Makin' Money

It's been a while since my last post, I understand. But to be frank, nothing TOO exciting has been going on. I'll catch you up to speed.

First of all, I managed to find a job. Two jobs to be exact. Even turned down a third. So all the resume' shuffling turned out alright. The first of these shenanigans of jobs was at a car park. I managed to hear about this opening through a girl that lived with me here at the hostel. She suggested I give her manager a call, thus I did and ended up landing a trial run of the position. After an hour long man hunt, trying to find my 'scheduled' ride which would take me to this lady, I found myself about 20 minutes outside of Sydney in an industrial park. This job was to be a valet for a car park of employees for this industrial park. Valet, doesn't sound too bad. Driving other people's flash around a lot of barriers and concrete could be entertaining. The money it-self was also at $15 an hour cash, which would make any American job seekers eyes light up. The promising 50 hour week would also make for some good cash flow in the long run.

But this sounds too good to be true. This place wasn't very busy, I was going to be averaging 10 cars through a 10 hour day. Just doing the trial for 2 hours made me want to rip out my eye balls. Just sitting and waiting for something fun to happen would make me miserable. So after my two hours I turned to the lady and said thanks, but I'm not coming back. It's ironic how I'm to the point in my travels now that I'm actually picky with what jobs I want to take. Even the money aspect of this job wasn't very good in my opinion. Australia has absolutely spoiled me with their 18 dollar an hour minimum, including the potential to work on any given Sunday for close to $26. ( I'll explain wages, loadings, super annuation, taxes, categorised workers, weekend pay, etc little later. )

But my luck was in, as I was leaving the car park that evening I received a call from Movenpick, a fancy Swiss ice cream shop in Darling Harbour. They wanted a trial from me the following day. So I went in the shop and blow away the nontraditional trial (which only lasted 20 minutes). Needless to say, I landed me a job scooping ice cream. It's a neat little place offering our beloved customers 15 different flavours to choose from including shakes, smoothies, made to order desserts such as pancakes, waffles, banasplits, etc. This sounded much more my style of work, but unfortunately with a little less pay. Earning a whole dollar less than the valet... yet still cash in hand. I've been putting in 25ish hours a week at this place, which is a livable wage.

You may be thinking "Your a mad man for turning down a simple, valet job, that a monkey could do... for less money... scooping ice cream." But at the end of the day, my sanity and need for social attention would far out way the daily bludging I'd get away with at the car park.

Like I said, absolutely spoiled I am. $14 an hour and I'm still unhappy and feel the need to make more money, so I continue to hand out resumes to the extend I landed a third trial at a bar only metres out the door of my hostel. Kings Cross Hotel was my third place that offered me employment, and I gladly took it. Knowing bar jobs easily pay the best money for backpackers. For example, last week I worked 20 hours and got $430, a huge chuck of change for a guy that eats 10c noodles daily.

Between both jobs,coning ice cream and pouring booze, I'm trying to rack up the hours and cash to save up for some more traveling. I've made enough so far to book a 10 day motor home rental in New Zealand, airfare included (Motor home? Yea, a motor home....AWESOME). That's planned for late August, so I have something to look forward to before coming home.




OK, something about Australia I haven't touched on so far is the way jobs, wages, etc work over here. It's something that I'm still learning as I go, because it's far more regulated and geared to protect the workers against greedy employers. For starters, there's three different types of employment, full-time, part-time, and casual.

By law, full-time is as it sounds and is a stable job that comes with holiday/sick pay, has a two week notice reciprocation on leaving/firing of the position, etc. Yet this pay can be lower by law because of the stability of it and in the long run, employees will be getting the upper hand as opposed to a causal worker.

Part-time is basically the same as full-time, just with slightly less perks in the holiday/sick pay and obviously only a limited amount of weekly hours.

Finally causal jobs are those that can come and go, weekly, daily, or hourly. You can be hired and fired in the same sitting. It's the nature of the job to be disposable and only used in positions where turnover is high, or amount of work is flexible. Which is why the law puts the minimal wage for causal positions at about $18 hourly, with loadings.

Loadings: (in layman's terms) Is an extra percentage of wage added to your base pay for working in certain times, days, or conditions. Example. In a bar, you work late night hours, which requires a loading on top of the $18. Working weekends is a loading penalty, especially Sundays where loadings can be almost 50% of your hourly wage. Loadings and penalty's are set in place by Australia to make sure employees aren't taken advantage of and are properly paid the correct wages. The best part of the law, is if your one of the lucky ones who can find work on a public holiday, your looking at double time and a half for the day. That's right, 2.5 times your hourly rate. That puts $18 hourly to $45 hourly. Not bad. Christmas is even better, with it being 3x hourly rate.

But don't worry, with all the potential money you can make here in Australia, it goes right back out just as fast. With average joe meals at average joe restaurants being 15 dollars, a case of 24 cheap beers being $40, and a 375ml (12.7oz) can of coke from the vending machine being $2.50 a pop, my money is only a short lived number in my bank account.


www.picasaweb.google.com/joshhorton12

Day 197

Happy Easter all. Hope the big furry animal visited you all. Sydney has been good so far. Hanging out at the hostel, searching for jobs, and wandering around the city is what entails of my daily activities. I've been frantically searching for a job since it seems my funds are getting on the lower side of safe. But I have been making the most of it. It's awesome to see another part of Australia and to finally see the amazing Sydney Opera house and Bridge. The city itself is large with a tremendous amount of concrete and tall buildings (nothing like NYC), that house the criss crossing streets. Its actually not big enough to get lost in, yet filled with outlying suburbs that make up much of the cheaper housing for the city.

Weather has been grand so far. Has only rained once for a short bit, but fairly sunny otherwise. Opposite to you folks back home, the weather is finally starting to cool off. As I'm writing, I'm having to close the drafty window from spewing in 17'c weather (yes, that would be Celsius).

After a few days of being here and passing out resumes like a door-to-door vendor, I've landed a job. After going through what I'd guess was an interview and job offering, I turned down a $15/hr parking garage valet for a position in a ice cream shop. Yea, easy decision, I thought so too. The ice cream shop is called Movenpick and sells Swiss ice cream and desserts. Fancy I know, and the prices reflect just that. So until I can find something that potentially suits me a little better, the ice cream shop will provide perfect employment for me.

Since being here in Sydney I've been living in a hostel. I know that half of you out there don't even know what a hostel is (Besides being the 2005 horror flick with a progressively gory and fast past plot). So I'll explain. Think of a college dorm room, only slightly larger and filled with 4, 6, 8, or even 10 beds. Each person pays for a bed per night, which includes the use of the community kitchen, lounge room, and bathrooms. It's a place that's aimed to providing lodging for a younger crowd with no strings attached. No rules, no quiet hours, no neighbors banging on the wall to shut the music off...it's just the lifestyle of a hostel. You meet heaps of new people, almost daily, who come then go.

So I've been living in this one hostel since I got here, and it hasn't been too bad. The place claims to be one of the cleanest places (which seams pretty accurate seeing how I'm sharing a bathroom with 60 others) where they host many nights out on the town with free drinks and entry to clubs. But the best part is the great weekly deal they have going now, which includes breakfast in the morning and a "dinner" at night. Both not anything that would "WOW" you, but to a traveler, food is food and I'll take all I can get.


Today is April 4. My scheduled flight back is May 18. That's less than a month to finish seeing all I can in this enormously wonderful country. Have I missed home? Sure I have. Am I excited to get back and see all my family and friends? Absolutely. Do I desperately want to hear some good ole' country music again? Please please please, yes.

But....

Am I looking forwards to returning to an 8 dollar an hour job? No way. Am I ready to finally face the world that most college graduates face? Not at all. Am I ready to get home after cutting my visa short by leaving in May? No...which is why I'm not. I'm not doing it, I'm not coming back in May. I've thought long and hard about it and have decided to stay. I've rebooked my flight until September, giving me an extra 4 months here and the opportunity to use the year long visa I was granted.

So I say to all you unfortunate souls who read this, I'll be here trying to scrounge up more trouble and entertainment for your eyes for another 5 months. After that, I will be forced to leave the country.

My pictures thus far. www.picasaweb.google.com/joshhorton12