Working's For Chumps
06 December, 2005 09:11Our broadband has an interesting property called throttling, which means that for the last few weeks I've been sending carrier-pigeons to get stuff from the Internet... Old School.
Here's how my last two weeks have gone, in a condensed and highly nutritious form. Starting on Monday, November the twenty-first. Monday, went looking for a job. Thursday, went for an "interview". Friday, bought a bike. Started working. Saturday, worked first proper shift and acquired a headache. Sunday, worked a hardcore, day-long, shift starting at 12 PM and finishing at 11 PM. Kept up the headache. Saw an electrical storm. Missed out on some rock climbing. Monday, canceled for work. Still have headache. Tuesday, quit job. Cured headache. Saw a bush fire. Wednesday, went for interview with a job agency called Julia Ross Hot. Got my ATM card swallowed by a machine. Attended my first Australian barbeque. Saturday and Sunday finished off working. Found out about the blessed Aussie ideal of weekend penalty labour rates.
That's what's been keeping me busy. I thought it was going to be great, no longer would I be some kind of beach bum ("wax your surfboard for a dollar sir?"). After all my enthusiasm at being employed it all went south (should that be north here?!?) fairly quickly. I started working on Friday evening and sometime around Sunday afternoon, I think it was around the time I mistakenly charged the second $85 steak to a table (no I'm not an idiot. They use little PDAs to make the orders. They're hideously complicated and so I'm effectively saying that it was the restaurant's fault that I messed up the order!), I decided that perhaps being a waitron wasn't really the best use of (in a reversal of the popularly held opinion that, in fact, it's the only use for) my music degree! It isn't, as the kids all say, my bag baby. I'm no Seán (who quit in Brakers after one night. And when I say he quit I do mean his mommy quit for him) but three days is pretty bad. Hopefully I'm moving on to bigger and better things. The job honestly sucked. The people I worked were nice, thus proving my theory that all Aussies are really nice. But, it just wasn't for me.
They do have a nice system over here called Weekend Penalty Labour Rates where you get paid extra for working on the weekend. Fantastic idea. They were planning on paying me $20 per hour. Nice. If, however this officey job doesn't pan out I may have to end up working in South Australia or Victoria picking fruit. I gave it a lot of thought and have a few nice ones picked out. Ones that pay by the hour rather than by the amount of fruit picked. As the guys from back in the lettuce farms well know, the hours suck, the pay sucks but I will get to meet loads of people. The pear season starts in January. The best thing here is the amount of pear/pair jokes that can be made. [to a girl holding a pear] nice pear/pair love etc. Let's see how that goes! Maybe it'll never happen.
It's been summer here for six days and so far it's rained all six. Grrrrr. The great Australian summer has, so far, had it's ass whooped by the even-greater Australian spring. It's not wintry by any means but you know you've become acclimatised when the weather's predicting highs of 24 degrees and you're thinking "uuuh, better get out the jumper," or, more accurately "crap, I'm going to have to start wearing socks again!" It's definitely not feeling Christmasy anyway. All the lights and santas and Christmas trees are up in town and I just keep thinking "Why the Dickens are they having Christmas in July?" It really doesn't feel like December. I'm disconnected. Zoiks!
Speaking of acclimatisation; Australians are starting to loose their accent. Sometimes I can't even remember if they have an accent. I went to the pub to meet my native guide's work mates last Friday and I found myself saying "How'r'ya going," the Aussie version of "How's it going." It's a little thing but is so obvious when you hear them talk. And while the Aussies seem to be loosing their accent I appear to be gaining one... an American one! I've been accused of being American several times and even Canadian once. Generally, people, on hearing me talk, ask where I'm from and not once has anyone successfully guessed that I'm Irish (except an Irish bartender in an Irish bar). I firmly hold globalisation to blame for my accent difficulties. Down with low prices, up with Communism... or something. I worry that if my accent is so delicate as is, what the hell it's going to be like when I come home. If anyone hears a 'G' day' this or a 'billabong' that I should be taken aside and slapped. When I tell Aussies that "no, I'm Irish actually," they all say 'Oh' and begin talking about the year or two they spent England (they call it the U.K. but really they mean London). It would appear that you can't truly call yourself Australian unless you've spent a few years working in London. The draw of their Queen is too much for them to resist and they don't get to vote if they don't go (or something). Apparently, if all the Aussies in the world (I mean actual Australian born Aussies and not in the same sense that there are fifty-million "Irish" [read: Americans] out there) came back to Australia at the same time the whole country would collapse.
My first Aussie barbie was pretty good. Very excellent in fact. The barbeque itself was a beaut. One aluminium plate and two gas burners. It looks like it might fly and really makes use of minimalism. It could be a piece of art in other settings. People seemed genuinely surprised about the existence of disposable barbecues.
"Why would you need a disposable barbeque?"
"We only get four warm days per year!"
Over here you can turn up at a park with some charcoal and a fork and use the communal barbies. Despite what you might have heard no one threw any shellfish on the barbie. No one even suggested that they night want to throw some on in the future. It was unfortunate to come all this way only to get my hopes dashed but that, sadly, is reality. I hate to break it to you but in the States the streets aren't paved with gold and in Australia the barbies aren't paved with shrimp.
