Miriam Dawe has celebrated 40 years of working at Wyndham City Council. 68418 Picture: DAMJAN JANEVSKI
By XAVIER SMERDON
FEW people could work for 40 years at the same place and still leave work every day with a smile on their face.
But for Miriam Dawe, who has almost been part of the furniture at Wyndham City Council since she started there in 1971, that is exactly how she feels.
Ms Dawe arrived at the council to help with the switch of the telephone exchange from manual to automatic.
Four decades later and she is still there, despite the continuous changes in technology.
Ms Dawe can still remember the arrival of the computer at the council offices.
“They wouldn’t let on what this great new invention was but we were told we couldn’t miss the meeting where they were going to unveil it,” Ms Dawe said.
“The way they sold it to us was that it was going to be the best thing since sliced bread.”
Ms Dawe has also seen Wyndham’s population boom from around 7500 people to more than 150,000.
“You could see it growing,” she said.
“It didn’t happen overnight, but you could see people continuously coming in.”
As far as retirement goes, Ms Dawe insists she has no intention of slowing down just yet.
“Wyndham has been good to me,” she said.
“I realise that I can’t keep working forever, but I think I’ll stay for as long as I enjoy coming to work every day and while I can still contribute.”
