When you walk into the Indigo Experience Centre, chances are that you’ll see Elizabeth Owens behind the desk at reception, ready to help both our staff and our clients. Liz has been working as Indigo’s Fleet and Administration Lead for four years, and is an integral part of our team, making sure that everything is running smoothly! 

 

As the Fleet and Property Administration Lead, I help look after the cars and property at Indigo and iLA – so if someone sees a problem or has an issue with the building or its contents, they report it to me, and I will do something about it! Sometimes, that can simply be telling my team, but it means that we will do our best to help solve the issue. I also look after reception, do a bit of mail, a bit of phones, and ordering staff consumables together with my team. I am also there to meet and greet clients at reception when they come in. 

 

I have a lot of variety and it changes often as issues come up – and I get to talk to lots of people and run around like a mad thing! 

 

I was around when the dinosaurs roamed – no, really! I converted a software accounting packaging, written in Basic (a programming language now only in history books), which was running on a proprietary PC operating system, to be able to run under a DOS, a digital operating system, that could be put onto lots of different proprietary PCs.  

I also thoroughly enjoyed writing a Sales Reporting System in Macro, from Lotus 123, so that when I entered the sales for the day, it updated the weekly, monthly, and yearly figure in a graph – so pretty! It is a bit like writing a report in Excel, but this was before Excel, which is far more sophisticated! The big mainframe I learnt my programming skills on probably did not have as much power as the new fast laptops of today, but we still made them work.  

Before I was the Fleet and Property Administration Lead, I was working in Indigo’s reception as a Disability Services Customer Service Officer, and I looked after the people walking in the door, with and without an appointment. One customer I helped was a Deaf woman, who I helped get services with My Aged Care. It took quite a few visits, as she had no one else to help her at the time, as she previously hadn’t had a good experience with NDIS. At first, it involved a lot of scribbling on paper, but eventually we were able to organise a sign language interpreter, and finally, I was able to help her apply for My Aged Care. Sometimes, unless you have someone else in your corner to help get information, suggest solutions, or clarify misinformation, it can be very difficult for people with disabilities to get assistance. It felt very satisfying that she was getting the help she required in the end.  

I think I use all four in my job! You need to work together, as sometimes someone else knows more than you, so you need to use it. You need creativity to think outside the box, or just think differently to other people who have not experienced what you have. You need passion to keep going and believing you can help, even if sometimes that means telling someone that somewhere else or another service can help them better. You need integrity, as people are trusting you to do the right thing, or help them access the services they need.