Other Miscellaneous Clerical and Administrative Workers
This unit group covers Clerical and Administrative Workers not elsewhere classified. It includes Clinical Coders, Customs Brokers, Facilities Administrators, Production Assistants (Audio, Screen or Live Performance), Production Coordinators (Audio, Screen or Live Performance), Radio Dispatchers, Strata Managers, Survey Interviewers and Union Organisers.
Strata manager on a Monday
You are a strata manager looking after an apartment building on behalf of its owners, on a Monday when three things go wrong before ten. It is 8:30am. The building has forty apartments, a lift and a car park, and a committee that likes to be told before things happen. Your phone is already buzzing.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
The lift has stopped working again. I am eighty and I live on the eighth floor. I want you to get a technician out right now, and I do not care what the committee says about approval.
Wait for the committee to approve a repair, since that is what the rules say
Mr Ferreira and other residents are stuck upstairs for days. Urgent repairs do not usually have to wait for a meeting, and you should have checked what you were allowed to approve.
Check what you can approve for urgent repairs, call the technician and tell the committee
The technician comes that afternoon. The committee is told the same day, and Mr Ferreira can see someone is taking his problem seriously.
Tell Mr Ferreira you will send someone, then ask the committee for approval first before calling anyone
You are doing the right thing in the wrong order. The technician is booked, but not before Mr Ferreira has spent an uncomfortable morning wondering whether you meant it.
Omar says Jess has been playing music late and Jess says Omar bangs on the wall and has put a complaint in about her. Both of them are now emailing you and copying the whole committee. Can you just tell us who is right?
Listen to each separately, point to the building rules, suggest a way forward
Each of them feels heard. You do not take sides, and the building rules give them a fair way forward. The emails to the committee stop.
Decide quickly who is more reasonable and tell both of them
One feels vindicated and one feels attacked. The loser appeals to the committee and now you are part of the argument.
Reply to the whole group, asking everyone to be considerate and hoping it settles
It sounds fair, but the problem is still unresolved. Both neighbours are annoyed that nobody has looked at what actually happened.
My friend in apartment twelve is a bit behind on her building contribution. Could you just leave her off this month's reminder notice? It would be embarrassing for her. Nobody else will know.
Leave her off the notice quietly, since it is a small kindness and nobody else will know
Another owner later notices that everyone else in arrears received a reminder. You are asked to explain why a committee friend was treated differently.
Say it goes to everyone who is behind, and offer her friend a chat about a plan
Pauline accepts it. Her friend gets the same notice as everyone, and a kind way to catch up. Fairness and kindness do not have to be opposites.
Send the notice to everyone, but say nothing to Pauline about why
You were fair, but Pauline hears about the notice from her friend and feels blindsided. A short word in advance would have saved the awkwardness.
How it went
By Monday evening the lift was fixed, the neighbours were talking and the notices went out evenly. Strata, records, production offices and the other roles in this group all depend on someone keeping things organised and fair. Would you enjoy being the person in the middle?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The note that did not add up
A fictional case set in a mix of behind-the-scenes roles: a hospital records office, a strata building and a film production office.
The situation
Ingrid worked as a clinical coder in the records office of a regional hospital. Her job was to read each patient's discharge summary and assign standard codes that describe their stay, so that the hospital's data stayed accurate. One afternoon she reached a record where the doctor's note and the test results seemed to describe slightly different things. The coding system would accept either, and the monthly deadline was close. Guessing would have been faster than asking.
What they did
Ingrid wrote a short, polite query to the doctor describing exactly what did not match. She did not tell the doctor what the answer should be. The doctor replied the next morning with a clarification, and Ingrid recorded the code that matched. She also noted the query in the file, so the reasons were clear to anyone who audited it.
How it turned out
The corrected record was used in the next set of hospital reports. The extra step cost a day, but a wrong code could have affected how the hospital's work was counted for months. The doctors in that unit began adding a line to their notes when a result changed their original thinking.
What would you do?
- Why did Ingrid ask a question instead of picking the most likely answer?
- How would you word a query so that it is polite and clear?
- What kinds of jobs depend on a single record being right?