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01/06/06 - 02/07/06 - LIFE IN WELLINGTON
Life's been pretty routine the past few weeks, with not much to report or for anyone to 'get jealous' about. In fact after hearing stories of friends and family going to concerts and enjoying the World Cup, it's been my turn to get jealous. But ah how the tables have turned. I had to change my flights by a couple of weeks, so my mum said, well since I have to change them, why don't I change them by a few weeks and join her on her 3 week holiday in America? Hmm, carry on working in Wellington or make my trip a hell of a lot bigger and better than I originally planned? Tough choice.
This means I have to leave Wellington at the start of July instead of mid-August. I don't feel bad about cutting my time short here in Wellington because I've experienced working and living with Kiwis and have gotten everything out of it I wanted.
My flat mates Ash, Tom and Charlie were all really cool guys and dead easy to get along with. One of the highlights of the last few weeks with them was going to the Slinky World Tour night. Slinky is a major club back home in Bournemouth, so it was kinda cool to go the same night on the other side of the world. Otherwise we spent most of our time playing GTA and watching House, Boston Legal, Lost and the legendary Campbell Live. Campbell is NZ's main Anchorman. The news over here is hilarious because it's even less eventful than the local news in England. One major news story was how Jin the Otter escaped from the sanctuary - they had a helicopter following it and everything! (I am NOT joking!!!)
Anyway, at the Embassy Theatre, they were re-showing the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, with one film of the trilogy shown each week on a Sunday afternoon. I thought it would be appropriate as part of my trip to go see them. Plus it was a rare opportunity to see them at the cinema again, and not just any cinema, but the one where the world premiere for the films took place. They even had the seats marked with who sat where for the world premier of Return of the King, which meant I got to sit in the exact same cinema, with the exact same seat that Elijah Wood (Frodo) first saw the film. Mind you, I felt like a right nerd when the women at the box office recognised me when I bought my ticket for the 2nd and 3rd film.
On to the World Cup - it's a bit of a non-event here. It's only broadcast live on Sky not terrestrial, and since we don't have Sky this meant going to the English pub in town at 2am and watching the game stone cold sober. The Sweden game wasn't as bad because it kicked off at 7am, so I came into work really early to watch it in the cafeteria where they have Sky. There were a couple of Kiwis from work watching it too, as I sat there wearing my England shirt over my work clothes. It was funny because everyone at work always came up to me to talk about the football, as if I was a football expert - which, if you know me - is pretty ironic.
I actually got to play for my company's 5-a-side football team one week. The only problem was I presumed the game last an hour, not 30 minutes. So when ref blew the whilst after half an hour, I wandered why the hell everyone was shaking hands. I was kind of annoyed because if I knew I would have gone for it a bit more in the last few minutes instead of cruising in 1st gear!
As for work itself, all the staff were really nice and friendly. The work was dead easy, but I had so little to do I sometimes wondered why the hired me. Back when I was in the youth hostel, waiting to register at job agencies, I worked out loads of guitar tabs in rough to go on www.18tilidie.co.uk , meaning I was doing something productive with my time instead of just sitting around. My plan was to write them up during my lunch hours at work, but I ended up writing them up pretty much all day long! This meant the work would last longer, so that I could stay in a job!! I wrote up about 100 songs when I was there, and even then, when I would finish a piece of work, they would say, "My God that was quick! You're just far too efficient!"; to which I'd reply "Well I try not to be!" and they all laugh thinking I'm joking when I'm being dead serious.
So when it came time to tell them I was leaving early and wouldn't be able to complete the 8 week assignment, I didn't think it would be a problem. At my temp job in Bournemouth, where we had mountains of work to do, we had temps coming in and out all the time - some even stayed all the way to lunch time . So at this job where they could easily hire a monkey to replace me I figured everything should be fine.
But no - I told my boss and she was annoyed, she said. "That's very disappointing because you were supposed to cover for one of the team members who's on leave in July," Ah. I told her (the truth) that, "No one had EVER told me that, I thought I was just helping out doing odd tasks like I've been doing." It was their fault for not telling me what I was there for, and she was looking very annoyed and frustrated. How I WISH I'd said "Wow, you must be feeling pretty angry at yourself right now."
Two minutes later my job agency phoned me saying how it was completely unacceptable and how annoyed they were, they said, "You're supposed to complete the assignments we give you!" and I WISH I'd said to that "Well, I promise I won't do it again!" (given that I was leaving the country!). Clearly they are all very new to the concept of a temp.
Fortunately the next day everyone was fine at work, the rest of my team were quite enthusiastic to hear about the rest of my travels. The last week of work we had a good laugh together and went out for lunch together on my second to last day. It was really nice to leave on a good note instead of holding a grudge. Only funny thing was on Friday, my last day, the new temp replacing me started work, and I had to train her in everything I had learnt - it took 10 minutes.
Next: Back On The Bus: SKY DIVE!
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