Source: University of Otago
Former Custodial Services Manager Mindy McLellan.
Mindy
For Mindy McLellan, the University has been her only real constant for 35 years – her job endured through marriages, divorces, births, and deaths.
She also transformed from mother and part-time cleaner to manager and educated professional.
“The University was my life. I would come back early from annual leave because I missed it – and I made lasting friendships,” Mindy says.
Since finishing her job as University of Otago Custodial Services Manager recently, she has been taking time to consider whether she will get a part-time job on some weekdays, which would probably be in a dress or shoe shop, leaving work at the door.
But Mindy is not the type to sit still, so she has already bought a computer and started making notes for the autobiography she has promised her family.
Family times
It will include some historical touchstones – her father Reg MacDonald was the chief reporter for The Evening Star in Dunedin and her mother Norma was compere and Chaperone for the Miss New Zealand contests run the length of the country by Joe Brown.
Mindy – or Melinda, as she was christened – grew up knowing household names who performed at the glamorous national final each year in Dunedin, including Bill and Boyd, the Howard Morrison Quartet and John Hore.
Earlier she had learned to walk and talk in London while Reg was on a Kemsley Scholarship for Journalism – he was also a war correspondent in Vietnam for a time
He eventually furthered his love of the services by working for the Royal Australian Air Force with the rank of Squadron leader then moved to the Royal Australian Navy as Lieutenant Commander, where he was its press officer and heavily involved in organising the Navy’s 75th Anniversary in Sydney Harbour.
School and work times
Mindy attended Columba College in Dunedin, then Queen Margaret College in Wellington, before “leaving high school really early. I was a bit of a rebel, and I had no idea what I wanted to do apart from being a beautician and there wasn’t a lot of call for that in those days.”
She became a qualified make-up artist and hair care consultant at D.I.C. department store. Then when her mother remarried local businessman Max McDade and relocated to Australia, she went with them, but soon returned to Dunedin by herself, got married and started picking up jobs that fitted with home life, often in factories.
By January 1986, Mindy was starting at the University as a cleaning supervisor in the Central Library, working from 5pm to 8pm. At the time, she had 15-year-old stepson Paul at home, along with 13-year-old son Norman, and three-year-old daughter Tamsin.
“There was no shortage of women who wanted to get out and earn a little bit of extra money in those days. There was a terrific amount of good workers so I had a great team.”
Mindy would turn up on her Honda Eve – “50cc, if that” – then pop it behind the cleaning cupboard’s sliding doors until she was ready to head home.
Managing time
The new job was also a new start – she took the opportunity to become Mindy rather than Melinda: “My mother was a little bit posh and spoke with a plum in her voice. I was just over the airs and graces, and it has been Mindy ever since.”
By the time Tamsin was starting school, Mindy’s boss University Custodian Jim Kelly, who lived on site, was retiring so she decided to apply for his job. The live-in part of the job was removed and Mindy renamed the position Custodial Services Manager; in those days the University was smaller, so the work included checking all exterior doors were locked, managing up to 30 University-employed cleaning staff, and issuing them with equipment and cleaning products.
Mindy timed her job around Tamsin by doing split shifts for 10 years – dropping Tamsin at school, starting work at 8.30am, picking Tamsin up at 3.30pm, doing housework, cooking dinner, and settling Tamsin, before returning to work about 6pm.
Tight times
But the job did also include some very tight deadlines. To get the physical education flume building ready for occupation at 55 Union Street, a team worked right through the weekend to remove glue from the mammolium floor covering and lay several coats of polish to it.
Preparing the Hocken Library for occupation involved a team working 24 hours to prepare and polish the vinyl so the process did not affect contents being added to the building: “I felt like I had a hangover in the morning,” Mindy says.
Changing times
After becoming the Custodial Services Manager, she introduced time sheets, so staff confirmed the hours they were working.
She also produced and starred in videos that inducted staff, showed them the health and safety expectations, how to use the cleaning products, and demonstrated both how to use the vacuum cleaners and polishers then clean them. These videos have been transferred to CD’s and she hopes they will end up in our University’s archives.
“I just kind of fell into the University and developed a love of managing people, managing contractors and being innovative. I loved being challenged,” Mindy says.
With so many staff, Mindy realised she needed to upskill so did a New Zealand Institute of Management Certificate of Management, choosing units that would help in her job, including communication, human resources and management. Then she started doing University units in Management and Operations Management. Her Diploma for Graduates was awarded in 2003.
As Custodial Services Manager, Mindy also moved from typing her records with carbon paper copies to using computers and cell phones.
She also instantly started making the former custodian’s office her own: “Everyone would come in and say, ‘it’s an amazing office, it’s just so homely’. Anywhere I go, it’s got to be personalised and comfy.”
It was all part of enjoying her work.
Fabulous times
“My job was busy and challenging. I was learning constantly. I felt I made a difference,” she says. “I loved the University, absolutely loved it.”
“There were an awful lot of good workers. In general, people were absolutely wonderful.,” Mindy says.
Contracting time
When cleaning staff started being contracted, Mindy was in her mid-40s, had just bought a house with her new partner, and was pregnant with daughter Georgia.
She was grateful for her studies that had helped her learn about managing contractors and contracts. She was also later grateful for the childcare provided on campus, which was “amazing”.
Mindy went on to add the University Mailroom and Waste and Recycling to her work portfolio.
Communicating time
In recent years, Mindy also wrote the Property Services Division newsletter, so “got to know a lot more about the people I worked with”.
She ran the annual Melbourne Cup thoroughbred horse race draw for years as well. The race has a family link, her parents were at those races in 1970 when Baghdad Note won and flew home with owner Stu Falconer and the cup.
Calling time
Now Mindy has finished work, plans to travel overseas are on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic but she may venture to the North Island, and there will always be time for friends and family.
Husband Iain will continue working at Fulton Hogan while daughters Tamsin and Georgia both live in Dunedin with their partners, and so do Tamsin’s sons Jordan and Dylan.
