KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

You know that feeling when you first download a new app and you're trying to puzzle out how it works? Or you’re a Mac user trying to navigate a Windows machine and vice versa? That confused feeling when tech illiterates can't get new technology working in their favour is how my immigrant parents felt when they fled home turf and wound up in wildly different countries to the community and culture they knew.

I was too small minded and inexperienced in my angsty teen years to respect my parents had risked their lives and left all they knew and loved behind. Instead, I found it frustrating my parents needed help navigating Australian society and that we were disadvantaged children of poor migrants, who didn't know how to make the system work in our favour.

Neither of my parents worked once we got to Australia. In Germany, Dad Pham was in the workforce until schizophrenia crippled his ability to hold down work, and Mum Pham was bullied out of a pharmacy by racist colleagues and customers. In Australia they went on the pension, and so didn't learn anything about the working environment to pass onto us kids.

It took my boss sitting me down and asking me what I wanted for myself a couple of years ago to make me actually think about career. I'd worked with him for years and he pointed out that I have exceptional achievement drive when it comes to my work, but zero achievement drive for myself personally. My immediate response was my parents are Buddhist, they raised us to appreciate what we have and to not want. Wanting things is a very Western culture thing. Though, I suppose, I live in Western society so I went away from that meeting and had a think about what I wanted for myself.

I've never had career development as a personal goal. My personal goals have always been things like being kind, finding positive ways to view life challenges or mundane things, learning from every experience. Career development is something I thought people with career paths did. You go to uni to study a thing, then you do the thing, and progress to more of the thing. I've been jumping all over the shop from high school math/science to creative uni studies to journalism then digital content then ecommerce then miscellaneous projects. 

I went back to my boss and told him I enjoy the project work I do, I am good at willing things to happen, and to develop my career I wanted to do what I do but for the whole company in a more official capacity. It took 18+ months to make it happen, but you are now reading the blog of a Project Management Office (PMO) Manager. Not too scrappy for a kid raised on Government handouts who went to a public school in low income area, where I got voted most likely to succeed which sounds positive until you learn parts of my peer group dropped out of high school and others had to be coaxed, pushed and prodded across the finish line.  

I am learning lots in my new role, and have lots more to learn, but it's exciting to have direction and focus. I wish I had personal career direction before my 30s but, hey, it's never too late to start. I'm proactively coaching the younger people in my life to be more progress driven, prepare themselves for growth and better opportunities - basically, teaching them how to work the system in their favour. I'm hoping anyone reading this will ask themselves what they want, and have a think about how to get there. If you want to talk it through, hit me up.

Dad Pham is forever saying how lucky we are to be living in Australia. He's damn right, we are. Little Sissy Pham and I visit dad once every week, and when I was a single lady with no boyfriend or cat and living 20 minutes away, it was easy peasy to spend all day with Dad and help out. I used to take him grocery shopping in the morning then spend the afternoon cooking a Phamly feast, then chill out until late. 

These days, I always take him grocery shopping in the morning and do his dishes, but lunch is potato chips from Big Brother Pham's pantry or 2-minute noodles from Dad's, then Dad kicks us out between 1.30pm to have a nap. Or if he doesn't kick us out, I head home around 2.30pm to do my own chores, and cook lunch for the week, prep our dinners, and do some work emails and set up my work week. Sundays are not fun days. Basically, Dad Pham needed more support than the half day once every week we are able to give him. 

The people in Dad's community recommended the Australian Government's My Aged Care support. One of their services is in-home care, which is ideal for Dad because he's nowhere near needing full-time care, but he's not doing so great on his own. He doesn't have energy to tidy up around the house and it's always a little messy. He doesn't have much appetite, doesn't cook regularly, tends to snack on junk food than have meals. General household and life chores are slipping.

My Aged Care has been a complete blessing. The government provides different tiers of funding depending on the level of care you need, which can be spent with any approved in-home care provider so we were able to select Sunnycare, a company that has Vietnamese-speaking workers. Ideal! Dad's English is also failing; he's starting to lose words in Vietnamese let alone English, his third language.

Dad's less lonely during the week as he has in-home care every couple of days, the house is generally tidier because they help clean the bathroom and kitchen, and organise his belongings - all the little things Dad has stopped doing regularly because he gets tired so quickly now. They also take Dad to the local shops when it's a cooking day to buy ingredients, which means Dad doesn't need to wait for me to come on Sundays to buy heavy grocery items he can't carry home on the bus.

Visit https://www.myagedcare.gov.au to see if they have anything suitable for you. While they do have some translators, if you can take time off work to attend the assessment with your loved one it means you'll get assessed sooner because they don't have to wait for a translator to be available. Worth the half day off I took to interpret for Dad Pham.