Alex P. Keaton?

How ya going?

Ok. A lot of things to share.

I have a new job.
Yes, that's right, my career as a waitress has officially come and gone.
And I'm more than ok with that.

The last time I worked was actually that Valentines Dinner shift.
The next time I was supposed to work they called me off again because of the weather/rain.
But let's be honest, I had made up my mind before then.

I thought a lot about it and I decided that this was not what I wanted to do with my time here. I wanted a job that was the least amount of stress as possible. I didn't want to start dreading my next shift as I was walking home from my last one. I wanted a job where once I left for the day, it wouldn't cross my mind again. I have a limited amount of time in Sydney, and I didn't want my job consuming all my energy and thoughts. So I'm out of the business. Three nights. Not bad, not bad at all.

No worries...I didn't quit until I had a new job lined up for the following Monday.

I am now working as a receptionist/personal assistant for a Financial Planning Company in North Sydney.

Just the other day Jeff and I were watching the news and I happened to mention that I knew absolutely nothing about stocks, investments, and anything associated with the market. Bite your tongue! Needless to say I will now have plenty of time to learn the ins and outs...or at least learn enough to at least BS my way through the next diversified portfolio discussion I stumble upon (happens all the time).

So I'm back in an office, which I'm happy about, and the only woman, which is a little weird, but interesting. And, drum roll please...minus my nose piercing! That's right. It was a stipulation on landing this job. Apparently people don't tend to trust you with their money if you have visible pieces of metal pierced through your face. And since I've been told multiple times that I am the first visual representation for the company, the piercing had to go.

No nose piercing AND working in a financial planning firm? Will I be coming back from my trip across the world more conservative than when I left? Not likely.

I still have the nose piercing...I'm determined to keep it. So, whenever I go to the bathroom, lunch, or to the post office to pick up the mail, I stick it right back in. Personally I would be more cautious giving my money to someone with a gaping hole in their nose, than a person with a tiny silver spec, but of course that's me.

Everyone has been incredibly nice and welcoming to me, but apparently I'm entering in at a weird transition time for the company. Malcolm Boyd (a co-worker), yeah that's right us MB's have to stick together, filled me in on my first day.

Apparently there were some bad deals going down on the boss' end. Two weeks ago the Board met and fired the boss' wife and daughter who also worked in the office (I took the daughter's position) and they asked the boss not to come in on Monday. So then they hired Jeremy to take the old boss' position. Jeremy is the one that hired me. When I showed up on Monday he started leading me around, clearly confused about a majority of things. He quickly ushered me off to Malcolm who has been training me ever since and filling me in on the office politics. Jeremy had been there only one week when I showed up, so he's almost as new as I am! My first day went pretty smoothly and when I was taking a phonecall at the end of the day on Monday Jeremy wrote me a quick note saying he was heading into the city, he'd see me tomorrow, and that the board was meeting tomorrow morning, so everyone would be in bright and early.

Well come Tuesday everyone shows except Jeremy! That's right, he was a no show, and after the staff met, Malcolm came out to tell me that Jeremy wouldn't be coming back and they were again in need of a boss.

Then John, the head of the entire firm, who is in charge of all the offices in the cities across Australia walks up to Malcolm and I and says that it's a pleasure to have me working with them and that everyone had nothing but excellent things to say about me in the board meeting. Which of course was nice to hear. Then John and Malcolm look at each other and then look at me and John asks me how long I'm going to be in Sydney for. I tell him until August, but my work visa expires in June. They look at each other again and I'm wondering if I've inadvertently used some sort of Australian slang that's inappropriate for the office. Then John says to me, "Well would you be interested in staying longer? Like, maybe permanently?" Who are these people? This was my second day and my FIRST conversation with John. I laughed uncomfortably for a second, seeing a quick flash of me behind Jeremy's/Old Boss' desk in the nice corner office (of course that's not the position they were offering, but it made for a funny visual), and said something along the lines of, "I think that's illegal." To which they responded, "Really? Well, we'll look into it."

I told them that I'd be happy to extend my work period with them to the full time that I am in Sydney (right now I'm only signed on for a month) but that I'd be heading back to the states come August. They shrugged again and weirdly repeated the look into it comment.

Anyway...it was nice to be offered a full time position at a company that I'd been with for a day and a half.

So, they're in a transition period, and I don't know what's going to happen from day to day. It makes fielding phonecalls interesting...lots of confused people asking for old boss or Jeremy...I just send them Malcolm's way and hope he smoothes things over.

In a later post I'll go into detail about something extremely interesting that I found out about this particular financial planning firm along with an explanation of Australia's privatized retirement/investment system, but what's a blog post without a few good market cliffhangers right?

Enough of the work related.

Saturday Jeff and I went on a wine tour to Hunter Valley.
It was absolutely wonderful and anyone that has the opportunity to do it while they're here should (Mom, Dad, Jeff, Chris, Mariko). Jeff and I definitely enjoyed ourselves, and sitting there swirling our glasses around, smelling and sampling the wine, I could definitely see us becoming "wine people" in the future. We came home completely exhausted, with a few bottles of wine and a greater respect for real cork

Sunday we took a bus tour around Sydney for free through Jeff's new work (He's working for a leading travel agency here in Australia that basically services young backpackers). It was longer than expected (we thought it would be 2 hours, turns out it was 7) but it was a lot of fun. We got to see so much of the city and it really gives you a good idea of just how spread out Sydney is and how many different things it has to offer.

Highlights:

-NOT the "Spider tour"

-Standing and admiring the Harbour Bridge and having an older man walk up to us and strike up a conversation about how he had been there March 17, 1937 with his grandmother and father, the day the bridge was opened

-The little lone traffic light (It stands in the middle of this street, much shorter than any other traffic light, and remains green 24 hours a day, seven days a week) It doesn't have any of the other colors...it just has the one little green light that never changes! Cheers to our wonderful tour guide for pointing it out

-Having an older couple approach us as we were walking across the Harbour Bridge. Jeff had his U of I shirt on and they asked if we were really from Illinois? We said yes and they said they were from Naperville. What an amazingly small world. We chatted for a bit and although they were complete strangers it was nice and comforting in a way to speak to someone from "back home"

That's all for now. I miss everyone and am sorry that I haven't called in awhile. My phone is out of minutes and I need to buy another card to recharge it, but I'll do that within the next few days. It's also going to be hard with me working a steady 9 to 5 (That's 4pm to Midnight for you) but we'll figure it out.

I also have been bad with the emails, but now that I have this job I'll be able to write more often, I promise.

-Mary

Australian Word of the Day:
To wait in line = To Queue (Pronounced just like the letter Q) Don't ask me, it's totally bizarre