by Darlene Goodrick, Supervisor, Printing and Duplicating, VIU

In the short time I have been here at VIU I am blown away by what this University has to offer.

As a CUPE member, staff can partake in funded learning to better themselves and their resume.  Is this rare in the working world?  It is where I have been!  How about working toward a degree?  How fortunate to spend your working days at your ‘school’.  Depending on your educational pursuits, Vancouver Island University seems to be a very accommodating work place for helping staff learn, grow, and improve themselves and therefore open more doors of opportunity for future advancement.

It appears that by treating staff with such respect, the loyalty is paying off.  I keep hearing about staff members that have been here 20, 25, 30 years and more.  Wow!  That tells me this is a great place to work!

I enjoy learning, and with the wide variety of people who work at the University, what an opportunity to learn.  Each person here has something special about them that can teach the rest of us.  Each person who walks in the print shop has a whole story and life that is often so different from my own and I find each and every one of you fascinating.

With such a wide variety of educational backgrounds, and personalities, it is more important than ever to keep an open mind and realize that what you are dealing with in your particular department may not be the priority to someone else.  I see this often in the print shop where we are part of the process to an end result.  The decisions needed to be made to get to that end result can sometimes be confusing and unknown to the customer.  I told the team here that our next run of print request forms needs a box that says “Do what you think is best”, because 9 times out of 10 that is what the customer wants anyways.

So even though we work tucked away in the Print Shop in Building 305 of the University (stop by sometime – room 280) we are still teaching and learning.

We learn on a daily basis how to be patient and cooperative when faced with urgency and complication, while at the same time teaching about printing services and what is the most cost effective way to complete the desired print job.  Great customer service involves including the customer in the process so they understand why things are the way they are.  This clears up the unknown and removes frustration that can come from a process that to us here in the print shop is of ultimate importance, but to the average print shop customer is simply a cog in the sprocket to their end result.

I look forward to continuing to learn and teach and teach and learn here at Vancouver Island University.