She Works Hard For The Money (July 9 – 31)

After traveling for what seemed to be the vast majority of our trip in New Zealand, Andrew and I are temporarily hanging up our hobo bags to once gain join the real world of the employed. Although it is easy to believe that one can go unemployed indefinitely, it turned out to not be the case if you value your sanity. Seeing our bank accounts dwindle while the Kiwi dollar has done nothing but go up over the past few months, we decided it was finally time to do what our parents did… get a job, sir!

Finding work in New Zealand is really pretty easy if you put little value in a) the type of work to be done, and b) the location of said employment. Like our brief adventure in the Marlborough vineyards where everyone seemed to be hiring, it took only a few days of “job hunting” before I was able to secure a position in Christchurch. My rather lackluster job hunt consisted of sending off my CV to several job agencies and waiting for the best. Although I would prefer working at a restaurant, the pay rate is far better for office workers, and I figured without the motivational boost of tipping… Anyhoo, I had received a few phone calls by the end of the day and quickly lined up several interviews with job agencies around Christchurch.

I guess it’s good to know that I test well at these things. Both agencies were wowed by my typing ability, which at 90+ words per minute and less than 1% error was “the best they’d ever seen” but considering that there are only four million people in all of New Zealand, I suppose the potential applicant pool really isn’t that big. Thank you, 7^th grade typing class! I also managed a slam dunk on the Microsoft Office applications and even managed to pass the spelling test. Don’t laugh, it’s a surprisingly tough task in the Age of the Automatic Spell Check… The one major concern that the agencies had was with my wardrobe, which is funny since the ad I responded to was specifically targeted to backpackers.

Had I brought professional business wear to New Zealand, they wanted to know. Hmm, let me see, I’ll just check my backpack?!? As a side note, I actually wouldn’t have any professional business wear even if I was working out of my closet at home… Apparently, not bringing a suit was a bad choice as that would inevitably limit the offices I could work in and probably reduce my pay rate (you can’t make the really big bucks without nice shoes). Regardless, within several days of incessant phone tag with the various chipper personalities at both job agencies (apparently the key pre-condition for these positions is to be over-caffeinated and hyper-perky) I had lined up a job working for an engineering firm in Christchurch.

It’s scary how similar working in an office in New Zealand is to working in an office in the States. Things are run pretty much exactly the same way. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but when you travel half-way around the world, you get to thinking they might have a different phone and filing system. I’m currently filling in for a few weeks at an engineering firm while a permanent staffer takes her annual leave in Perth, Australia. Unfortunately, they don’t actually have enough work for a temp to do, so my main task is to answer the phones and “look busy.”

It turns out that I’m terrible at looking busy (luckily I wasn’t tested on that at the agency), so I end up spending most of my day pretending to look like I’m not surfing the web (which I’m quite good at). When given tasks to do (mostly filing), I tend to get them done pretty quickly, because to be honest, they’re pretty uncomplicated. My fellow administrative assistant marvels at the speed at which I get things done and has even commented “we’re going to have to call the temp agency back to tell them to send someone who works slower the next time.” If you can hear a slight thumping sound, that’s probably just me, whacking my head against the desk.

Meanwhile, Andrew’s been doing casual labor for a bottling company in Amberley. It has worked out really well, as it still gives him time to get the chores done around K&B’s and at the brewery. Speaking of which, we’re still at Kieran and Belinda’s these days. They took a holiday to the States and suggested that we watch the house for them while they are gone. I love it here, so even with the hour commute to Christchurch, we quickly agreed to the arrangement. We agreed to split the cost of a load of firewood (the only means by which they heat their house, so it’s important to have some); otherwise, we feed the chooks (chickens) and collect eggs, feed the horses, split firewood, keep the place tidy, and make sure to keep the cows out of the vineyard next-door… Andrew’s also been keeping an eye on the brewery in Kieran’s absence. He had to make a few deliveries, fill a keg, and make some beer shipments, all of which has gone really well. It’s been a little surreal having a whole house to ourselves after months at backpackers, CouchSurfing, WWOOFing. We haven’t taken to walking around the place naked or anything, but we could! We continue to be amazed by K&B’s generosity and couldn’t feel more lucky that we met them during our travels.

Little known fact: real farmers wear pajamas out on the farm.

So we’ve been managing to keep ourselves pretty busy between working, commuting, chores, and the brewery. We also managed to squeeze in a trip to see the All Blacks play the South Africans in Christchurch. Although it was a rather uninspired match, it was still a lot of fun to see the All Blacks play a live match. I think the haka (Maori war dance performed by the All Blacks before every match) is even more impressive in person, but Andrew liked it better on TV. That might just be because they were facing away from us when they did this one. Apparently, the South Africans are looking to revive a Zulu war dance they used to perform in the 1920s for the upcoming Rugby World Cup. It’ll be interesting to see, but I can’t imagine that it will come close to the ferocity of the haka.

And one for the kids...

Immediate P.S.: Well, we'd hardly gotten a chance to post this latest installment and already our circumstances have changed, making it hard to keep the blog up-to-date at this rate. Kieran arrived back from the States a few days ago, and Andrew helped him do a brew and some bottling early this week while I went into work. Unfortunately, they seem to have figured out that they don't really need a temp, so they told me I should start looking into new assignments ASAP, putting me out of work until a new position opens up, hopefully soon. And to think that last week they were considering asking me to stay on longer to sort their long-ignored and hugely-unorganized files! I guess that's how it goes in the thrill-a-minute world of temping... We're moving into Chch today to rent a room for six weeks, and Andrew should be starting to do a wee bit of work at a new brewery, Three Boys, very soon. Keep tuned for further details and keep your fingers crossed so that I can find a new job to do nothing at in the near future! Oh, a note for anyone who's been dissuaded from commenting due to the onerous sign-in requirements: they've been lifted so now anyone can post, with or without a Google account. I hope we can trust all of you not to abuse this, hehe. Adios, muchachos!