Over the holidays I worked as the assistant operations manager in a strings academy called WAYACHAMP. The program was held at UWA for four days. In the four days of my work, I set up rooms for orchestras, smaller ensembles and workshops. Each day started off with unlocking every room needed for the day, with a key-card. This also meant that each day ended with locking up each room. Throughout the week I had to stay well organised and effectively communicate back and forth with my manager. At some points, my schedule was busy and packed, having to complete many different jobs. One part of my job was to locate and deliver several music stands from a storage room to a dance studio roughly 500 metres away. First I located enough stands needed and stacked them in the a rack. Then, I wheeled the trolley through wood chip and dirt terrain. After reaching the studio I had to take the stands out of the trolley and set them up for all the players, ensuring that there were enough stands for everyone, making sure the session ran smoothly. At many points I faced problems. Some included, a shortage of stands, having to navigate across a difficult path, ensuring everything was set before the next session started, etc. I managed to get through these challenges by being efficient. For example, when there was a great shortage of music stands, I had to search many different venues around the campus before I found a supply. Then I had to repeat the same process of delivering the stands, setting up, etc. This time it was much more difficult and cost me a lot of time. This required me to quickly figure out the best way to go about setting everything up, using aspects of fundamental qualities such as time management, awareness and leadership.
Through this job, I also had to apply my knowledge of music to different tasks. This included, numbering bars, sharing opinions on group playing and setting up groups such as orchestras, piano duets, quartets etc. I also had to show leadership and confident in my decisions. I basically had to know what I was doing. This meant that I had to assert authority in my role and lead people in the right way. An instance where I used this was when practice rooms were being occupied by UWA students when they were actually booked by WAYACHAMP. I had to knock on every door and check if anybody was in the practice rooms, which on multiple occasions there were. If the UWA students were using the practice rooms, I had to kindly ask them to leave, making sure every participant had somewhere to practice. At WAYACHAMP I interacted a lot with not only the participants but also the tutors. I made sure to communicate with the tutors and make myself available for anything that they needed. This was vital throughout the week as I found myself hunting down different stands, sheet music, stationary for various tutors. I also had to make sure that the participants at the academy were doing the right thing. I made sure no-one became lost in the maze-like campus and also ensured that everyone was were they were meant to be.
There was no time to slack off during this job. If I didn’t take my job seriously there would have been many important aspects of the academy that wouldn’t have come together to make an enjoyable experience for everyone. I’m grateful for my manager Sophie for also guiding me through my job, being flexible and helpful throughout the whole week. In the end, it was a great opportunity getting to see every participant and tutors skills and views. If I get another chance, I will definitely take up the job again.
If you would like to enrol yourself into WAYACHAMP, here’s a link to the website.