Typical...

So, where have I been in the past week? Are my hands cracked and torn from pulling up watermelons? Have my shoes been taken by roving bands of Aboriginies? Have I watched “Wolf Creek” yet? Oh, my friends, what a week this has been…

First of all, I’m not fruit picking yet. On Friday, when I got the call that I wasn’t getting the IT position, I had worked myself into a panicked flurry of confusion and teeth (Which is also the name of Darryl Bumchin’s debut album, in stores now! Just in time for Christmas!) so I called the fruit pickers, and set myself up a bed and work. The thing about fruit picking is that it’s hard work, but it pays decent, and you tend not to spend money, since there’s really nothing on which to spend it. So I was all ready to go out to Mildura, when a friend of mine suggested I pass around some C.V.’s (resumes to us North Americans) to various restaurants around the Bondi Beach area, and see what happens. So I did that on Saturday, and just hung out the rest of the time…

Sunday rolls around, and I got a phone call to work at a place called (I couldn’t possibly make this up) “The Hog’s Breath Saloon” out on the beach. It seems to be a lot like Montana’s with wooden booths and a whole lot of crazy crap on the walls. Mostly stuffed pigs, actually. It’s very bizarre. Anyhow, so I’m supposed to start work on Friday….

So Monday comes, and Stef, one of the staff members from Wake Up, comes into my room, and asks me if I want to work at a different hostel (Footprints, actually. You may remember it from a couple posts ago? No? People, there’s gonna be a test on all this when I get home, you should really be taking notes). I told him I already had a bartending job, but this job would be Activities Manager, which basically means I take people around to various bars, pub crawls, run quiz nights, that sort of thing. I’m like, yeah that sounds like a good time. But by the time I had come down and spoken to the manager, he had already filled the position. Curses, this would have been a great experience. No big deal though, as I already have a bartending job, but this would have kept me downtown and given me free lodging. Oh well. Back to working at Hog’s Breath.

In order to work in a restaurant in New South Wales, you have to be RSA (Respoinsible Service of Alcohol) certified. It basically just means that, because the restaurant, bar or what have you is responsible for the safety of its patrons, you have to know when to cut people off, send them home, and that sort of thing. Not very exciting, but it needed to be done, so I did that on Wednesday, and got certified. Fact: That was the most boring paragraph I have ever written.

Thursday, Stef catches me in the lobby and apologizes for the Activities Manager snafu, and says he has a consolation prize for me. “How would you like to work on a surf camp along the coast?” Um… doy? Yuh, I’ll do that! So I called the manager, and we had a meeting where he described the job, and what I would be doing. Basically, for free room, board, booze and surfing, I would be like a gopher, cleaning, cooking, packing surf gear that sort of thing. I wouldn’t make any money, but I wouldn’t really need to spend any anyways. Not a bad deal, but I would need to take a bus up to the camp myself, take the surf lessons, and the guys there would determine whether I could work there. So I’d have to spend my own money to *possibly* get a job along the coast. I would have to think about it, I said, and think I did…

As I was coming up from the meeting, Stef caught me AGAIN, and told me that Footprints had gotten rid of the person they hired for the Activities job, and wanted to speak to me right away. Gads! So many options. So I went to the manager of the other hostel, spoke to him, and found out that they were very interested in hiring me, as they had heard good things from Stef and some of the other staff at Wake Up, and thought I would be a good candidate. I’d get to stay here for free, work 3 nights a week, and have the rest of the time to myself. I wouldn’t get paid on top of the free accommodation, but I could get another job in the meantime. Another job? Don’t I still have the bartending job? I do!

So here’s where stand: I’m now the activities Manager for Footprints hostel, and also bartending at Hog’s Breath Saloon. Tonight is my first night doing a pub crawl out to a couple pubs and nightclubs in downtown Sydney, and then I start pouring drinks for surfers tomorrow night.

Fruit picking will still need to be done, however, but at least I can put that off for a few months, and not have to do it when it’s hotter than the boiling point of Satan’s urine (which I believe is a mere 48 degrees Celcius).