We're Awesome (according to Rory)

by Preston ...

Those of you who know us at all (which would be everyone reading this blog) probably understand that our life is a little bit crazy. Sometimes. Between work, home, schools, 6 kids, musicals, doctor appointments, two dogs, school musicals, church callings, military, 8 fish (one died this week), doing dishes and laundry we somehow decided we didn't already have enough to do. So to help fill that gap and keep ourselves from just being lazy log-bumps, we jointly applied for a new Polk County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Coordinator position. This is a grant-funded position to hire a part-time coordinator for all county-wide activities, training, paperwork, etc. Currently one of our police officers does all the coordinating, and he's been getting heat from his supervisor because of all the time he's spent on it. Thus they requested and obtained a grant to hire someone.

When the position was first announced we weren't so sure whether to go for it. I certainly don't have 25 hours a week to devote to it, and we weren't sure Rory really had that much time either. I couldn't really spend a bunch of time making phone calls or filing paperwork during the day and am not much of a public instructor. Rory wasn't comfortable with the computer-based requirements (Word / Excel / Powerpoint) and dreaded the grant-writing, reports and financial tracking. Then we finally realized we SHARED all the skills they were looking for! We got permission to apply for this position as a TEAM. Letters were written, resumes created, and the application went in.

Thursday morning was the live interview. We were told to prepare a 30-minute training course as if we were teaching one of the CERT classes. Neither Rory or I have been officially trained as trainers, but I was able to find the teacher materials and Powerpoint slides online. Rory picked the "Home and Work Preparedness" topic, and part of that unit happened to be "Structural and Non-Structural Hazards." A few tweaks to the slides, a bit of humor added, some re-arranging of the materials and we were ready. Rory grabbed a bunch of our emergency prep supplies and we headed out the door. Good thing we planned ahead and left 30 minutes early ...

... we got to the Fire Station and found the doors locked. I checked in with the receptionist, who was about to walk me through the building when she decided to check with the local Fire Marshal. Turns out he was on the interview board, and was expecting the interview to be held at the CITY HALL. OK so showing up in the wrong location maybe wasn't the best first impression. But hey - we live in a small town, so it only took about three minutes to change venues.

We finally found the conference room and verified we were in the right place. Nothing was set up for the presentation, so I rummaged through the cabinets and found a projector, cables and screen. While I was setting up the electronic media Rory was laying out her display of emergency prep supplies. Just as we were finishing up the panel arrived. It was a much BETTER impression, as two of the panelists mentioned they were impressed even before we started the show.

I gave the brief Powerpoint presentation, and Rory followed up with some great info on family & home preparedness. I talked about my experience in structural engineering and some of the specific hazards in our area. Rory talked about our family values, resources available to us (she plugged my mom's work in emergency preparedness - complete with the resources she sent from her stake), talked about ways to even help small children get involved. I offered suggestions for homeowners to make inexpensive modifications to their home appliances and furniture. Rory told how all our neighbors think we're from Mars because we have hundreds of gallons of water stored in our yard.

Next the panelists had some prepared questions for us. I don't remember too many of them (Rory can chime in) but it always seemed to come back to how important it was to us for our family to be prepared, and the importance of helping share that message with others in the community. Asked why WE should be hired, we talked about our shared skills and Rory gushed about how well we work as a team. I came away from that interview feeling very impressed with us, based on how highly Rory spoke about us. :+)

In a word, Rory was AWESOME.

So now we'll wait to see what they decide. Part of us is excited to maybe have this opportunity, adventure, and a few extra bucks in the bank. Another part wouldn't be TOO disappointed if the position is offered to someone else, as we really do have a lot going on. But either way this was a good experience for us. And we still look forward to being involved in the CERT and other community programs to improve our neighborhood.