An overdue update
Yes, I've remembered I have a journal. It's been over six months since my last substantial update, and a surprising amount has changed in the interim.
I left the IT Administrator role at Aussie Disposals in early May this year. I'll put it diplomatically: it wasn't for me. It was a good foot-hold getting back into the Australian employment sector, and it was relative stability when I needed it, but the shine of a new job wore off all too soon, and the cracks started appearing soon afterwards. The pay was pretty lousy considering everything they were asking me to do to, once I had gotten used to (a limited role of) what was expected of me things got boring quickly, and.... well, there was some personality clash with my boss (unsurprising really, he clashed with nearly everyone else there). It got to the point that I was already starting to look around for another job at the beginning of 2016, and when a roving systems and network engineer job suddenly appeared online in the same area in March, I leapt at it.... and to my complete surprise, I got it! It was a curious experience: it's the first time I've ever seriously looked for a job while still employed elsewhere (guess that describes the situation at Aussie Disposals), and considering the difficulty I had finding the job at Aussie Disposals to begin with, I was both glad and astonished I had found another one as easily as I had. It was a little amusing towards the end: attending job interviews for one job during the lunch-break of another, leaving my current job in their uniform and then needing to hurriedly change into formal clothes around the corner in the back of my car, attend the interview, then switch my clothes back in the car so my current employers didn't suspect anything. I rather relished the look of complete surprise on my boss's face when I handed in my notice!
After taking a week's break after leaving Aussie Disposals - right in the middle of my birthday, talk about timing! - as of the end of May I am now gainfully employed at a small technology company called EtherTech, as a roving senior techncian, visiting customer sites and helping them out with things as mundane as getting their email working again to building and rolling out brand-new network and server solutions. It's quite an adjustment from the rather limited role my last job was, and it combines two of the things I'm rather good at: technology and travel. The pay is far better, I have a decent swag of perks, and I fit right in with my new colleagues: most are as geeky as me, enjoy similar things, and my new boss has no issues joining in answering the phone for the tedious tech-support calls we get when I'm in the office (he was even a regular at the old Cafe Chrome BBS!). It's still early days yet - and I'm keeping in mind how good the new job at Aussie Disposals was until the shine quickly faded - but I'd like to think I've found a place I better fit into, and that better appreciates me (they certainly treat me far better).
As frustrating as it was working at Aussie Disposals at times, it was a shame to leave them after 13 months: the people I worked with were fantastic (it was just one or two people I was working for), and I made plenty of friends there. Plus, they were the only company to offer me a job when I really needed one soon after returning to the country. Sure, the pay was atrocious and the scope was limited, but they helped me out when I really needed it, so I don't bear any grudges.
The new job has been fairly demanding: like any new job, the first few months simply fly by as you set to learning what you need to, adapting to new situations, and reacting to the new demands on you. It probably explains why I've been fairly quiet online since my last entry: all of my energy has been bent to learning the new role and the new company. But things are getting better, my financial situation has finally stabilised, I've adjusted somewhat to the situation around me, and I finally have time to raise my head and see what's going on around me.
It's been surprisingly hard to re-socialise, although much of that is me: I usually turn hermit-like when distracted or when my attention is divided over a long period (like adjusting to a new job). I've happily re-connected to quite a few old friends since I left. However, others (much to my sadness) have disappeared off the radar (their email bounces, their phones have been disconnected) with no other way to communicate with them, and others have been harder to re-connect with: either I simply don't know how - I've never been the most socially graceful of people - or, well, they have their own lives, of course. If you've been expecting contact from me but feel like you've been snubbed, my apologies, it's more likely I don't know how to contact you! Feel free to drop me a line and I'll be happy to reciprocate: I really would like to catch up with you all.
I think I've said this before, but it's been a lot harder readjusting to life back in Australia than I expected it to be. Granted, in another two month it will have been 2 years since I returned to my home-country after that epic 4-month backpacking trip, but it's still been difficult.
The first is the most obvious: my accent. While it's mostly reverted to Australian, people tell me I still sound "rather posh" at times, and both accents still tend to waver in and out at times depending on my mood or subject of discussion; I'm still mistaken as a tourist occasionally. One of my new colleagues is actually from Britain (he's a Yorkshireman, straight out of northern England) who's been here for 5 years; that's probably making the adjustment more complicated. It took me roughly 2 years living in London for my Australian accent to disappear, but it seems losing my British accent is happening slower for some reason, although I've got pretty used to the Australian drawl. My reputation for being well-travelled still precedes me: I'm still asked a lot for my opinions of certain countries' politics and policies (especially the Middle East and my journeys through the Arab world these days), and the usual suggestions of what to see and where to go if they're on imminent holidays to a place I've been to before. Speaking of travel, I still have the travel-bug, but with barely any money to seriously go anywhere, I've had to abide going on the occasional inter-state drive to sort things out. Once we're into the New Year though, when I can sort out my finances, I think I foresee another international jaunt in 2017 on the cards.... :)
Adjusting to Melbourne has been easier, despite all the changes that have happened in the last 10 years. Buying a car early on after arriving back seems to have helped: there's nothing like driving around on old roads to refresh your memory. I'm still living in Dandenong (1.5 years now) and have only had my car broken into once since, so I guess things aren't so bad. Politically it's more of the same: Australia has had another prime minister in the time I've returned, and while better liked than the last one, he still appears just as impotent.
I was watching the Brexit situation intently from my couch here in Australia, and even got off my arse to vote through the consulate here (my first, actually, since I became a British citizen), only for Britain to naturally fuck it all up and vote to leave the EU. I can only watch on in a mixture of amusement and disappointment as Britain gets over the shock of actually voting to leave - and the EU appears to be in a hurry to get the process started now it's official Britain is going - and eventually start the ball rolling. I genuinely thought Britain would be better off in the EU - and not only because I'm half-European myself and recently returned from a decade living there - but it would appear other minds have prevailed. The US election also continues to amuse and disappoint, but I think the less said about the complete degeneration of the battle for the USA government, the better (it's been extremely entertaining, to say the least).
Some other good news: I have regained control of my vanity domain name (long story), so I'm looking for some cheap, decent corner of the internet for webhosting. Once that's done, I can get around to restoring my web gallery, offline for nearly 2 years now. Now I have a little spare time, I've added in the photos from the rest of the 2014 back-packing trip to Australia, and have taken more time to go through bug-checking the code and update other parts of it. Hopefully it will be up again fairly soon: watch this space!
This entry was originally posted at http://mnemonia.dreamwidth.org/345675.html. Comments may be left on either entry.
I left the IT Administrator role at Aussie Disposals in early May this year. I'll put it diplomatically: it wasn't for me. It was a good foot-hold getting back into the Australian employment sector, and it was relative stability when I needed it, but the shine of a new job wore off all too soon, and the cracks started appearing soon afterwards. The pay was pretty lousy considering everything they were asking me to do to, once I had gotten used to (a limited role of) what was expected of me things got boring quickly, and.... well, there was some personality clash with my boss (unsurprising really, he clashed with nearly everyone else there). It got to the point that I was already starting to look around for another job at the beginning of 2016, and when a roving systems and network engineer job suddenly appeared online in the same area in March, I leapt at it.... and to my complete surprise, I got it! It was a curious experience: it's the first time I've ever seriously looked for a job while still employed elsewhere (guess that describes the situation at Aussie Disposals), and considering the difficulty I had finding the job at Aussie Disposals to begin with, I was both glad and astonished I had found another one as easily as I had. It was a little amusing towards the end: attending job interviews for one job during the lunch-break of another, leaving my current job in their uniform and then needing to hurriedly change into formal clothes around the corner in the back of my car, attend the interview, then switch my clothes back in the car so my current employers didn't suspect anything. I rather relished the look of complete surprise on my boss's face when I handed in my notice!
After taking a week's break after leaving Aussie Disposals - right in the middle of my birthday, talk about timing! - as of the end of May I am now gainfully employed at a small technology company called EtherTech, as a roving senior techncian, visiting customer sites and helping them out with things as mundane as getting their email working again to building and rolling out brand-new network and server solutions. It's quite an adjustment from the rather limited role my last job was, and it combines two of the things I'm rather good at: technology and travel. The pay is far better, I have a decent swag of perks, and I fit right in with my new colleagues: most are as geeky as me, enjoy similar things, and my new boss has no issues joining in answering the phone for the tedious tech-support calls we get when I'm in the office (he was even a regular at the old Cafe Chrome BBS!). It's still early days yet - and I'm keeping in mind how good the new job at Aussie Disposals was until the shine quickly faded - but I'd like to think I've found a place I better fit into, and that better appreciates me (they certainly treat me far better).
As frustrating as it was working at Aussie Disposals at times, it was a shame to leave them after 13 months: the people I worked with were fantastic (it was just one or two people I was working for), and I made plenty of friends there. Plus, they were the only company to offer me a job when I really needed one soon after returning to the country. Sure, the pay was atrocious and the scope was limited, but they helped me out when I really needed it, so I don't bear any grudges.
The new job has been fairly demanding: like any new job, the first few months simply fly by as you set to learning what you need to, adapting to new situations, and reacting to the new demands on you. It probably explains why I've been fairly quiet online since my last entry: all of my energy has been bent to learning the new role and the new company. But things are getting better, my financial situation has finally stabilised, I've adjusted somewhat to the situation around me, and I finally have time to raise my head and see what's going on around me.
It's been surprisingly hard to re-socialise, although much of that is me: I usually turn hermit-like when distracted or when my attention is divided over a long period (like adjusting to a new job). I've happily re-connected to quite a few old friends since I left. However, others (much to my sadness) have disappeared off the radar (their email bounces, their phones have been disconnected) with no other way to communicate with them, and others have been harder to re-connect with: either I simply don't know how - I've never been the most socially graceful of people - or, well, they have their own lives, of course. If you've been expecting contact from me but feel like you've been snubbed, my apologies, it's more likely I don't know how to contact you! Feel free to drop me a line and I'll be happy to reciprocate: I really would like to catch up with you all.
I think I've said this before, but it's been a lot harder readjusting to life back in Australia than I expected it to be. Granted, in another two month it will have been 2 years since I returned to my home-country after that epic 4-month backpacking trip, but it's still been difficult.
The first is the most obvious: my accent. While it's mostly reverted to Australian, people tell me I still sound "rather posh" at times, and both accents still tend to waver in and out at times depending on my mood or subject of discussion; I'm still mistaken as a tourist occasionally. One of my new colleagues is actually from Britain (he's a Yorkshireman, straight out of northern England) who's been here for 5 years; that's probably making the adjustment more complicated. It took me roughly 2 years living in London for my Australian accent to disappear, but it seems losing my British accent is happening slower for some reason, although I've got pretty used to the Australian drawl. My reputation for being well-travelled still precedes me: I'm still asked a lot for my opinions of certain countries' politics and policies (especially the Middle East and my journeys through the Arab world these days), and the usual suggestions of what to see and where to go if they're on imminent holidays to a place I've been to before. Speaking of travel, I still have the travel-bug, but with barely any money to seriously go anywhere, I've had to abide going on the occasional inter-state drive to sort things out. Once we're into the New Year though, when I can sort out my finances, I think I foresee another international jaunt in 2017 on the cards.... :)
Adjusting to Melbourne has been easier, despite all the changes that have happened in the last 10 years. Buying a car early on after arriving back seems to have helped: there's nothing like driving around on old roads to refresh your memory. I'm still living in Dandenong (1.5 years now) and have only had my car broken into once since, so I guess things aren't so bad. Politically it's more of the same: Australia has had another prime minister in the time I've returned, and while better liked than the last one, he still appears just as impotent.
I was watching the Brexit situation intently from my couch here in Australia, and even got off my arse to vote through the consulate here (my first, actually, since I became a British citizen), only for Britain to naturally fuck it all up and vote to leave the EU. I can only watch on in a mixture of amusement and disappointment as Britain gets over the shock of actually voting to leave - and the EU appears to be in a hurry to get the process started now it's official Britain is going - and eventually start the ball rolling. I genuinely thought Britain would be better off in the EU - and not only because I'm half-European myself and recently returned from a decade living there - but it would appear other minds have prevailed. The US election also continues to amuse and disappoint, but I think the less said about the complete degeneration of the battle for the USA government, the better (it's been extremely entertaining, to say the least).
Some other good news: I have regained control of my vanity domain name (long story), so I'm looking for some cheap, decent corner of the internet for webhosting. Once that's done, I can get around to restoring my web gallery, offline for nearly 2 years now. Now I have a little spare time, I've added in the photos from the rest of the 2014 back-packing trip to Australia, and have taken more time to go through bug-checking the code and update other parts of it. Hopefully it will be up again fairly soon: watch this space!
This entry was originally posted at http://mnemonia.dreamwidth.org/345675.html. Comments may be left on either entry.