Dressing for Battle

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DAY 438

Well the job search continues and I am up early this morning, Susan is ready for work and walks past us, she says “hello”, then “goodbye” as she exits the door and goes off to work.

We sit and have some breakfast whilst watching the world news and talk about our plan for the day. We need a plan, as there is a lot to do and it needs all to fall in to place.

We lock the house and head in to Canberra and park in the multi story car park adjacent to the cinema and walk through the shopping centre in search of a business shirt and tie, foolishly I left my best shirt and tie back at Woodstock so I need a new one for this interview.

Heavens it has been ages probably June 2008 when I last had a tie on, my very last contract was just casual shirt, but think I would have worn a tie for that interview, and as we have not had any births deaths or marriages in Australia then I have definitely not had a tie on over here.

Today I have a 3.00 interview with a consulting engineer and as it is a formal interview and first impressions are so important, I have to look my best, in other words try not to look as if I have been lazing around in the sunshine too much either!

We walk around Myers the department store in search of shirt and tie and the lazy assistants behind the counter can’t even be bothered to come over and offer some help, so we wander over to David Jones, which is the Australian equivalent of John Lewis in England.

Instantly a guys comes over and asks if he can be of assistance, I tell him I am looking for a shirt and he asks me what type, I am puzzled by the arm lengths and neck sizes, they are different to home and the guy suddenly whips out his tape measure and gives me a quick measure, what excellent service, its like someone at a hardware store getting out a vernier calliper, its virtually unheard of nowadays.

So without boring you all any further, the assistant, John, unpacks the shirt I have chosen and I try it on, along with a selected tie and both are perfect, we are good to go, we pay he wraps and we are off, whilst thanking him for his excellent service.

Just before we leave we ask John if he knows where we can get the shirt ironed, and he tells us that in town behind a restaurant, there is a dry cleaners that he knows of and they can do it virtually there and then. You might think that is lazy on our part, but we have no intention of going back to the house before the interview just to iron a shirt, it would cost more in diesel than it would to pay a dry cleaner.

We walk out, into the shopping centre as we are hungry and need some lunch however half of Canberra is trying to do the same and everywhere is generally very busy to the extent that queues are coming out of the doors.

We find a café and order a coffee and a sandwich we sit outside and watch the world go by and listen to a band playing in the street, we are soon recharged and set off again to find our dry cleaners.

At least we have a good couple of hours, before my interview so have some time to get a few more things sorted out. The dry cleaners say they can have the shirt ironed in ½ hour, but we can give them longer as we have it and have agreed that we will pick it up at about 2.00pm.

Our next stop is Telstra, we have a pay as you go mobile phone that is eating money like it is going out of fashion, so we need to get it sorted we seem to have spent $60 in the first couple of weeks in January and we have not had much usage at all. We appreciate that pay as you go charges are more expensive per minute but that kind of spend is crazy, we had moved away from Vodafone recently as the coverage is not up to much but the call charges were slightly cheaper.

What we need is a decent plan as this phase of our trip needs us to be able to communicate with people, to get us jobs and the like so communications are important, but we need to be sensible and some guidance from Telstra is what we need.

A guy comes over and offers his assistance, his name is Elliot, he is probably only about 8 years old, well, he looks it anyway, I guess perhaps I am just getting older.

We explain our predicament to Elliot and also tell him what we don’t want to do, which is waste money and actually get some value for our money, equally we don’t mind going on a yearly contract if that is going to get us better value.

After a lot of discussion, we are both confident that we have a plan that suits our current needs, so we are happy and have now converted from pay as you go to a contract which is better also it means that we now don’t have the problem of your credit running out in the middle of a phone call which it did in fact a few days ago when Caroline was on the phone to the agency.

As all the final details are being tied up, there is a pause in the proceedings so we pop over to the Dry Cleaners and pick the shirt up, it is hanging on the rack and looks good, we are pleased and pay $4.00 for the ironing and head back to the Telstra shop to finalise everything and then we are good to go.

Back in the shopping centre I go to the men’s loo’s as I need to change from my casual shirt in to my business shirt and tie for my interview, it’s really weird it’s like getting dressed for battle.

Well, we drive across town and park the truck, near the law courts and walk over, my interview is in an office block near Hays Recruitment consultant so we know where we are going, Caroline is going to have a coffee in the lobby annexe of the office block and wanders off just as I take the lift to the 6th Floor.

I’m not going to bore you with all the intricacies of the interview we have all been to them before, but strangely enough the two guys who are interviewing me, meet me in reception and say “Why don’t we go and get a coffee in the lobby?”

I walk past Caroline without any words, just a wink! She is reading her book and has a coffee on the go.

My interview went really well, so we will wait and see, but what I do know for sure it was a long interview and hour and 35 minutes, full on. The funny thing is that it is clearly official I have grey hair! They told me that they were interested in taking me on as I have grey hair, and grey hair dictates experience in there, and there’s me thinking that I had the bleached blonde look from too much time in the sunshine.

With the interview wrapped we drop next door as Jodie, my recruitment consultant wants me to give her feed back on how well it went, she said she will follow it up in the morning, Jodie also says that the company I saw last week in Canberra, want to see me at the Sydney Branch next week so we can schedule that in which is good news.

I know what will happen Caroline will get her job she is waiting for in Canberra and I will get one in Sydney, still our lives were sort of similar to that in the UK and we always made it work, so we may have to do that again for the time being.

We get back to Susan’s about 5.20 we have been out all day but it has been really busy and hopefully fruitful, we flop down with a cup of tea, tonight is cheap Tuesday, pizza night and we want a proper pizza from Eagle Boys or Domino’s.

When Susan gets in we ask her if she would like Pizza, “Our Treat” but she does not and says she will cook for herself, so we order online and go and collect our pizza.

Tonight we don’t want to do to much as we have been so busy, and it has been quite stressful sorting everything out and thinking on our feet about getting simple jobs done like getting a shirt Ironed, which we just take for granted back in our old life in the UK, still we managed with a little help.

Susan retires to bed early and we are left as TV slaves once again, in front of the conversation killer, though sometimes a necessary evil.

We go to bed just after 10.30, the day has been warmer and we are excited as what tomorrow will bring, so we say night night everyone!

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Photos

Ready for Battle
First time I have worn a tie in months, in fact well over 12 months.

Comments

[Jode]

Wolf whistle
Don't you scrub up all right!! Very nice choice of shirt and tie - that should get you the job if nothing else does. Good luck Travelin Trueys x