working fulltime!

There is finally good news; being patient paid off and I was offered fulltime employment by adecco, still working for VANOC, doing exactly the same thing that I have done over the last few weeks part time. I am working in the Volunteer Recruitment Centre, doing my outmost hiring Volunteers for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2010.

Against the background of the Winter Games many people came to Vancouver in the hope of finding work, as it is expected that thousands of people will be needed for the preparation and realisation of the Games. While this is true for the amount of people needed, job seekers had to realize quickly most of the Olympic workforce is made up of volunteers. People passionate about the Winter Games, about helping out at a big scale event like the Olympics, people who want to represent Canada, being part of a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity, people who want to meet people from all over the world and quite a few hockey enthusiasts who signed up just to get close to their hockey team! VANOC (who organizes the Olympic and Paralympic Games) is hoping to sign up 25,000 volunteers to make both Games happen and a full success for British Columbia and Canada.

If you happen to have applied to volunteer during the Games, chances are high we'll be contacting you soon (or have already done so recently) as we are dealing with applicants from all over the world. Just today I was talking to people in Germany, the UK, Australia und New Zealand.

I must say I have been more than lucky to have scored a paid job during Olympics time and to be working in the security sector, to make the Games safe for everyone. Just now many employers have realized they need more staff for Games time, as many coffee shops, bars and restaurants are now hiring. So, Vancouver needs Baristas........

Last week I have witnessed first hand a film shoot in downtown Vancouver. What made it so interesting was the fact they were obviously shooting a scene in Germany's Frankfurt as they had replaced all the licence plates with German plates and had even made the effort to change the decals of an urban bus to make it look German (well, the destination sign in the front did it all, by saying: Kaiserstraße). They were shooting parts of a car-race-scene but it took them to long to wind up again the camera to its position up on the roof of a tower building and so I left the scene. Still an interesting experience and I hope I'll see more of it while I am in town!