Good day mates!!
Somehow I've been in Australia for four weeks...I'm not sure where the time has gone but it definitely has!!
I had my job interview almost two weeks ago, which went amazingly well, followed by the co-ordination of reference checks in Canada and then the offer of employment. As of last Monday, I am an employee of Australian Unity, an insurance and investment provider about 40 mins by tram from my apartment. My actual title is Product Analyst but from what I can gather, I'll be managing a number of different projects, two of which seem to be fairly high profile, so it'll be good exposure and experience.
I have just finished my first week and I can say that there are a couple of cultural differences in the office environment ;-)
1. In Outlook, the calendar starts on Mondays instead of Sundays so I scheduled a couple of meetings on the wrong date :)
2. We have a fruit box delivered twice a week which is a lovely perk!!
3. We stop work on Fridays at 3:30pm so that we can sit around and drink wine/beer/pop, eat chips and chat. A very nice way to end the week in my opinion, though Tug, I know you didn't like it in NL.
4. Meetings are scheduled in the office or, more often, at the local cofffee house. A nice touch for those who drink coffee!
In addition to these work oddities, I have a couple of other differences:
1. Instead of Burger King, they have Hungry Jack's. It literally looks identical except for the name, same Whoppers, etc...it's just called Hungry Jack's :)
2. All of their bank machines do not allow deposits...I tried about 7 machines before I finally found one that would allow me to put money into the machine!!
3. When you buy your first house, you can get a grant from the government for $12,000 which doesn't need to be repaid. Very cool!!
4. They have assigned seating at some movie theatres...how weird?!
5. I'm in love with Aussie meat pies!! I've had about 6 different kinds since I arrived, lamb & rosemary, thai chicken, steak & mushroom, steak, morroccan lamb, the options continue...it's amazing the variety!! They're about $3.50, filling and very tasty!!
6. Melbournians consider themselves the "best dressed" and most conservative individuals in Australia however, compared to Toronto, they have a much more trendy, individualistic manner of dress. It's almost like constantly walking down Queen W before it became corporate, everyone's just trendy in their own way. I stick out because I'm so "normally" dressed.
Other than work, I've been included in a trivia night group (though I've discovered that my head isn't filled with good Aussie trivia) which meets on Tuesday nights at a local pub, I've been out trying a couple of new Melbourne pubs/bars, met up with a couple of photographers for a shoot that got rained out (we drank instead), have dined on Lygon St and seen my first movie in Australia. Life is become a bit more normal now that I have a job but I'm enjoying myself.
I'll write again later but I'm not convinced that my posts will be as exciting as when I'm travelling but it does make things easier than having to write 18 e-mails repeating the same things :-)
Miss you all!
Sarah
BTW, for those curious about the roomie: His name is Shane, he's from NZ and he's 34 years old. He works as a mechanic and thus far, we're getting along really well. He's very relaxed and generally pretty quiet which is great!!
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