September 7th 2005 – Two Undergraduate Degrees Later…

Monday, Laure and I were continuing our very mindless task of working in the fancy boardroom mailing all of Australia. Today we were fortunate enough to start filling the envelopes, which is slightly more thought requiring than label sticking...albeit not much! The day droned on and although we were both trucking through our work, the masses of envelopes laid out in front of us just weren’t going down…I’d like to say that the day passed quickly and painlessly, but imagine starring at a blank wall for the day and that was how quickly the time was going by. At least my boredom was shared which helped keep both of our sanity. The only other distraction was the 10 phone calls from our agency trying to arrange timesheet submission. Ironically enough the company that we are hired to represent are the ones always calling us on the job distracting us from the task at hand.

Tuesday was equally boring, but having been recruited for a further task Wednesday through Friday in data entry, we were in a particular rush to get through our work. A third temp was brought in to help us finish the drastically underestimated initial time scale. A terrific guy from Britain, but slow as molasses. Yet another day of distraction, but this time we were brought to coffee by our consultant at the agency. Although it was kind of an awkward break, in hindsight it was almost flattering that she would cab to North Sydney just to fraternize with Laure and I over a 15 minute coffee break. It was fun to see that Laure and I have similar work ethics and were stubborn enough to stick around until 6:30 in an attempt to get finished. Although we didn't quite make it, we were offered local references by the Marketing director!

Wednesday was a new adventure in the CBD (Central Business District) a company called Accor Asia Pacific that specializes in hotel accomadations around Sydney. We arrived to the building and were astonished by the breathtaking view from the 30^th floor out onto the Circular Quay harbor of Sydney. Our new assignment was only slightly better than our last in that it requires thought, but is equally as monotonous as the envelope preparations. We are creating an inventory of the customers that have special rates at hotels across the country and how often they used them through the months of July and August. The day would have gone by much faster had it not been for the kindergarten atmosphere created by most of the staff. Don’t be deceived by their pin striped suits and pastel blouses, the ambiance in the Australian workforce is young at heart bordering on childish and irritating. After checking our finances on-line we were excited to see that we have started making Australian dollars – yippee…
Laure has been teased on several occasions with longer term possibilities that have so far fallen through and I have just contacted a scientific placement agency hoping for some lab work or something slightly more specialized than office admin, which not surprisingly seems to favor the women…