John Linton
We had the Exetel Christmas party last night which was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to have a good time. Each year we hire a bus to pick most people up at the office and to ensure they don't drive to the venue.
Having 'suffered' through most of my corporate life having to attend company Christmas parties that seemed to go on for ever in boring surroundings with low budget food and even lower budget drinks we have tried to make our functions short but enjoyable. For the second year we have hired a room at the casino and paid for an open bar and their top food package and started early and closed the bar after two hours. Our 'entertainment' was a sleight of hand 'magician' and a short 'speech' briefly touching on the main highlights of the year and providing sme information about the most important aspects of the coming year.
It is always nice to catch up with our volunteer forum admins who we only get to see once a year at this event and who have made such an important contribution to Exetel's progress over the past four years. The only other people we invited this year were our 'outside' accountants one of whom does our monthly accounts and statutory returns and the other who does our annual tax return and superannuation planning.
This gives enough time for everyone to have a chat to everyone they might want to catch up with and for "Mrs Claus" to hand out the "Christmas Bonus" to each person (casino chips based on $25.00 for every three months of employment with Exetel). The food was via a couple of charming waitresses who moved around the room offering finger food with an Asian bias and rounded off as the bar closed with small cartons of fish and chips.
After that most people spent some time in the Casino using their Christmas bonus in whatever ways they deemed best and I played craps for a while while Annette moved around having a further chat with the newer employees who she doesn't get to see very often. We then had a couple of drinks in the bar and said goodbye to those employees we passed on our way out who seemed to either be winning enough to stay for a while longer or were just happy to watch their friends play.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable night (at least it was for Annette and me) and we didn't have to wait very long to get a taxi home. I'm always impressed with our employees and it's a great pleasure to be part of helping them start (for the main part we recruit recent uni graduates and Exetel is their first job) their professional careers and help them develop as quickly as possible.
As we drove home we 'reminisced' about how we were in Exetel's first few months before there were any 'employees' (we worked for the first 4 - 5 months on no remuneration) and how amazingly quickly the last four years have gone - in the proverbial "twinkling of an eye".
Exetel is still a very small company where I have personally selected each person who works for Exetel and know their background and review their career development plans and assist them make the right decisions in those career plans. We are still very fortunate to have a very, very low loss of people over the years which, as Annette remarked, was very obvious from the number of chips needed for the Christmas 'play money' this year.
For a company that has been going for four years the average length of employment is 2 years and three months. It would be nice if that track record is maintained in to the future.
I don't think it will be possible for me to retain the level of involvement at the 'nitty gritty' levels I have been able to do to date in the running of Exetel and that saddens me. The workload has become very demanding and my body and mind continue to exhibit the increasing wear and tear of the passing years and we will need to pay more attention to the development of our personnel so they can take a greater part in the day to day decisions that continue to increase.
It was nice to relax with the people you work with for a few hours - I just wish I hadn't had those last two Scotches.