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I actually didn't end up taking the job at the sports marketing agency. I thought long and hard about it and decided that it was too much of a commitment to be getting paid ZERO dollars to do training for like, 4 weeks. Luckily, I had an interview the following day (after getting offered the 1st job) at this company, World Series Paintball.
So the job posting doesn't say much and so I go in and of course, it's another sales gig. This one however, seemed like a lot less training/commitment and so I thought, what the hell - let's give it a shot. So I had an "observation/job shadow" thing last Friday for World Series. Not what I expected. They go around to industrial areas mainly (sometimes to Unis as well) and try to sell them these "Gold Pass" paintball tickets. Which, you could argue is a scam, but it's actually a pretty good deal. To sum it up, we promote these "$5 tickets" for "everything you need to get you started" (AKA padded suit, gun, mask, entry & 100 paintballs) - which would actually be a good deal if you didn't HAVE to purchase 200 more paintballs when you got there for $40. So no, it's not $5 to go paintballing, it's $45 if you're actually wanting to shoot your gun. And if you were to go there without the "Gold Pass", it's $50 for the same thing (minus the extra hundred paint balls). So it's still kind of a good deal. But not really. Anyway, I think I've been talking about this "deal" so many times this week that I keep going on about it and can't think about anything else. So yeah, we go around to industrial areas and get rejected dozens and dozens of times. I didn't do terribly for my first week. But to sum it up - I got up at 6am every morning to be at the office by 745, have an hour long meeting, work from 10am-530/6pm and not get home until 7. Every day. Well every week day anyway. I didn't do amazing either. I said I didn't do terrible, but I also didn't do amazing. These girls do a damn good job selling to random old men and what not, but I, on the other hand, ended up making a total of $164 all week. And that's including the commission from the "Ten Pack" Nate & I purchased, so really I only made $129. Did I mention that this job is commission based only? As in NO base wage AT ALL? As in I made one hundred and twenty nine dollars working over 40 hours. That's $3.25 an hour. I think Asian child laborers make more than that. Surprisingly, the money issue was not the reason my life as a sales rep only lasted 4 days. I could've gotten a lot better at it and I could've made a lot of money. The girls there make a minimum of $800 a week. My boss, who still goes around selling Mon-Fri makes over 150k a year. Granted she gets more commission than we do and also makes commission off our sales as well. I personally couldn't do it anymore because I am just not cut out for it. I am a firm believer in the fact that you can only truly be successful at something if you're passionate about it and love it. I didn't love it. I borderline HATED it. I love chatting with people and I spent most of this job making random conversation with people about anything NOT paintball (while also NOT making money). I talked to this guy yesterday for 40 minutes, half the time about what I was going to do about this job I hated. I don't feel comfortable trying to sell something that people don't want, need or will ever even use. I hear myself "pitching my sale" to them and I can hear how fake and insincere I sound. Because I don't care if these people go paintballing or not. Granted in restaurants, I don't really care what people eat, but I at least can give people a good experience while getting food in the restaurant they CHOSE to come eat in. Bottom line, I don't have the drive to be a good sales rep like those other girls. They did an amazing job and made ridiculous amounts of money, but it's not for me. I hated going into company after company with signs on their doors saying "No Sales Rep/Hawkers/Canvassers" (all synonymous to ME). Most people were nice about it anyway but still, 98% of people I talked to said no to me. And I was even okay with getting all the "no's", I just hated bothering people so much. So that is my life as a Sales Rep. Four days total. And now I'm left with a sprained foot (we would walk miiiiles and miiiiiles everyyyy day. I made poor judgement about what shoes to wear), only $129, a week of my life gone, one more job added to my list and another career path I can cross off. I'm okay with it. Yes, I've always been one to jump around jobs, but there's no point being miserable in a job at my age. So I've been back in Australia a week now. Spent a glorious weekend doing absolutely nothing but hang out with the boy, watch movies (including the Dark Knight Rises for the 2nd time), sleep and relax. Come Monday, Nate had to go to work and I was left with nothing to do, seeing as how my cafe job would have to wait another week since they had already made the schedule (which didn't include me). I decide to apply for a few jobs since I'm going to have to pay for SE Asia somehow.
I decided to go for the promotions jobs since they're rather easy, flexible and pay decent. I applied for three and the next day, I got a call back asking if I wanted to come in for an interview that day. At the time, I was actually out trying to find Nathaniel his birthday present. His birthday isn't until the 22nd this month but I decided it would be a fabulousss idea to get us some bikes so we can go bike riding! Although this plan doesn't seem super brilliant right now, as I look at the weather forecast and it's supposed to rain the rest of the week. Like it does everyy week. Anyway, I go on gumtree.com and find tons of bikes around the price that I want. Yes, I'm getting my boyfriend a used bike for his birthday. Sounds pretty lame, but the idea is that we'll go on lots of fun bike rides together - that is, if the rain EVER stops. So my one problem - actually one of my MANY problems, is that I do not have a car. So my idea is that I get a bike within about 10km of my house so I can just ride it back home. The first place I go - and yes, this blog is now ending up being about my bicycle hunt rather than my "big kid job" - I end up really liking the bike and so I buy it. It fits me fine and if the seat is raised, it will fit Nate too, so I figure it's a good bike to start with. So I pay for the bike and was meaning to ask this girl - or any person for that matter - if I'm supposed to be wearing a helmet. I don't know if that's a stupid question, all I know is that in California, you don't need to wear a helmet when you ride your bike. In Hawaii, you don't even need to wear a helmet when you ride a motorcycle (random, I know). So I text my friend Ash and ask him if I need to wear one. No response. I jump on the bike and see an older guy riding his bike and he's wearing a helmet - granted he's also wearing super short bike shorts with a matching shirt and helmet, so I figure this guy is just super hardcore. A minute later, I see another guy riding his bike without a helmet, so I'm like, wooo I'm in the clear! So I'm cruising down the street, headphones in, jamming to my music, thinking about how much I looove riding bikes and how free I feel and how it's going to be soooo awesome being able to ride my bike everywhere and then of course - I look over my right shoulder and I'm legit getting pulled over by the cops. Of course. "Do you have some ID on you?" he asks. "Am I doing something wrong?" "Do you think you're doing something wrong?" "Am I supposed to be wearing a helmet?" And at this point, the cops are just laughing at me. Obviously I'm not from around here. I explain that I literally had just gotten the bike 5 minutes ago and that in California you don't need to wear helmets, etc etc. They didn't ticket me or anything (luckily). I just couldn't believe I got pulled over within MINUTES. Anyway, I got one bike down, one more to go! So actually, as I was about to ride away, right after I texted Ash, is when this sports marketing agency called me about coming in for an interview that day. So I went in a few hours later and things went really well. There were a ton of people in there so I wasn't too hopeful I would get a call back, but a few hours later, they called me asking if I would come in the next day - today. They had explained that it was a sales job and that we represented a lot of major sports clubs in Australia, such as the AFL (Australian Football League), Special Olympics and so on. Today, I went in and along with a couple interviews, actually went and job shadowed them. Didn't really seem like my kind of thing, unfortunately. Sales has never super interested me. We went back to the office and I spoke with another employee and she explained how the entire company works. Overall, there's a LOT of room for growth and you can do really well if you try hard and are motivated. And I actually think it's something I can do and be good at. Unfortunately, this isn't the ideal job to get when I only have two months here until I start traveling for a month and then go back to The States. And they actually offered me the job at the end of all my interviews. I had a feeling I might get it because I was getting along with everybody I had met, and in my head, I said if they offered me the job, I would tell them I would have to think about it first. Of course when it actually happened and she excitedly offered me the job, I just said "awesome, sounds great!" which could definitely (and was definitely) interpreted as an acceptance. So now here are my issues: Do I take a job where I won't be able to make a lot of money right away (when I'm trying to save money right now for traveling)? That also has reallyyy long hours? But it will definitely pay well in the future. But if I go home, then there won't be a "future" and then 2 months could potentially be wasted. Granted, I'll probably learn a lot, but it's not really fair to me or the company to spend two months here to just quit after not even getting anywhere. And so if I decide NOT to go home, then that means...I won't be going home. And I DO want to go home. I have friends visiting for a month in December that I'm supposed to show around California. And that was just always the plan - to go home for the holidays. But if I stay, it could turn into a really good job because it IS a really good opportunity. But then Nate's visa expires in March and he might not be able to stay in Australia either way. And also, am I really ready to have a big kid job? I still wanted to keep traveling. i wanted to go teach English in Italy or Spain or somewhere in Europe. I don't know if I'm ready for real responsibilities. But I DON'T want to be working at random cafes/restaurant the rest of my life. And working at a million different restaurants doesn't exactly improve my resume. Decisions, decisions. Training starts on Monday so I have a few days to figure it out. To grow up or not to grow up... Well, not so much a jet plane, but leaving on a plane, yes. I am currently 2 hours and 28 minutes from landing. I had waaay too much anxiety to try to write while I was waiting at the airport or even in the beginning of the flight. So now that I have watched 2 ½ movies and slept for a good 8 hours, I’m pretty well rested.
I must admit, Virgin Australia is pretty awesome. I definitely got extremely lucky as well. I have an aisle seat and there’s nobody next to me so I thankfully have a good amount of room to stretch out a bit. We all get little screens in front of us and they have a ton of movie selections. And not even Netflix kind of movie selections (which are always SO awful), but good movies. The seats are relatively comfortable and the food was almost decent. I wasn’t hungry anyway because Nate and I ate Mexican food at the airport (everybody keeps telling me Australia has no Mexican food. I don’t even like Mexican food all that much but knowing I won’t be able to have it semi depresses me). Anyway, this 16 hour flight hasn’t been all that bad. I was really sad leaving and had a few moments of weaknesses but kept strong for the most part. In reality, it shouldn’t be sad saying goodbye to my family or Nate, but it is. I usually don’t see my family for 5-6 months at a time anyway, and Nate will be coming here in 3 weeks. It was pretty rough saying goodbye to my friends because this is about the time where everybody starts moving away (I suppose myself included) and so I really don’t know who I’ll see ever again. Obviously I’ll stay friends with my closest friends, but that doesn’t mean we’ll see each other even remotely often. So needless to say, I had a good amount of anxiety the last few hours before my departure. So now that they let me on the plane (I had a small fear that I may have messed up somehow and wouldn’t be allowed on), the next step is finding my driver and getting to my house. I figured out housing through “Burwood Student Living” (BSL) and it was pretty painless. I was trying to figure out housing with this other company for weeks now and they were extremely difficult. I had my spot reserved and everything and they were just impossible to communicate with. Like, okay I’m ready to pay, how do I do it? And their reply every time was just “oh great, just send the money on over before you come”. No details, no help, nothing. So I was really grateful that BSL contacted me and I got it all figured out about 2 days ago. SOOO, I’m definitely more excited than I am nervous now. About 15 hours ago I was 80% nervous & 20% excited. I’m probably at about 70% excited now. |
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