Do you want to know what an Administrative Assistant for the Social Inclusion Unit does when she is a casual temp worker?
Check facebook.
That's the main thing I've done today, apart from a bit of printing and a brief respite tidying the stationary cupboard. I am allowed to check facebook, by the way, I was told that on my first day. I was just told not to use it excessively. Thing is, if I'm not on facebook excessively, I'm just staring at the computer inbox, willing someone, anyone, to send an email that I click "forward" on, for another colleague to actually deal with. I'm not complaining. The people are nice, it's pincy easy work and I'm being paid quite a bit to do it.
Okay, so I never thought I'd say it, but I miss the shredding days of Portmill Surgery to where I'd been banished because I'd been harassing people for work and getting in everyone's way. I've asked if I can help anyone with anything here a few times. "Not at the minute," is the answer every time so far.
Oh right, I probably should have started my second ever post with "I got a job!! As an Administration Assistant at the Social Inclusion Unit for the University of Sydney." Well, there it is. I am very happy with it, and it's for a month while they recruit someone more permanent (someone with a longer visa). Then I will be given something new. The people are nice, some a bit more distant than others. A few greeted me, peering over their computer screens, and have been firmly and silently stuck behind them since. They are there when I arrive and still there when I leave... hmm.... and yet no one has anything extra for me to do...
It's very relaxed, not too formal, I am allowed to amuse myself by reading gossip stuff (Daily Mail Online, none of it is actual news) and looking up how not to get ripped off by Australian internet companies!!!!!!!!
Ahem.
And I love the social stuff, that's what I was hoping for. The cafe culture without the language barrier of France. The endless Asian restaurants without the language barrier of... all of Asia. Basically Australia has all the stuff I like and still speaks the same language, seeing as I non comprende anything not in English.
Check facebook.
That's the main thing I've done today, apart from a bit of printing and a brief respite tidying the stationary cupboard. I am allowed to check facebook, by the way, I was told that on my first day. I was just told not to use it excessively. Thing is, if I'm not on facebook excessively, I'm just staring at the computer inbox, willing someone, anyone, to send an email that I click "forward" on, for another colleague to actually deal with. I'm not complaining. The people are nice, it's pincy easy work and I'm being paid quite a bit to do it.
Okay, so I never thought I'd say it, but I miss the shredding days of Portmill Surgery to where I'd been banished because I'd been harassing people for work and getting in everyone's way. I've asked if I can help anyone with anything here a few times. "Not at the minute," is the answer every time so far.
Oh right, I probably should have started my second ever post with "I got a job!! As an Administration Assistant at the Social Inclusion Unit for the University of Sydney." Well, there it is. I am very happy with it, and it's for a month while they recruit someone more permanent (someone with a longer visa). Then I will be given something new. The people are nice, some a bit more distant than others. A few greeted me, peering over their computer screens, and have been firmly and silently stuck behind them since. They are there when I arrive and still there when I leave... hmm.... and yet no one has anything extra for me to do...
It's very relaxed, not too formal, I am allowed to amuse myself by reading gossip stuff (Daily Mail Online, none of it is actual news) and looking up how not to get ripped off by Australian internet companies!!!!!!!!
Ahem.
And I love the social stuff, that's what I was hoping for. The cafe culture without the language barrier of France. The endless Asian restaurants without the language barrier of... all of Asia. Basically Australia has all the stuff I like and still speaks the same language, seeing as I non comprende anything not in English.
Actually, understanding Australian people on the phone is proving a bit of a challenge. That accent is hard sometimes!
But anyway, I love the social culture stuff. Like today, I took a super early bus because of morning work traffic, and when it turned out there was no traffic (or I was just too early for the Aussies) I went to a cafe and had a pain au chocolat, and read a book before work - not a whole book, I wasn't that early. I WOULD NEVER HAVE DONE THAT IN ENGLAND! Partly because all cafes are Costas or Starbucks or Cafe Neros in my area. Bloody corporate chain so-and-so's! And partly because I never want to get up in the morning in Eng-uh-land. My parents will attest to the fact that I have timed getting up to the latest possible second in order to get to work literally just on time.
Don't you find there's something about being abroad that just makes you like being awake better?
Not that I was very successful at staying awake when I first started work. I felt so awfully sleep deprived I would skip lunch and use the break to go and sleep an hour in the park. There we were, couples, families, and me in my business dress which promised on the label it wouldn't creased (and didn't, SCORE!), sound asleep lying on my phone so it wouldn't get pinched but would wake me up so I didn't get fired for leaving halfway through the day.
But anyway, I love the social culture stuff. Like today, I took a super early bus because of morning work traffic, and when it turned out there was no traffic (or I was just too early for the Aussies) I went to a cafe and had a pain au chocolat, and read a book before work - not a whole book, I wasn't that early. I WOULD NEVER HAVE DONE THAT IN ENGLAND! Partly because all cafes are Costas or Starbucks or Cafe Neros in my area. Bloody corporate chain so-and-so's! And partly because I never want to get up in the morning in Eng-uh-land. My parents will attest to the fact that I have timed getting up to the latest possible second in order to get to work literally just on time.
Don't you find there's something about being abroad that just makes you like being awake better?
Not that I was very successful at staying awake when I first started work. I felt so awfully sleep deprived I would skip lunch and use the break to go and sleep an hour in the park. There we were, couples, families, and me in my business dress which promised on the label it wouldn't creased (and didn't, SCORE!), sound asleep lying on my phone so it wouldn't get pinched but would wake me up so I didn't get fired for leaving halfway through the day.
Also, I do walks now. Oh yeah. But not your average romping through the countryside (I think romping might not be the right word here... but I will leave it), breathing in the fresh air, getting attacked by flies and mud caked to your shoes.
Oh no.
This is city walking. Where I often pass shops that I want to browse inside, and cafes where I dart in for a drink, and a pretty building which I take a picture of, and usually my walks somehow always seem to include the Sydney Opera House. Beat that, Fields of Ickleford! That's more my kinda style. I'm a city-girl through and through.
So now I need to leave you to get busy busy busy with installing a printer cartridge. It should hopefully be complicated enough to take up the full hour I have left at work today. I shall leave you with this photo of Circular Quay, which featured on my walk.
TTFN!
TTFN!
Next time......... The Pain and Desperation of Flat-Hunting.
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