Council stalwart says it’s time for a change

By Shaun Inguanzo
JILL White has been a familiar face around Greater Dandenong for 25 years.
But it’s the people of Noble Park who have had the privilege of knowing her for the past two years as the manager of the Paddy O’Donoghue Centre.
Last week, Mrs White said a solemn goodbye to the Paddy O’Donoghue Centre and to the City of Greater Dandenong Council – her employer for the last quarter-century – as she moved into retirement aged 55.
“It was a huge decision to make because I love the Paddy O’Donoghue Centre,” Mrs White said.
“But I think all good things must come to an end and I think it was the right time for me to move on and down the road to do something a little bit different.
“(Retirement) was a massive decision to make. It’s going to be scary not having an income anymore.”
Mrs White arrived in Australia in 1983 from England and after six months found a job with the then City of Springvale in the typing pool.
“In those days in the administration section we would type up council agendas and minutes on old typewriters,” she said.
“We use to have to cut stuff out from the agenda and paste it into minutes of meetings, too.
“It used to be bloody awful.”
Mrs White said the job was so boring at times that typing pool staff would often liven up their day with a few harmless pranks.
“We were photocopying an agenda one day and we had to do it by hand,” she said.
“We would put the copies in a dumbwaiter (a small elevator) to send them downstairs.
“So I thought wouldn’t it be funny if the supervisor found me in the dumbwaiter.
“The problem was when I did it, it wasn’t the supervisor who opened the door, it was Bill Smith, an ex-sergeant major in the Army, who went ballistic at me.
“I thought I was going to get the sack.”
But it wasn’t to be, and Mrs White soon found herself working as secretary to Jenny Slade, the community services manager for the City of Springvale.
This proved to be one of the most challenging roles for Mrs White because council amalgamations occurred while she was working the department.
“We had to bring community services staff at Dandenong over to Springvale,” Mrs White said.
“There was a lot of fear and anger among staff at that time, because we were bringing them out of where they were to a whole new environment. It was a difficult process.”
Mrs White said she tendered her resignation to the council CEO at the time, Warrick Heine, who refused to accept it.
“He instead said ‘fix the problem’, in other words, what was I going to do about it.
“I was then put on secondment to public affairs and came up with an A to Z of council services, which included who people should put phone calls to if they had inquiries about certain topics.
“Then I did a radio show (on 3SER) for a while, and later became a team leader in public affairs.
“Then my role disappeared in a restructure, and about six months later I was offered a job to get the Paddy O’Donoghue Centre up and running.”
It would be Mrs White’s swansong with the council – but perhaps her most enjoyable experience in 25 years.
“I have left a big part of me there,” she said.
“I loved the childcare centre – I had fun with kids because I love kids, so it was such a huge decision to make.
“But as I said, all good things must come to an end.”