New Outpost Office

Hi all!  Now that I've finally finished posting about our wonderful Vietnam trip, I'm hoping to write more about my everyday life here on Sakhalin.  Although, after being here for almost a year, everyday life here is starting to seem somewhat normal.  I hope I can find things to tell you about that will be interesting.  Life here is sort of what you make of it and I've made mine extremely busy.

Yesterday was Wednesday and I had Outpost Office duty.  I've blogged about out our Sakhalin Outpost Office before.  You can read about it *here*.  Outpost Office duty means that it is my turn to work in the office during office open hours, which is only once a week on Wednesday 10:30 to 12:00.  We have 9 members on our Outpost team right now and each Wednesday morning we rotate either working in the office or being the Outpost Office representative for Coffee Morning, which is a weekly gathering of residents for cofee and chatting and occurs at the same time as the Outpost Office open time.  I usually have duty for one or the other about once a month, but as the Outpost "Focal Point", I work in the office A LOT more than that.

A couple of months ago, we completely redid the office and it is really nice now.  Before, there was a desk right when you walked into the office and the books were locked away in a cabinet and no one could even see that we had all sorts of travel books and Expat related self help books.  Now, the office is divided into 3 areas.  The first area is a nice sitting area with a couch and chairs.  We've started having more meetings and gatherings here, although it is a bit small for a more than about 8 people. Next is the library area, with open bookshelves and a table and chairs.  Finally, toward the back is the office area with the desk, computer, file cabinets, etc.  I think it's a huge improvement and is so nice and much more welcoming now.

Here are a few photos of the new office.  This first one is of the sitting area taken looking back towards the first part of the office as you walk in.  The door is on the left behind the bookshelf.

This photo is taken standing in front of the white chairs in the above photo looking to the back of the room.

Next is a better shot of the library shelves.  We have 4 shelves (two rows of two shelves back to back).  I bought 36 of these black bins to put all of the travel brochures in.  Before the brochures were in these tacky blue boxes.  I need more bins and hopefully the store will get some in soon.  Everything takes longer here.

 

This last one is a better shot of the desk / office area.  I'm so excited to hopefully be getting a new(er) printer soon.  It will be a laser and will have to sit on the floor, probably in front of the desk.

 

I'm enjoying being a part of Outpost although it's a much bigger job than I realized when I took it on.    It's like a small business with a budget, meetings with HR representatives, team meetings, reports, monthly newsletters, planning events, etc.  It's fun and I've certainly learned a lot!

Love to you all!

Karen