past 25 yearsand say what a privilege it had been to work at the University? Ihad a couple of goes at this version but then it occurred to methat Russell and some admin person in Human Resources werethe only ones likely to see the letter. So I decided not go into anyflowery recitation of my work at UWA and played around with acouple of shorter versions. I had one version that went …Dear Russell, I quit, Regards WayneI eventually opted for something a bit longer but not much.When do you submit your resignation letter?I suggest that you avoid the 1 April — April Fool’s day. I gotmy letter in on the 31 March. Even then I had some difficultyconvincing people that I had resigned.What size type face should you use?Wayne BrowneFormer Manager, Property Management, Facilities Management&An edited version of Wayne Browne’s farewell speechmachinesYou wouldn’t think that this would be an issue would you?I remember on the morning I was submitting my resignation Iprinted off different versions with different typefaces. What fontsize should you use on your resignation letter, particularly if youhave worked at the University for 25 years? If it’s too small youlook like a wimp – if it’s too large it looks too aggressive andalmost as if you are shouting out your resignation. This is notsomething that they cover in the retirement seminars. Imaginefussing over the size of the typeface. After playing around with afew different versions, it occurred to me that it was probably justas well I was leaving the University.When I joined the University in 1979 one of my responsibilitieswas to determine the number of telephone lines which could beissued to departments. The University had an old telephoneswitchboard with about 1400 lines on it. At one stage I thinkwe had 15 lines spare. So my job was to recover lines fromdepartments that had lost staff, and issue them to departmentsthat had gained staff. Anyone below lecturer level or at the adminassistant level had to share a phone. In some cases, junior staffwere allowed a third of a line each. Accommodation disputes arebad but wait until you try to take someone’s telephone away. Iwas not a very popular person at that time. Now everyone whoneeds a telephone gets one.I also had to keep track of about 300 IBM golf ball typewriterson campus, all the serial numbers which went to about 10 digitsand letters and negotiate a service contract for these each year.They are probably museum pieces now.Any departments wishing to purchase or lease a photocopymachine had to come through me and I would then make arecommendation on the type of machine to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Can you imagine a Deputy Vice-Chancellor of todayhaving the slightest interest in what sort of photocopy machine aschool/section wants to purchase?When I started, the University was required to submit itscapital works proposals every three years to the Commonwealthin what was called the triennial funding program. In one round,the University got something like $2M for a new building forArchitecture. Nowadays $2M would get you about eight bays inthe Motorola car park. Currently the University’s capital worksprogram is in the order of about $20M per year.As my six month probationary period was coming to an endI can remember saying to my wife Anita that I was not cut outfor University life and I was going to start looking for anotherjob. Not long after that I was informed that my appointment wasbeing converted to permanent and that they were very pleasedwith my work.And so here I am 25 years later deciding that I am no longercut out for University life.Thanks for being such a great group of people to work with.UniPrint 40644THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA • 22 AUGUST 2005