In need of a chat

The thing about working with a building full of men is that it has cemented for me the fact that when Men congregate, they are only able to talk about two things – their cars and the cars that they would own if they were rich.

As one of a smaller number of women who have a genuine interest in cars, I never really had any problem with this until I came to work in my new job. But even a V8 adoring, muscle car driving woman can have too much of a good thing.

Please men! Learn to talk about something else!

I’m finding myself getting a bit desperate for regular conversation. Work was always a bit social for me because I worked with a group of people around my own age, so we had plenty to talk about and we would go out for a few drinks after work on a Friday night. Now that I’ve changed jobs, my daily conversations have been severely limited and I’m finding that I’m writing long and wordy emails to anyone who I think will write back between the hours of 8:30am and 5pm.

I think it also has something to do with the reduced workload that I have in the new job – more spare time and nothing to waste it on I guess!

3 Weeks In

It's the end of my third week in the new job and I think I’m finally getting into the swing of things. It's still a little weird working with so many men, but I think I’m getting used to it. It's a lot less social than working with women - unless, of course, you fancy talking about cars all day.

It's also a bit strange because they have very different policies on things than they did in my last job. At the last place, you pretty much had free reign to organise whatever you thought the company needed. Here, they had an entire meeting because I suggested that perhaps having a company letterhead might be a good idea and they had to discuss whether having a printed letterhead would change the way their customers viewed their business. Personally, I have to say that I wouldn't think twice about a letter on company letterhead, but I would think twice about spending $60K with a company whose quote looked like it had been printed by a primary school student. So it's a bit of an adjustment trying to get used to fighting to get basic things done.

More interestingly, we started organising some of the more formal parts of our wedding this week. We spoke to the minister that will be marrying us and signed some of the paperwork. It was a truly weird experience, speaking to someone other than KJ about why we care about each other so much and why we want to get married. It's the kind of stuff that comes easily when you speak to each other, but it's a bit embarrassing when you have to tell someone else. Normally, people just accept that if you're a couple, then you love each other - they don't ask you to explain it all. I guess it's all just part of the whole wedding thing - in a couple of months we'll be saying it all in front of 140 of our friends and family, so I need to get used to it!

A Strange Day

Today was my first day in the new job. It was a truly surreal experience. I drove to a strange place, walked into a strange office, met strange people and sat down to attempt to begin a job that I know nothing about.

For as long as I can remember, I've been the person at work who knew how to do everything and that everyone came to for the answers. Now I have no answers and no idea what I'm doing. It's nice to have such a reduced workload, but again, it's all kind of surreal.

The other thing that was a little strange was that today I was the only female in the entire building. There were about 10 or so other staff there today, and all of them were men. It's a nice change from the bitchiness that can come out when too many women work together, but it was odd not to have the general Monday morning gossip that comes from working with a bunch of other women.

All in all if was a very weird first day, but definitely not a bad one. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings and if the weirdness fades.

It's Finally Over!

On Wednesday afternoon, 2 ½ days before I was due to finish up at work, I was unceremoniously booted out on my arse. Not so much as a 'thanks for the last 5 ½ years' or a 'good luck for the future'. Just a quick meeting to politely tell me that I’d handed over all I could and that they wanted me to leave. Wasn't that sweet of them?!

It made me laugh, because in addition to being paid to take a 2 day holiday and finally getting away from there, I also had the thrill of watching them pat themselves on the back for the grand point that they had made by booting me out - only to have the entire staff tell them that they are completely disgusted with the way I was treated and that it has made them all think twice about working there. If only I could have seen the looks on their faces when they heard that!

I've had a lot of really nice phone calls from co-workers that I didn't get to say goodbye to, and they're all completely disgusted with what has happened. And how can I feel bad about it all when everyone (aside from the 3 bosses) has been so nice to me?

So I’m officially free and I’m moving on. I got myself a new haircut and a new wardrobe in lieu of taking a break, to help with getting a fresh start.
Tomorrow is my first day in the new job and I’m really looking forward to it. It's going to be strange to walk into a different building and answer to different people. And it will be strange to be working with an entirely different sort of group. The last place was a very young company with a lot of people around my own age. The new place is primarily men and they are mostly a fair bit older than I am (about my dad's age, I think). It will be different, but I’m hoping it will be better.

I can't wait!

The Countdown Begins

One week to go. Five more working days and I am done. It has gone a lot faster than I thought it would, and my frustration at being delayed in handing things over has turned to a kind of stress that I won't get it all done in time. Deep down, I don't really care though. I just want to get away and start fresh. I'm looking forward to leaving the stress behind and being the person who doesn't know all the answers and sometimes has to hunt out some work to do. That will be nice.

In other news, one of my friends has decided that she finally needs to break up with her boyfriend of two years. It's something she has put off doing for the last few months.

Unfortunately, they live together in a unit with only 2 bedrooms, and the other is occupied by a room mate - a friend of her boyfriends. This means that she needs somewhere to stay while she looks for a place of her own. This means she is staying with us for the next 3 weeks. I'm happy to have her stay, because she's a friend and I want to help her out - it's just unfortunate that she is a high maintenance kind of friend and there is a good chance that we'll end up hating each other within a week or two. Also, I'm kind of used to it just being KJ & I, so it will be strange to come home to having someone else in the house.

I've never had a room-mate before; I went straight from living at home with my parents to buying a house of my own. I chose to do that because I didn't think I was the kind of person who would deal well with having other people around all the time. With KJ it's different because we are happy to share anything and everything. With a room-mate, everyone has different boundaries and I don't have the kind of patience necessary to put up with the crossing of these imaginary boundaries.

I will be an interesting few weeks, but hopefully with the new job and trying to organise things for the wedding (which is sneaking up scarily quickly) it will go pretty quickly.

Quiet time

I haven't posted much lately because of everything that is going on at work.
After resigning last week, my completely unprofessional boss has been making life very unpleasant for me(her answer to everything seems to be to involve lawyers), so I don't really have a lot to say that won't end in a giant rant about what I think of her and her total and complete lack of professionalism.

I have 3 weeks of my notice period left and I can feel that they're going to drag. I can't wait to be away from this place and the seriously questionable morals within it.

Resignation

I resigned from my job on Friday. I have worked there for almost 6 years so this is a big deal for me. It was one of the hardest things i've ever had to do, because it's a very family-like business, so everyone there is a friend as well as a colleague.

I'm not really sure how I feel about it all yet. It's a bit hard to say. My boss chose not to announce it to everyone on Friday, which was odd, so I don't yet have the total sense of this being real that I would have if everyone knew.

I have another job to go to, so at least i'm not stressing about money, but i do feel incredibly sad about leaving. I hope this feeling doesn't hang around for the next four weeks, it's not a nice way to be feeling.

Home

I am so so so so so so glad to be home from Sydney.
Melbourne, I love you.

The Continuing Adventures of Ingrid & Boris

At the end of last year, I attended the wedding of Ingrid and Boris. I've know Ingrid since high school (which I realised this weekend was a scarily long time ago), but we don't get to catch up as much as we used to. She's the kind of friend that I usually catch up with at parties and special events like weddings and birthdays, and occasionally I’ll send her an email to see what she's up to and how she and Boris are doing. I've sent her a few emails since her wedding, and she's responded briefly. I imagined that she was busy setting up her new life in the USA with her husband Boris (whose accent makes me giggle even when I’m just thinking about it.)

Her answers about what was going on with her were kind of vague, but then she's never really been the kind of person to elaborate on anything without a little bit of prodding.

It has been almost 10 months since her wedding, so naturally I was pretty shocked when I received an invitation for her going away party!! She hasn't even left the country yet!

That's right - her husband went back to the USA not long after their honeymoon, and she settled in here to wait for her visa to be approved so that she could go and live with him. Her HUSBAND. It has taken a little over 9 months for her Visa to be approved. All this time I thought she was living her happy little family life with Boris over in California, and instead she's sitting here as a newlywed without her husband.

Ingrid and Boris met online, so I guess this is familiar territory for them, but I can’t think of anything worse than marrying the love of your life and then living in different countries for 10 months. I imagine it would kind of put a dampener on married life, although it would stop the arguments about who should take the rubbish out and whose turn it is to wash the dishes.

I also have to wonder what it would be like to be married to someone that you had never lived with for any decent amount of time. The longest they’ve lived together is about 3 months, and everyone knows that it takes at least that long to stop pretending that you care about being tidy or replacing the toilet roll when you use the last of it. It will be interesting to see how they’re going when they finally do get together.

At least now they are finally going to be together again. Congratulations Ingrid & Boris!

Conferences & Shoes

I'm going to Sydney next week. Work is holding a conference that has been about 6 months in the making. I have been eating, breathing, living this conference for the past two weeks and I honestly can't wait until it's over so I can relax.

On the plus side, my bosses' penchant for treating themselves to the insanely overpriced means that we're staying in a 5 star hotel while we're there, so I can't complain about that! On an even brighter note, there is a bridal shoe store about half a kilometre from the hotel that I really want to go to. I am beginning to get desperate to find a pair of white shoes that won't require a bank loan for me to buy. Have I mentioned before how insanely overpriced weddings are?

10 more days and this conference will be over and i can have my spare time back!!