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Published: September 30th 2007
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The office
Bit different from George Square! Also, a suggestion about how best to get into work! After getting sorted with the flat, I guess we were both just mega relieved to have found somewhere that seemed to suit us so well (well, according to Claire anyway as I was still to see it!) and we could start properly settling into Melbourne. Also - the thought of not having to live out of a suitcase and eat out every single night (which we had by this time being doing for the past five and a half weeks since we left Airdrie) was really sounding appealing!
The rest of this week was kinda spent settling into work life in Melbourne. There were endless admin type things to sort out - open bank accounts, get a tax file number (so we can get charged 49% tax (never will I moan about UK tax rates again!)), get a medicare card (and pay another 1% tax for the privilage), get our VISAs evidenced in our passports - but we also were enjoying seeing a bit more of the city. Work was really quiet this week - so it gave me a great chance to get all these things sorted out without having to juggle too much about.
I haven't really
said much about work as yet on here. Its very very different to work back home. The office is about, I dunno, 10 times the size of our Glasgow office? It has 34 floors, of which I sit on the 26th - so we do have a cracking view of the city. Our side of the building looks out over South Melbourne and the ocean which always looks nice and blue, even when its dull outside.
It also has a gym, a couple of restaurants in the building (one of which is in the office), a subway restaurant down stairs (which believe it or not I haven't been into as yet because there is also a fantastic sushi outlet just up the hill!), showers so you can freshen up if you jog or cycle into work and, get this, even a table football in the coffee area on our floor! The coffee machine is another thing that is different - in Glasgow, I pressed "34 normal" or something for a coffee - here it is a full sized coffee machine thing like you get in Costa Coffee. I've so far worked out how to get hot water out of
Fitzroy Street
We looked at an apartment in the bulding on the right - was really quite cool, but just a bit small and didn't have air con. it for tea, but have no idea (seriously no idea) how to make a coffee.
Whilst I am theoretically doing the same job as I was doing back home and again theoretically the legislation is very similar - it is actually quite different - or it seems to be anyway. The computer systems are different, it seems to take me about an hour to claim back a taxi receipt on the expenses system and even the phones are not that easy to work! All initial teething problems, I'm sure, but it has served as a good reminder as to what it must be like for new staff (completly new staff) joining the firm. I'll be sure to afford a lot more time to new colleagues when they ask where things are on the computer system from now on!
So, yea, its different - but the culture of the firm is very similar in Oz and my colleagues are a great bunch who seem to have a bit of fun with what they do. I think, however, in Scotland there were over 40 staff in our department - here we have 13 including the partner (and me!) - in
Our office
This one didn\'t turn out so well - but you get the gust! This was taken in our reception area, which is on the 23rd floor but my view from work is quite similar, just three floors higher! fact, 12 as someone has since moved on.
This week there has also been a push for me to go to Adalaide for a job - in the event, it didn't happen. In one hand I would have loved to have gone, seen Adalaide and got my teeth into a project at work - on the other hand I guess I felt that it would have made settling into Melbourne and our new apartment etc a lot harder. I hope the chance comes up again - I have been e-mailing our colleagues across Australia to say hello and let them know I am here and happy to go over and join them for a bit if the oportunity allows - I think being sent to work in the Gold Coast office for example would be a lot more fun than spending the summer in Bolton or Belfast as I have done previously!
Claire this week, since getting the flat sorted out, has been busy job searching. Its not that easy without internet access in the apartment (its the only fault I can find with the serviced apartment - it has one internet terminal in the reception area which always has folk waiting for and costs about $3 for 10 mins) the internet cafes are not that great either - and nowhere really has wi-fi that we can find. She has signed up with a number of agencies, who have promissed work and applied for lots of jobs online. I'm sure its only a matter of time.
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