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Published: February 5th 2007
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Sadly life at the "best job in the world has come to an end"...I absolutely loved the free gelato (still tastes soooo good) and enjoyed chatting to the customers but my patience for my boss' lack of managerial skills finally ran out...basically my colleagues and I were running the business for the measly pay of $12 an hour ... Sawa kept on top of stock levels and would inform our boss when we were low (it still took him a week after we had actually run out of an item before he got round to replenishing it), I was doing scheduling, paying the wages and ensuring that we had enough change and Ian had to whip up batches of gelato. We also opened and closed, had sole charge of the store and cashed up at night.
Lyn (the boss) told me that he felt he was spending too much on staff wages and had decided to let one staff member go AND cut the rest of our hours drastically...he decided that my friend Maria was getting the chop as he uses the Last In First Out policy...fair enough it's his business and his money and he can do whatever he
wants, but the way he wanted the new hours to run meant that we would have 1 person on duty during the busiest section of the day ...I was thinking that keeping customers waiting isn't the wisest business decision ~ but what do I know...... I told him that it probably wasn't the best idea to let Maria go as she was the only other person (aside from Allie) who could work mornings and in order to give Allie days off he needed to keep her ( "Operation Save Maria" involved all of us making ourselves unavailable for morning shifts)...despite this he let Maria go and then changed the opening time to suit Sawa's schedule...
I didn't feel comfortable cutting staff from the schedule before they had even been informed and so scheduling fell back on Lyn...the result: Allie and I got given 21 hours a week (despite being promised 40+ hours a week), while Sawa and Ian got 28...was quite upset as I had spent so much time ensuring that the hours were always evenly distributed and simple mathematics would have awarded us each 24.5 hours (not much difference, but every little helps)...
After not seeing Lyn
for 3 days (and being severly low on stock) I finally flipped my lid and asked the owner of the local ice cream store (the gelato stores biggest competitor) for a job...when Lyn finally showed up at the store I broke the news that I was defaulting to the opposition as I needed more hours...2 minutes later Sawa did exactly the same...Lyn then told me that he could now offer me Sawa's hours and I told him that I actually didn't want to work there anymore as we were doing managerial work for minimum wage, he replied that there wasn't that much managerial work to do ~ after reeling off the list of everything we did for him he responded "I thought you enjoyed doing that stuff"... hmmm, there's a difference between being proactive to make your own life easier (always fun handing a client $90 change in $2 coins and then having no $2 coins left either 😊)
Life at the ice cream store has been OK...a lot to learn as they cater to the NZ coffee culture, but once I've been trained it should be full steam (no pun intended) ahead...am already learning to deal with annoying
customers...quick tip from your friendly ice cream lady: don't say you're ready to order when you aren't, read the menu board before asking a question that can be answered by a quick glance and most importantly NEVER EVER say "I just want an ice cream, I don't care what flavour"...seriously it's your money, your choice...
Nikki (the owner of the Mousetrap) hooked me up with an awesome babysitting job...I look after Krish (an almost 2 year old Indian boy) for 6 hours each week and I'm absolutely loving it...the first day was a trial run to establish whether Krish felt comfortable with me and to check whether I could cope with him...all went well until I took him for a walk, let him pick up an empty beer can (I thought) and then returned him home to his mom absolutely ponging with beer fumes whilst frantically explaining that I wasn't drinking on the sly...amazingly she asked me to come back (for all of you gasping in horror, I now vet the random stuff he picks up~all cans (and electrical wires 😊) are prohibited)...the job's pretty sweet: I get paid to build sandcastles and play with playdough...we're working on water
confidence at the moment as he used to be petrified of water, he now plays in the ocean and lets me take him into the pool without screaming blue murder: RESULT!!!
My lil bro Nic came to visit for a couple of days in January...it was awesome having him around...we were treated to terrible service at a pizza restuarant (there's definitely something wrong with the service at Paihia's pizza places)...when we asked if we could take our leftovers as takeaways the waitress simply popped open a box and stood there holding it...after an akward silence while we realised that she was sending us telepathic messages telling us to put the pizza in the box ourselves... We introduced Nic to the joys of swimming to the island, sadly he wasn't wearing my world famous jelly fish repellant shirt and got stung by an artistic jellyfish who seemed to have read Harry Potter recently...he had huge lightening shaped marks across his chest and arms...fortunately we were able to get hold of some vinegar to put on the stings instead of following the "nature calls" route...
Laura's birthday weekend involved a lot of late nights but was loads of fun...we booked
our parasailing trip but got sent home twice as the boat was having issues...will get up there soon (I hope)...we decided to cap off the weekend with a quiet drink but got caught up in the Irish Night festivities at a local bar...Laura sang a beautiful rendition of "Summer Time" and won a half price skydive which got passed my way...we ended the night making arty green bread (we had spare pizza dough and a bottle of food colouring...the rest is history)...
My dear dear roommate finally moved on...during the last few weeks we were treated to the light being switched on at 2am so she could write in her diary (she writes SLOW)...the quote of the year came after seeing the birthday cake I had lovingly baked Laura using a glass bowl in the absence of cake tins...her words "Laura's cake...what exactly were you tring to achieve?"...I was in stitches. never before had I realized that you needed a goal when baking...surely the final product should be the goal?...oh, how my eyes have been opened 😊
As Laura had kindly given up the half price skydive...I decided to fling myself and my savings out a plane...it was
incredible...I was so nervous beforehand...when the cameraman asked me how I was feeling during the plane trip I looked out the window, thought the height was manageable and so said fine...he then informed me that we were only half way up...lil scary...cool thing about doing a tandem jump: if the person you're strapped to jumps, you have no choice...no last minute chickening out...the freefall was amazing, time whizzed by so fast...another scary moment happened when the divemaster adjusted the buckles holding us together to give himself more maneuvering room...I only dropped about 10cm away from him (supposed to happen) but hadn't been warned so in my calmest voice asked if he was aware that I was falling...all good though!
Laura and I persuaded Christina to return to Paihia and it's been awesome just hanging out...Chris and I have been asked to house- and carsit a place in Haruru Falls (3km from Paihia) for a month...so we'll be moving out of the Mousetrap on Saturday morning...I then return for a week in March, before heading back to Kaihu farm for a weekend and then flying to Queenstown and meeting up with Alex, Jana and Lea to do the Milford Track...
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Moeks
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Glad we didn't know what you were going to do in advance. At least you appear to have been fully clothed for the duration which is more than I can say about another daughter! Well done for resigning. Being a doormat is not a good idea. Nelson very sore and miserable. The Lord be with you luv Moeks