Celebrating 100 years: Jurgen's story

Jurgen Dahl still remembers his first day at ComSuper. It was May 27, 1991, and he had joined the team responsible for managing the paper-based member files. After being asked to retrieve a file, he proceeded to spend most of his day in the basement file room, looking for the elusive prize. By the end of the day, he had found it – not in the file room, but on the desk of the colleague who had requested it.

“At the end of that day, I was thinking, ‘you know what, maybe this place isn’t for me’”, he recalls.

“But 30 years later I am still here – that says something about the organisation.”

During those 30 years, Jurgen has risen through the ranks and stamped his mark on a number of projects, working as a tester, in case work, as a Team Leader for the Military Contact Centre, and currently, as a Senior Business Analyst with the Capital Admin System. He recalls the baptism of fire that was his first large project, when he was asked to investigate a benefit after a member flagged an incorrect interest rate. What was supposed to be a six-week secondment soon turned into an 18-month project.

“After I started scratching the surface, I basically found that our admin system wasn’t doing it [interest rates] correctly for the majority of benefits, so we created a project team with developers, BAs, and business people to do manual calculations,” he says.

“It’s one of those things where you find a problem, and even back then the culture was, ‘we still have to get things right.’ But it was an unexpected thing for me to change roles and be responsible for this project, and I had no experience in project management at all. But I knew the legislation, and I knew the admin system, so that’s why I was asked to help out.”

That attitude of ‘having to get things right’ aligns strongly with the CSC value of accountability, which naturally parlays into that of being customer driven – values which Jurgen has been espousing for the past 30 years. He cites the team culture as a highlight of these years, and has fond memories of social lunches at the Belconnen Labor Club, friendships forged, and the strong sense of teamwork enjoyed over a long period of time.

And while much has changed during Jurgen’s time at CSC, including, mercifully, the need to spend days searching for paper member files, the one thing that has remained is his appreciation of his colleagues.

“I enjoy the team I am working with now, and we still have some fun. Even though the culture is much more professional these days, we still try and have some fun outside work if we can.”