Planning 10 is a huge subject. Its about teaching young students the steps to take to adulthood and careers they may be interested in for the future. So far in planning, we have already learnt about the use of money and income, job safety, and much more. The class has had guest speakers come in all year to talk about their journeys through finding different careers and ways to make the adult life much easier. The final project of this entire unit was a job shadow project. Each student was to find somebody to shadow at a job site to get to know more about careers that students may want to pursue as we get out of high school. In this post, Im going to tell you the highlights of my trip and what I learned at my job shadow.
As a young grade ten student, I am still unsure of what I may do as a career. My interests have always been around cities and designing things to do with the growth of these cities. I am very fortunate to that my mom has many friends that work in this unique environment, and one of those people is a man named Tobin Postma, who is the Director of Strategic Issues for the City of Vancouver. He works at City Hall and works with a lot of people to figure out ways to make the city better, whether that be cleaning up the streets for needles, to managing infrastructure and issues like homelessness around the city.
Going to City Hall seemed pretty exclusive, and there was tight security throughout the facility. City Hall was super cool to visit, and Tobin gave me a great tour during the job shadow. One of the first things he did was take me to the courthouse, a large conference room where most problems are assessed by the government and the counsellors and mayor figure out a solution. This room was very interesting to me, as it felt special to be in the room where most decisions for the City of Vancouver are made, and I even got to sit in the Mayor’s chair.
The next thing he had to do was participate in a meeting about needle cleanup in the city. Tobin, along with two park rangers and another co-worker from City Hall sat down and talked about some statistics of needle cleanup as well as a new way of designating certain zones for different park rangers. The new system would benefit the people cleaning up the needles by reducing the size of the area they need to clean. Another problem they had was that different companies and organizations were running into each other during cleanup, so these new zones would help any confusion that these companies might have to face.
I came into this meeting not thinking of much. I thought it was going to be just another meeting about needle cleanup, but that wasn’t the case. They made the meeting lively, adding more conversation than just reading off of the presentation. It seemed like an environment that showed that these people really cared about their careers, even when talking about a somewhat lame topic of needle cleanup. After the meeting, he showed me around his office space and his other co-workers. He then showed me what he has to do on a daily basis, which is open up letters sent to City Hall regarding problems around the city. Tobin then appoints these problems to other people he thinks would help solve the solution and then organizes meetings and starts conversations. His job can be quite stressful at times, as he only has so much time to figure out solutions before they get out of hand. Thankfully, his workspace seems very good to work in, and from what I saw the environment of City Hall is mostly positive.
After shadowing him for most of his day, I asked him some questions about his job and the journey he took. The job requires a lot of good communication and presentation skills. Most of his day is talking to other executives about results and possible outcomes for the better of Vancouver, so having good communication skills are key to the job. Other skills he mentioned include teamwork and self and time awareness. His journey to his current job came with a lot of crucial decisions and opportunities. He stated that he has changed his job career a number of times, and before he got this job he had no idea he would be working for city hall. He has moved all over the world, working for different companies such as radio, communications, and much more. The one thing I took away from my visit was that no matter where you end up, ask yourself if you belong. Working as certain careers will impact you for the rest of your life, and what makes it worse is when the career you are doing is not an ideal situation for you. You have to be able to work in an environment that has what your looking for, and working in a hostile or uneasy environment will impact you for the rest of your life. Follow your dreams and do whatever you need to get to where you want to be. The idea of opportunity was also something he brought up. “Anything that may help you with your future aspirations, go ahead and do it. Enroll in classes, camps, or other types of activities to give you these opportunities to pursue what you want to do.” He left me with a great message, and thats to make use of your opportunities and use them to your advantage.
I really appreciated Tobin for allowing me to shadow him for the day in City Hall. This project got me more inspired in his area of work and has given me a more in depth look into work I may want to apply for in the future. I wrote a thank you letter saying how much I appreciated him taking me along during his work.
After doing this project, I am even more impressed with City Hall and the work they do to make Vancouver a better place, and has gotten me even more interested in how might we make cities and communities a better place. I was very fortunate to go to City Hall, and I am thankful for the experience.