Perth – Not-Quite-Final Thoughts

[seldear]

Excerpt from a mail by my boss.

How long are you away for again??? And, what would it take for us to get you back over here?

We have so much work coming its not funny…… it would be really good to get you back. Maybe we can come to some sort of agreement where we pay for your flights and give you a bit of a rate increase or something???

I've really enjoyed working here for the last 2 months.

I've been in the workforce for 10 years, pretty much doing exactly the same thing at different places. The computer system, the programming language, and the work remains the same, but the people and the place changes.

This is definitely my most enjoyable tour-de-force in those 10 years. Granted, it's a contract job, not a permanent one, but I've worked in contract jobs where the people were "get your work done" and that was it. It probably makes a difference that all the guys here are, technically, contractors – they're not on the employee payroll. The days are 7.5 hours flexible, not 8.0 precisely, and while the mentality here is 'get the job done', at the end of the day, people are usually in by 8:00am and gone by 5pm. I like that kind of a workplace. And I get paid about twice as much as the previous job!

My colleagues are lovely people, a little weird, geeky, crazy, and sometimes anal, but I've enjoyed being around them, asking questions, quoting children's films at them, and sometimes throwing pens at them. Yes, and occasionally being wheeled out the door by them. While I haven't seen much of the only girl in this group – she's seconded on another project – it's been funny talking to her on the phone – she has a very abrupt phone manner, which I, and others, are trying to break her of. With much laughter along the way.

The people around you make all the difference to your experience somewhere. (eg. fandom) The workplace is very much the same.

This is the first time in ten years that I've really enjoyed my job – to the point where I lose tracts of time in a pinch and glance at the clock and say, "Crap! I'm supposed to be at the gym in half an hour!" Most of my previous jobs, I did well enough, but there were points in time where I grew antsy and couldn't sit still, pay attention, focus on the problem. Either I haven't been here long enough, or that doesn't happen when you have the right people around you.

However, I find myself longing for home and familiar shores.

I miss not being able to hug my Mum and go around to her place for dinner, or flop with my sister on my bed and listen to her ramble earnestly on about her failings as an OT. I miss having people to cook with and eat with, and discuss those really in-deep philosophical questions. I miss lifting up the quilt on a Saturday morning so my cat can climb in under the covers and purr against my waist, and I miss sticking my fingers out and having them gently cleaned and gnawed upon by my kitten.

And I think the twins kinda need me to be a restraining influence.

(If you don't know my sisters, then imagine the kind of people for whom I am a restraining influence!)

I miss being able to call up arabel and asking if I can come around and bother her of a Friday night (assuming she doesn't have anything happening in her busy social calendar) or go to the markets on a Saturday. I miss being able to arrange to park myself in front of the TV with saramund and watch half (or a whole) season of Angel or Buffy and discuss it all afterwards. I miss being in the same timezone as people like sharim and mebfeather. coltsbane is a perennial insomniac, so I talk to her whenever she's around anyway...

I find this timezone better for talking with the US people, though. Most of them are in bed by midday Perth time and on the weekends, I can go out shopping or walking instead.

Would one of the physicists on my friends lists (I think there's at least one) please develop a matter transporter?

Current plans are to come back to Sydney for a couple of weeks, then, if I can't find any work in Sydney, I'll see if they still need me over here until Christmas – that should get me to Wedding!Con and partway to round-the-world 2005 (yes, I'm already planning for 2005). I've learned more things here in two months than I learned in the two years I worked at my previous permanent job. And without the overseas trip to save for, I can afford to come back to Sydney once a month. Might have to take the red-eye flight but I can live with that.

I like Perth so far (mmm...free travel into city), but all my family and friends are on the other side of the country!

chiroho! HELP!

Comments

[sjhw-tolerance.livejournal.com]

It's always nice to have options. And a good job offer--even contract--is nothing to be sneezed at. Speaking as someone who has lived hundreds of miles from her family, you get used to it. You develop a community of friends and "family" where you're living. But then again, I'm also moving back home. ;-P But after twelve years....