Job Search from Hell

After months of hearing stories from other travellers who had done the working holiday visa thing in Australia I came here with the misguided expectation that finding a job would be a breeze. Instead there were hordes of people staying in hostels where the common topic of conversation was how abysmal the job search was, I had other Canadian friends who left Melbourne after a month to try farming since there were no jobs to be found in Melbourne and I persevered through 3 crippling months of endless job hunting and increasingly sketchier job offers.

Wasting time on Hosier Lane

There was the occasional sketchy job I had found online but a lot of these winners came from posting my own ad on Gumtree (as safe as Craigslist...) searching for work. Unfortunately I was unable to apply for a lot of jobs because of the following reasons:

1.    I am not a permanent resident. Backpackers will often quit after two weeks due to this, have given us a shit name, so now a lot of places refuse to hire backpackers.

2.    Many bars/restaurants here seem to want you to have 3-5 years of experience in the field and since they’re crazy for coffee, they want 5-7 years of barista experience.

3.    I did not have access to a car – then again I don’t even have a full drivers license back in Canada!

4.    I cannot speak mandarin….a surprising amount of jobs on Gumtree required Mandarin.

The following are jobs that I was offered in my fun time of job hunting:

Weird Job #1 – Foot fetish

Almost immediately after placing my want ad on Gumtree I started receiving text messages from one guy who made sure to reassure me that he was 24 (because that makes it less creepy) and offered to pay me to massage and lick my feet. I may have been down for a paid foot massage but the foot licking, especially by a stranger, wasn’t for me. Thank god this was early in my job search, had it been much later I may have considered it instead of sending an immediate “hell no!”

Weird Job #2 – Nude model

I received another text fairly early on from another man who made sure to reassure me he was a lawyer (do people think being 24 or being lawyers make them less creepy when making weird proposals to girls online??) and then proceeded to say he’s an amateur photographer and needs some more nude shots and would pay me to model. I may be gullible but not enough to justify going to some old dudes house and stripping down for him.

Weird Job #3 – Softcore porn?

A friend of mine saw an ad in a laundromat looking for women to pose nude, he made it sound like it was for an art class or something and they paid $250 so I contacted the number and even went in for a meeting with them. Turns out it was a very very different thing. I will admit this much, their offices in Brunswick were very professional, the two ladies I spoke with were exceptionally businesslike, but none of that made me inclined to take the “job”. Essentially they run a  website where girls focus a video camera on just their faces, proceed to masturbate till they reach an orgasm so the camera sees their reaction, then give a nude interview in the same clip after. NOPE. Hilarious part is I mentioned the website to a friend and they actually recognized it, damnit I could've been famous.

Weird Job #4 – Waitress for a psycho

I got a trial for a waitressing gig at a pizzeria in Melbourne Central and decided to ignore the warning signs from the initial contact and meeting with the owner that he may be a psychopath. Well I started my trial, was given no direction or even explanation of the layout of the place or menu, then I was berated for taking a second to say whether the customer ordered the schnitzel or schnitzel burger. I was asked to leave my trial early and felt overwhelming relief that unemployment was better than working in that toxic environment.

Weird Job #5 – Brothel

While searching online I found a reception job for Gotham City. In my naivety I assumed it was some nerdy place like a boardgame shop. After doing a bit of research I discovered it was a brothel and did more research to find out that brothels are legal in the state of Victoria. As long as I wasn’t having to take customers or strip I was fully on board with working at the place, so I applied and almost instantly got a call that they’d love to interview me and I was perfect for the role…until they realized I wasn’t a permanent resident. My dreams of working in a brothel were sadly flushed down the drain.

Weird Job #6 – Kidnappee/Future Ditch Occupant

I got a text from a potential employer who asked if I could come in for an interview that day. I tried to get details about the job and it was like pulling teeth trying to figure out was the job was, finally he said Customer Service rep. Then after asking a dozen more times what the business was, he admitted it was an auto shop of some sort. The fact that the person wanted me to come in asap for an interview on a Sunday night should’ve been enough red flags but I still kept trying to get more details from the person and to find out where the address of the business was. I sent more follow up questions where I tried to get more details in hopes of finding out if I was going to be murdered or employed and finally I got one last message from the creep ignoring every single one of my questions and simply saying “Okay, meet me at Dandenong station, get in my car, and I’ll drive us to the place”

Well not only in the station nearly an hour away, but it is apparently one of the sketchiest places in Melbourne so getting into some random internet guys car around 9pm on a Sunday without any details is usually not a good choice.

I replied “No need to pick me up and inconvenience yourself, just tell me the name and address of the business and I’ll meet for the interview there”….and I never heard from the creeper again. Somewhere out there is a ditch with my name on it.

Weird Job #7 – Slave Labour worker

I got an interview for a job in a café near my apartment so I was ecstatic when I was offered the position. Until I found out the pay. Minimum wage in Australia is $17.30, which is considered low here but it much better than minimum wage back home of $11.25. Well they were paying $11 an hour, and would not be giving enough hours to even make my rent, but would eat up all my potential interview hours so I couldn’t find anything better.

Weird Job #8 – Topless waitress

I received a call from someone asking if I was still looking for a job and when I replied yes, they asked me a few more follow up questions (what kind of experience do you have, have you ever served, what uniform size would you need), then the questions turned weird…

Caller: “Okay, next question, how large are you in the chest?”

Me: “Well I’m …wait what?”

Caller: “How large are you in the chest?”

Me: “Excuse me but what kind of job is this??”

Caller: “Topless waitressing. Now, how large are you in the chest”

Me: “I’m sorry but I would not be interested in the position.”

Caller: “FINE, you can wear a bikini. NOW, how large are you in the chest?”

CLICK

Wonderful Job #1 – Almonds

After the longest and most financially crippling job search of my life, Hays Recruitment finally was able to find me a temp position at a company where my role was preparing shipping documentation for sending Almonds to India. A part of me was mildly disappointed that I’d failed at finding a backpacker style job and was yet again at a desk but after all of those messed up jobs I was more than happy to resume my rightful place staring at a computer screen. Plus I am swimming in free almonds!

Exploring Melbourne

Since arriving in Melbourne of the best things has been my friend Sanna. The poor girl got stuck with me as a couchsurfer/mooch ‘just until my sister and I got an apartment’ and then I ended up becoming an actual roommate. Together we’ve been partners in crime while sightseeing, burning on beaches and exploring the Melbourne nightlife. Also she has my eternal love because the day I arrived in Australia she asked me, ‘what food have you been craving?”. Being cheese deprived I replied nachos and she greeted me with nachos and goon.

 

Beaches

A point of pride for me was that after 8 months in Asia I never got a sunburn, well two days into Australia Sanna and I decided to hit up the beach and I came away with the angriest red tanlines you have ever seen. I also saw my first Australian beach and while it was pretty great, the water was surprisingly cold. That was my first inkling that Australia may not be the land of perpetual sunshine and warmth I thought it was, Melbourne especially. Since getting here I’ve also had a beach day with Sanna and some Aussie buddies were we visited the famous Brighton beach where we took the standard tourist photos in front of the brightly coloured beach huts and I finally braved the cool waters. It also took me a while to find a job so in my ample free time I spent a fair bit of time on St. Kilda beach which was conveniently located a 20 minute walk from my apartment! Australians keep ripping into poor St Kilda beach but clearly they’ve never seen Ottawa beaches. There were chill reading/tanning days on the beach, swimming days, drinking days with friends, and sometimes playing water volleyball with friends. Basically I spent a ton of time on St Kilda beach and the only time I didn’t enjoy myself was when some weird foot fetish guy interrupted my reading to ask me questions about my feet and if he could touch them. Left pretty quickly that day!

General Sightseeing

I’d spent a ton of time wandering the cbd (downtown) in Melbourne but it was actually a while till I got around to some sightseeing, until one day Sanna suggested we be tourists. That day we checked out the ACMI museum, and I quickly remembered I don’t like museums, we wandering done Hosier Lane looking at the cool street art that is all over the city, we went through the giant and beautiful Botanic Gardens and we even hiked up the stairs at the Shrine of Remembrance and were greet with a pretty spectacular view of the city.

Shrine of Remembrance

Australia Day

I arrived at just the right time since it meant I was able to witness Australia Day, which is very similar to Canada Day. Everyone dresses up in flag colours or silly outfits, then gets overly drunk. Throw some poutine in the mix and it’s Canada Day with an accent. Sadly there was no poutine in the mix but after starting with some 10am goon Sanna and I joined some Aussie buddies where we celebrated at their place till joining the block party at the Secret Beer Garden.

Melbourne Bars

Melbourne is a super hipster place with things like deconstructed coffee and secret bars and while I’m not hipster enough to appreciate the coffee the same way (Tim Hortons is my version of ‘good coffee’), I’ve done my best to check out some of the bar scene. I’ve so far avoided the infamous Revolvers bar that opens Friday evenings and doesn’t close till late Sunday but the places I have been have had great drinks and/or atmosphere. Our favourite bar hands down is Sister Bella, partly because it has a fantastic atmosphere, partly because you have to go down several narrow creepy dark alleys to get there and especially because they have $10 jugs. Living on Chapel street has also been excellent since it’s the ‘bar street’ and if you time it right you can go happy hour hopping from 2pm-8pm. There also numerous rooftops bars that provide wicked views of the city, The Croft Institute where you drink from plastic syringes, and a nearby bar, Jungle Boy would already be winning at life because it serves poutine but to make things even better, it’s a hidden tiki bar behind the pantry door of a small sub shop.

AFL Games

You’ve never seen people so hardcore about a sport that is played almost nowhere else in the world but Melbournians love their Australian Football and I have to admit, its pretty entertaining. I’ve seen 4+ games live so far and here are the rules I’ve figured out:

1.   Players can use other players as ladders

2.   The guys wear really, really short shorts but its okay because they are jacked

3.   The field is a circle

4.   The ball looks funny and should be thrown between the middle posts, though the side posts work too

5.   Drink beer and then you can pretend to know the rest of the rules

Sums it up right? GO TIGERS GO!

Reverse Culture Shock in Australia

I arrived in Melbourne on a day that was easily 5 million degrees celcius, which made wandering the city with my backpack a lovely adventure. I spent my first day walking through the CBD and a bit of Brunswick where I met up with my friend Juliano who was also from Ottawa and had arrived there just shortly before me.  Apparently Ottawa people flock to Melbourne because my sister’s best friend Sanna who she’d grown up with was also living in Melbourne and luckily for me I’d be staying with her until my sister arrived a few weeks later and we’d find an apartment together. I’d known Sanna for years but it wasn’t until this Australia visit that we became close and even became roommates/Jamba Rime (sorry inside jokes) time buddies. Melbourne has been ranked as the number one most liveable city in the world and I can absolutely see why. Though I’ll also quickly point out 3 of the top 5 are Canadian cities, sorry Ottawa, you did not come close to making that list though. The city was vibrant, beautiful, cafes and parks everywhere, the fantastic Aussie accent being spoken all around me, and a great feel to it. Bizarrely it was actually pretty close to  a Canadian city. Had I come straight from Canada it would have just seemed like a mild transition, however after 8 months of Asia, I was feeling very displaced returning to a westernized country. I found out later there is actually such thing as reverse culture shock. 

The following are things I found weird, or even culture shock-like when I arrived:

Sadly no more signs like this!

• The streets, even downtown, seemed impossibly quiet after Asia where I’m pretty sure driving lessons go “Okay first put the key in and turn the car/bike on, okay now lay on the horn and don’t ever stop honking until you’re safely in park”
• The prices here are insane, especially coming from Asia. My first shock was as I was leaving the airport the cheapest mode of transportation was the $18 one way airport transport bus
• Cheese and wine, items that were impossible to find in Asia, were now everywhere
• Toilets were no longer a hole in the ground and had toilet paper instead of the infamous bum gun
• I didn’t have to carry TP around (and it no longest goes in a gross wastebasket!)
• I could now ask for directions in English without using my awful sign language skills that would have me kicked out of a game of charades in a heartbeat
•  People use cutlery to eat-Okay to be completely honest I missed eating with my hands
• No more night markets and delicious street food (months later and I'm still in withdrawal)
• Street names were absolutely ridiculous sounding (i.e. One was named Mudjimba bli bli) and even more so, the locations. Brunswick St is in Fitzroy neighbourhood, not Brunswick. Fitzroy street is in St Kilda not Fitzroy.  St Kilda St is in Brighton, and there are 6 Brighton streets across Melbourne. Ridiculous.
• Beer was different here too. Every pub seemed to have an intense love affair with IPAs, Fosters beer doesn’t seem to exist (I’m fine with that) and most offensively was the pot of beer. A pint was not always guaranteed, a schooner was a smaller beer but the pot of beer….it was the equivalent of a double shot of beer. How in a country of drinkers can people see it as an acceptable measurement of beer?
• The aussie dress code; girls dress normally but guys wear singlets (giant tank tops with huge armholes down to their belly buttons) and super short shorts. I’d occasionally be on a train and notice that the guys on either side of me had shorter shorts than mine.
• Aussie slang often seems like a completely different language (*see below for an example of how insane it is)
• Another thing that is shocking is that a word used by friends and even in the office place is cunt. Actually I've now heard the boss at work say multiple times "aw ya fuckin cunt" to various coworkers.
• Australia hasn't figured out time zones yet. Adelaide SA, Melbourne VIC, and Brisbane QLD are geographically all in the same time zone however Adelaide is inexplicably 30 minutes off of Melbourne, and Brisbane doesn't observe daylight savings so they are often 0-1 hour off from Melbourne and 0.5-1.5 hours off from Adelaide.
• Driving in Australia may not have the death defying quality of Asian roads but it does have the inexplicable hook turns. At these bizarre intersections you have to quickly go left in the leftmost lane and block all left lane traffic in order to turn right….
• Fast food is different: McDonalds is not only referred to as Maccas but some of the signs have actually been changed to "Maccas". Also Burger King is called Hungry Jacks.

The best culture shock: I could now drink tap water!

The worst culture shock: I felt homesick and got a box of KD (mac and cheese) from the grocery store. Then instead of finding the bizarre but soothingly familiar packet of neon orange powdered cheese I came across a metal can full of some weird cheez whiz like substance. NOT COOL AUSTRALIA. NOT COOL!

The most disappointing shock, though not cultural: My sister who I’d moved to Australia for, so that we could be together again, bailed on me two weeks after I’d arrived so that she could stay in Ottawa for a boy. Bit of a kick in the teeth but at least I was no stranger to solo travel so moving solo can’t be that much of a difference right?

*Aussie Slang

A friend showed me this brilliant youtube video that sums up ridiculous Aussie slang words. The first two times I watched it the sentence at the end was nonsense. Now I can actually understand wtf this is: 

Australian: “After a smoko I might go down the bowlo sarvo for a schnitty and bevvy with Tom, then I’ll head back to the missus for din dins with the fam and watch some footy hopefully on the way I don’t get pulled over by coppers coz I don’t have the rego”

English: “After a smoke break I might go down to the bowling alley this afternoon for a chicken schnitzel and drink with Tom, then I’ll head back to my girlfriend/wife for dinner with the family and watch some Australian football. Hopefully on the way I don’t get pulled over by the police because I don’t have the registration”