8. It's over!

As I write this I am feeling a little worse for wear after last night's closing party... A great catch up with friends from other venues and celebrate our successes.  This week has been filled up with catch ups and debriefs of various varieties, interspersed with ticking tasks off my list that have helped make me feel more human again - cleaning, washing about 4 loads of laundry, getting a haircut, visit to the osteopath and restocking the fridge!

I thought I would write one or two posts during Games time, but it quickly became obvious that it was an unrealistic aspiration.  Even if I did have some time spent conscious and awake at home, I couldn't engage my brain!  It was nice to catch up with friends when I could and we even managed a day-trip to Brighton on one of my days off.  

This is the biggest thing I've done in my life, and quite hard to summarise!  I'll keep it to a few bullet points.  Highlights:

• Meeting, training and working with my fleet team - so proud of how they got on with the job and adapted to changes quickly. 
• My awesome fleet team, who pooled together and got me a present - a gold screen print poster of the famous "Keep Calm and Carry On" slogan. 
• Meeting and hanging out with lots of nice people from transport and other departments, including our wonderful volunteers.
• All the people within LOCOG that I had to deal with were lovely - protocol, anti-doping, and last but not least FLEET DEPOT the guys who saved me quite a few times!
• Learning from and experiencing an operational job - not desk-bound!  I lost a bit of weight during the Olympics, I covered so much ground each day walking around my team's operational areas.

Lowlights:

• Being tired, but not being able to get to sleep even though it's 2am.
• Eating stodgy food - it could have been worse but I am now on a potato and cheese-free diet!
• Losing weight during the Olympics :( I felt weaker and more fragile.  I got back to normal after having a fromage-et-vin week in France in betwen the Olympics and Paralympics though :)
• Dealing with people who think that by shouting at you, calling you names or otherwise being rude that they will get a better service.  

Next steps - next week I start a PRINCE2 project management course, and try to make a break in the field of project management.  Wish me luck!

7. Ready... set... go!

Hello, long time no blog post!

The last two or three weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind.  If I carry on with that analogy, then the last 60 hours have been a tornado.  Not quite an A grade twister that rip houses apart, but definitely fast, unpredictable and a shock to the system.
Here's a quick run down of my typical day so far:
- wake up at about 6 or 7 and spend the next few hours trying to get back to proper sleep (yesterday morning being woken up every hour or so with phone calls because people don't know I'm not on shift - last night I turned my phone off) and actually get up out of bed at around 11. 
- try to eat something decent despite the fact that my body doesn't usually feel like eating till about 3 hours after I get up - I have to force myself as I'm only getting two meals in a day, and the second one is not always guaranteed or at the same time each day.
- put on my uniform and roll out the door! I love uniforms.
- spend the next 45 - 50 minutes on trains to get to work. Try not to fall asleep and miss my interchange.
- Go through airport style security screening to get into the venue.  Get to our transport team trailer at about 2pm and grab two radios (different channels), the one for the team I manage with an earpiece so I can always hear what they're up to and step in to help resolve issues quickly, the other one for the transport management team I work with/for clipped on to my belt and turned up a little bit so I can hear my name if it's called but not too loud so that I can also ignore other people's conversations.
- find out what's happened during the morning shift, help answer any questions. - receive my 10 staff for the afternoon shift, allocate them to their roles, brief and deploy them to their posts to relieve the morning shift.
- rest of day, to make a long story short, run around fighting minor fires everywhere around the venue where my people are based, checking up on the quiet ones by radio, phone or in person where possible, and trying to speak to just one person at a time on my two radios, cellphone and face to face.
- look at my watch and realise it's already 6pm and I still haven't managed to get around to all my people so pick up the pace.
- second half of day gets a bit quieter, especially from around 9pm, when I can go to the toilet and get a bite to eat at the workforce break area. The hot food is pretty good (when you can get it).
- grabbing ten minutes with my boss and one or two of my teammates over dinner is something I aim for, but it doesn't always happen. Mostly we talk over radio or phone and only when we need something from the other person. No time for mucking about! If we're lucky we all meet at the trailer at the end of the shift at around 1am.
- I relieve my team at about midnight. They have all done very well over the last two days, considering the pressure situations and having never done anything like this before. It turns out that 80% of the time we are doing customer service and wayfinding roles, which includes copping a lot of flack from irate drivers who are lost (incorrect sat nav instructions, poor signage, not our fault) or a couple of clients who are simply douchebags.
- the finish is dependant on whether other departments have transport needs after 1am. On Saturday there were four boxers who werein an appeal after the last bout, so I had to arrange transport for them back to the Olympic Village. - spend 45 mins getting home by DLR / night bus.
- put my uniform in for a quick wash while I have a shower - those adidas shoes are not bad in terms of comfort but they do nake my feet stink!
- crash at about 3am - 3.30am and put a t-shirt by my bed so I can drag it over my eyes when the sun comes through the window in a couple of hours.

This is after two days of competition, hopefully we just get better at it, and have fewer issues!

I will try to keep a note of some of the good things that have happened for my next blog post :-)

6. Less than one month to go!

A couple of days ago, it was one month to go to the start of the Games.  A giant set of Olympic Rings is set up on Tower Bridge (25 metres wide, 11.5 metres tall and weighing three tonnes!)  The Rings will be in place all the way through to the end of the Olympic Games and will be a major feature in the way that London promotes itself to the rest of the world as an Olympic Host City.

For those of you in London, you should definitely make some time to go down to the Thames, set up a nice picnic/drinks somewhere with a good view of Tower Bridge, and watch the light show.  Every night, there will be a 60-minute light show to illuminate the Rings and the bridge.

Show start: 9:15pm

Light show start: 9:45pm

Rings Light Show: 10:00 – 10:03pm. 

Here is a bit of a preview (especially for those of you not in London), and here is a nicer one but with no music.

I might try and get down to see the light show some time next week - as I only have a couple of weeks till my team goes on venue and some of our transport systems become operational, as athletes begin training at ExCeL.  It's all on from 14 July - training our staff and then a "lite" operation of 7am - 11pm until Games start on 28 July, from which time it's 5am - 1:30am!  I'll be doing an 11-hour shift each day, with one day off each week - I'm lucky, some different functional areas are working straight through each set of Games.  

It's sort of starting to hit home what a commitment it will be - between 14 July and 8 September, I will pretty much not have any social life - it will be work and sleep, work and sleep.  There are tons of amazing concerts, shows, gigs and exhibitions etc. going on in London this summer, largely due to the Olympics being in town and the London 2012 festival.  That's not to count all the normal goings on, the festivals, parties, picnics, etc. that normally happen of a summer in this amazing city.  I'll be missing out on all of these, but on the plus side I guess I'll be saving some money!  And of course, I'm part of the Olympics - that easily tops all the rest.  

The job is going really well, I feel like I'm really settled in the team and still (!) learning heaps every day.  There is still a mix of planning and preparation, we are not quite ready with everything in place for the start of our operations yet.  I'm involved in all sorts of things, from scheduling shifts on an online system, to helping to figure out how we will feed staff that are stationed too far away from the workforce break area.  I'm feeling more confident that I understand how our systems operate and what we can do in the event of a contingency.  

A new word I learnt last week - "Invacuation" - means to stay put indoors in the case of an emergency, if appropriate.  I also learnt about radio protocol - you're supposed to say their call sign first, twice, to make sure they pay attention and realise they are being spoken to, and then your call sign so they know who you are - e.g., "Sport 1, Sport 1, this is Transport 4, over."  It's a bit exciting as I haven't used radios before, but I am aware that the novelty will probably soon wear off; especially as I'll be carrying two radios and have to listen to two different channels of chatter, and also have my cellphone.  If somebody calls me on my mobile, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to listen to the two radio channels as well at the same time... 

News just in!  Just saw that Nadal lost in the second round at Wimbledon to the currently ranked 100th Rosol.  Just goes to show, upsets do happen, and I'm sure there will be plenty to talk about at the Olympics! I'm going to try to find out about some of the less well known sports and research athletes to support, to get into it more and get excited about the Games as well as my job.  If you're interested in doing the same, Handball and Wheelchair Rugby are good places to start.

In my view, however, the most crazy Olympic "sport" has to be the Modern Pentathlon: "The competition starts with fencing in the Copper Box followed by a 200m swim in the Aquatics Centre. The athletes then leave the Olympic Park for Greenwich Park, where they will complete a show jumping course on an unfamiliar horse. The day concludes with the combined event, in which competitors complete a 3km run, including stop-offs at shooting points where they must hit five targets."  Mental! 

5. The Kit

This week I went to collect my uniform - exciting!  Beige trakkies, purple and red polo and matching light jacket - we'll look just like this:

(except we won't be looking up into the distance, we'll be running around shouting into radios and cellphones, both at the same time.  Also, unlikely that  Dick Dastardly and Muttley will be hanging out with us).


Here is what London 2012 had to say about the uniform:

The design of the uniform has drawn inspiration from the heritage and culture of the UK, influenced by the historic Grenadier Guards uniform and sporting heritage but also reflecting British modern design.

The colour scheme is based upon a contemporary twist of a regal purple and poppy red and will provide a distinctive look, allowing Games Makers to stand out in the crowd.

Here are the matching purple and red shoes we are wearing - a mixture of sports and high fashion:

Just kidding!  Uniforms are sponsored by Adidas, duh!


I was also given my accreditation - an A5 laminated ID pass that must be worn clipped around the neck at all times.  This is what distinguishes someone who has back of house access only, to someone who go to front of house, or even field of play.  According to my accreditation, it looks like I won't even get a glimpse into any of the arenas, as I only have back of house access. If you don't have the right accreditation for a particular venue, you can't get in (unless, of course, you have a ticket to an event).  

I also got a tiny satchel:

(This person has really small hands, cos they make the bag look kind of normal-sized - it's not, it really is tiny!)

That's the only bag you're allowed to take into the venue as a workforce member, and that has to fit your water bottle, and a fold up umbrella - well, the games are going to take place during an English summer, and I was half expecting something like this to be part of the uniform:  

(sadly, nothing like this in the uniform bag).

On Friday I met a Canadian girl who is a criminal defence lawyer in real life, but for the summer she is, like me, a deputy venue transport manager (for one of the venues within Olympic Park).  She had also worked at the winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010.  From her experience, she suggested getting shoes half a size bigger than normal, and really thick padded sports socks, as your feet swell from so much standing and walking around every day.  Yikes!  I'd already picked up my shoes (in my normal size) by then, and we are also issued grey adidas socks - but I think I will be buying a couple of pairs of thicker sports socks just in case... and lots of plasters!

4. Fush and Chups

Three weeks in and I'm feeling like part of the team, and I think I get what's going on!  The picture just becomes clearer and more focused with every day that I'm involved.  I've been able to start asking relevant and insightful questions, which always feel better than asking stupid questions.  What has become more clear to me is that there is one job which based in the office and involves planning, meetings, working on computers and printing out documents.  There will be a second, completely different job, when it is Games Time - no office, no computers or e-mail, no desk, no meeting requests, no documents to work on.  We will be on our feet, dealing with the unexpected and unplanned, and communication via mobile phones, radios and face to face contact will be the key to successful event management.  Additionally, we will also be leading teams of paid staff and volunteers.  I attended a leadership course this week which was a lot of common sense but also provided some valuable insights on leading a team outside of an office environment.  We will need to make quick decisions, lead by example and ensure our team members have their needs met and stay motivated.  This all sounds obvious, but it will also be in the context of 12 hour shifts, potentially boring tasks and long hours of standing in outdoor weather conditions.  It's something I don't have that much experience in, so it's a challenge I look forward to.  

Something that will help me in meeting that challenge is teamwork, and I'm grateful to have a friendly and supportive team.  In my team, there is one American, one Canadian, one Aussie, one Scottish Pakistani, one English person of Middle Eastern descent (haven't found out about that detail yet), two Greeks and me.  It's quite a diverse bunch, which is really cool - there is no one way of doing things, and people come from a variety of backgrounds, including some with masters degrees in transport, a farmer, a sports scientist and me, a commercial lawyer.  

Around the open plan office you can hear a number of different accents, although it seems like, on our floor, the dominant one is Australian!  One of the London 2012 "hosting actions" is "Distinctive" - provide the personal touch, let yourself shine through.  So, I have decided to consciously use my Kiwi accent.  "Why wouldn't you be using it anyway?", one might ask; "You've only been in the UK for a year!"  Well, the problem is my name - Wendy.  From the get go, as soon as I introduce myself to someone, I have found that unless I say it in a way that sounds to me like "Wandy" (sort of rhymes with Dandy), people screw up their faces, probably because they're too polite to say "Windy?! What kind of person is called Windy?"  I've also had to clarify on a number of other occasions a certain word I was pronouncing.  This was even though in my team at my last job, there was one American, one South African, one Scottish, one Turkish, one Welsh and three English people.  Anyway, I think it's because of the need for "Wandy" that soon after I started working at my last job, I started consciously (and recently, increasingly less consciously) rounding and opening my vowels, particularly "e" vowels.  You know how some people have a posh "phone voice"?  Well it's like I was adopting a "work voice", basically meaning that I spoke with a quasi-international blended soft accent at work.  

I began feeling concerned recently when I noticed the open vowels creeping into my normal voice, even when talking with other Kiwis.  I was shocked, however, that in my first week at LOCOG, two different people asked if I was American.  What?!  This has got to stop!  So, I'm going to be "distinctive" and embrace my Kiwi accent.  The Aucklander's accent isn't a thick Kiwi accent anyway, and in the LOCOG environment I'm sure there won't be any problem being understood.  When we first moved to the UK and met a Kiwi who had been here for 9 years, I was surprised and very impressed to hear her speak with a Kiwi accent.  I guess people have different views about this sort of thing but for myself, I'd like the way I speak to be a conscious choice.  Maybe I'll even start bringing back phrases like "choice", "sweet as", "stink" and "yeah nah".  

3. Size matters...

Wow, what an exciting almost-2 weeks!  It's been so refreshing to do something so different, and yet I've also had the opportunity to use many of my existing skills.  I've been helping on various different tasks, and my brain is being stuffed full learning about our venue and its complexities, the different types of transport involved, the huge machine that is LOCOG and the different teams that work to put on what will undoubtedly be an amazing event. 

So far I have visited the venue twice and I tell you, it is HUGE.  The building itself is around 600m long and takes 10 minutes to walk from end to end, at a brisk walk.  There will be five arenas, all operating at the same time.  If you can then imagine the number of spectators, athletes and coaches/team members, officials and VIPs, media and broadcast and workforce that will be coming to and from the venue through the day, it is frankly mindblowing.  Oh yes and each of these "client types" comes to the venue via a different method of transport, (e.g., bus), some of them with several different transport systems (e.g., 5 different bus systems).   

Our hotdesk area is next to some of the sports functions that are coordinating what exactly goes on for their competitions and events.  If you are a fencing or weightlifting or table tennis fan, I am working next to the people who run that competition and determine exactly how the weapons will be checked, the weights transported and how many table tennis balls will be needed for the entire competition.  I've also been in contingency planning meetings where it is clear that the experts from each field really know their stuff and are working hard to coordinate their efforts.  It's inspiring to be in such a buzzing environment and as we count down towards Games Time, the great "immovable deadline", that feeling is only going to intensify.  

A bit of Olympic "sport" stuff that I have learnt:
"Sport" = All the events that are sanctioned by one international sport federation.  Example: wrestling
"Discipline" = One sport may be divided into several disciplines, which are often regarded as separate sports in common language.  Examples:  freestyle or greco-roman wrestling
"Event" = An event is a competition that leads to the award of medals.  Examples: mens freestyle is broken down into weight categories, from bantamweight to super heavyweight (up to 120kg!)

*Note: not actual representations of bantamweight or super heavyweight wrestlers


I'll finish this post with a random fact: Before point scoring was introduced, wrestling matches continued until one wrestler was forced to the ground. At Stockholm 1912, Russia's Max Klein and Finland's Alfred Asikainen set an Olympic Games record with a match that lasted 11 hours.

2. Day 1 and ticket information

First day!  Today I attended an orientation / induction / generic training session with a hundred and fifty other new starters, from various different departments and venues.  LOCOG are running several such training days every week now - and it's no wonder, with a total number of paid staff numbering around 6,000, not to mention more than 125,000 contractors and 70,000 volunteers.  

The training was designed to inspire us to go beyond our personal best to make the Games happen.  There were also some interesting discussions on inclusion and diversity, and how to deal with situations in an appropriate manner.  I thought it was quite thought provoking, particularly in the context of the Paralympic Games which I will be working on as well.

Tomorrow I will meet my manager and start in the office.  I look forward to finding out more about what I'll be doing from day to day and meeting everyone who I'm going to be working with (just hope I can remember at least a few names!)

I've had a few people ask if I can score some free tickets to events for them - unfortunately the answer is no (otherwise I would be SO popular, that is, even more popular than I already am), but here is some information about how you can still get tickets:

• remaining tickets will go on general sale from 11am on 23 May 2012 from here.
• from "Spring 2012" (whenever that may be, as of last week it still felt a bit like winter) a ticket resale programme will begin, with a number of different sales channels.  You are encouraged to check that whatever website you are using to buy or sell tickets from is a legit and approved one - don't get scammed!  
• for team sports within the Olympic Park (Handball, Hockey, Basketball and Water Polo) that have multiple matches/games in a session, tickets will be scanned out when spectators leave prior to the second or last match/game.  You can then buy these tickets for a nominal price at a designated Ticket Box Office close to the venue.  So, keep an eye on the schedule and perhaps you could catch the second half of a session for tiddlywinks.  I'm told the Olympic Park is really worth a visit in its own right so it wouldn't be a waste of time to turn up and see what happens.