What Happened and What's Happening

In addition to providing a habitat for a frightening number of poisonous snakes, spiders, jellyfish and octopi, Australia also seems to be home to an inhospitable job market. I reopened my job hunt when my temp assignment ended about two weeks ago. Ellina suggested that I try looking on one of the city’s main thoroughfares, Pitt Street, near Circular Quay and the Opera House. I walked there one Friday, but the tons of small cafes always looking for help of which she’d spoken didn’t seem to exist. I checked at the few I was able to find. One of them may or may not be hiring at some time in the indeterminate future when their take-away counter is complete. The others were fully staffed.

I wasn’t too discouraged by the lack of progress there. It’s quite a distance from my house. I simply decided to search once more around the closer suburbs. The next morning I walked to Newtown. The manic atmosphere of the crowded sidewalks and even more crowded cafes discouraged me from working in the area. So did the reception I received at the one café where I did turn in a resume.
“I was wondering if you happen to be hiring,” I said when the barista finally acknowledged me. He shrugged indifferently.
“You can leave your CV with me,” he offered. I handed it to him, slightly reluctantly, and he told me he’d show it to the boss.

I walked back to the significantly more relaxed Glebe and went to a combination art gallery and café that I’d only noticed the day before. I’ve walked past it almost daily since I moved to Forest Lodge, so I’m not quite sure how I missed it. I think the labyrinth of mesh fencing that’s enclosed Glebe Point Road’s massive street construction project is partly to blame. It was removed just recently, revealing a wider sidewalk and never-before-seen signage. I walked into the gallery to find a man with a ponytail of long, dusty-coloured dreadlocks leaning against a small coffee counter.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
“I was wondering if you’re hiring at the moment,” I ventured.
“Well, that depends,” he mused thoughtfully. “We’re looking for someone pretty specific. Ideally someone who’s had gallery experience and is pretty good at making coffee.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t have barista experience,” I confessed.
“I’m sorry, then,” he said.

I expected to be dismissed at that point, but he persisted in the conversation.
“Do you live around here?” he asked. When I confirmed that I did, he inquired as to what kind of work I was looking for.
“I was hoping to volunteer for the Museum of Contemporary Art,” I explained. “They want people who are available during the weekdays, so I was hoping to find something where I could work on the weekends and have a day off during the week to do that.”
“Would you be interested in volunteering here?” he offered. “I can teach you the odd thing about making coffee."
“Sure,” I answered, surprised at the turn the initial rejection had taken.
“Have a seat.” He pointed to a stool in front of the coffee stand and walked into another wing of the gallery. He returned a minute later shaking his head.
“Naw, I can’t help you,” he said regretfully. “I’d really like to.”

I’m not sure what changed his mind. But I left feeling pretty crushed at the tease. I was discouraged at the overall lack of receptiveness within the job market and was about to give up for the day. Then I saw another café where I’d been intending to ask about work. They were still open, so I decided to make one last attempt.
“I was wondering if you happen to be hiring,” I said to the girl who greeted me. I was fully prepared to receive the customary no and walk straight back out. Instead, she looked surprised and said, “Oh…we were just talking about that.”

She pointed me out to the manager, who came over immediately and confirmed that they had indeed just been discussing adding more staff. One of her employees had just been in a car crash, leaving them unexpectedly short-handed. She launched straight into a negotiation about how many hours I wanted, on which days, how much I needed to be paid, when I could start, how long I could stay and my plans for the holidays. We went as far as talking about how my superannuation might work. We seemed to have settled on mutually agreeable terms. She said, “I really want to help you out. We are hiring, and you seem to have everything we’d be looking for. Let me talk it over with my husband, and I’ll call you on Monday.”

She didn’t. I waited until 2:00, only an hour or so before a lot of cafes in the area closed. I then decided to take matters into my own hands and call them. The person who answered asked if the woman I’d spoken to could call me back in an hour. Two hours later I called again. This time the woman herself answered.
“Oh, hi Nikki,” she said. “I haven’t had time to talk to my husband yet. Is it okay if I call you back in a few more hours? Sometime this evening?”
That would have been fine if she’d actually done it. She didn’t call back that night. Or the next day. Or the day after.

I let it go at the time because I’d received a call from a different café on Monday morning. The conversation was very strange.
“This is Amanda calling from a café in Newtown. Are you still looking for work?”
I confirmed that I was, and she told me to come in for an interview on Thursday. Before hanging up I attempted to get the name of the café. She declined to tell me and said, “I’ll give you the address.” I looked it up on Google, trying to ascertain a name. No results matched that address to a café, so I wound up walking to Newtown to satisfy my curiosity. The address belonged to a modern Italian restaurant where I hadn’t even turned in my CV. I assumed they’d received my details from a form I’d filled out at the Responsible Service of Alcohol course I’d taken.

I turned up there for my interview on Thursday. It didn’t seem to go very well. As it turns out, the restaurant where I was told to go is owned by the café in Newtown where I’d left my CV. Its name was on the paper application form I had to fill out, which included a test asking things such as what cutlery you should provide with linguine and an inane question about what type of car you’d like to be and why. Then I waited for the interviewer to finish conducting an interview with another girl two tables away.

I could hear everything that was said during their interview, and mine seemed to go rather dismally by comparison. The interviewer scanned the employment history section of the application, where I’d been asked to provide information about my three most recent employers.
“And previous experience?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem like you have much.”
“Well, it was more in the past,” I explained, and told her about my host position at Olive Garden. “And I also have a lot of customer service experience that would hopefully make up for gaps in serving experience.”
She looked like she very much doubted it. Her attitude expressed that she thought taking the five minutes to interview me had been a colossal waste of time. I wanted to point out to her that someone who failed to even mention the name of the café had invited me to an interview after looking at the qualifications on my CV. I also wanted to point out, rather cattily I admit, that the girl she’d spoken to before me thought it was acceptable to wear jeans to an interview.

This desire grew even stronger when I told her at the close of the interview that I had my RSA certification. She must have thought I said I needed my RSA, because her response was very terse.
“Well, IF you are successful,” she clipped, really leaning on the ‘if,’ “you’d still be a few weeks away from needing that."
“Well, I just wanted to let you know I have it in case that’s helpful,” I countered.
“Oh, you HAVE it,” she repeated, not bothering to apologise for not listening or for being completely rude. Instead she showed me to the door. I don’t expect to hear anything back from her.

I also don’t expect to hear anything from a café where I stopped to inquire about employment immediately after my interview. There was a help wanted sign at the door, but the woman working the counter was as unimpressed with me as my interviewer and even more rude.
“How many years of experience do you have?” she snapped.
Years? Not even one. But I exaggerated on that point a little when I answered. With a glare she accepted my resume and immediately stuffed it under the counter, which probably concealed a trashcan.

Given the poor reception I’d received that day, I decided to ask the woman who’d never called me back for a definitive answer. I think through her lack of response I already had one. But I just wanted to be sure. When she picked up the phone, I said, “I’m taking it as a bad sign that I haven’t heard back from you, but I just wanted to know one way or the other whether you’re still interested in having me work there.”
She wasn’t. The girl who’d been in the car accident had come back and wanted full-time hours, so they couldn’t have me on. OK, fine. But she couldn’t have told me that straight out?

I am just fed up. I’ve been here two months with absolutely no success in finding employment. And being in Sydney is keeping me from starting on the educational and career path I actually want to take. I emailed the director of graduate studies in the University of Minnesota’s art history department to get an idea of what sorts of requirements I might have to meet to be accepted into an art history graduate program. It’s more complicated than I thought. She told me that with only one art history course on my transcript there’s no way I’d be accepted. I’m going to have to take some classes as a non-degree-seeking student first. I can’t do that here. It’s summer, and none of the schools in the area offer art history summer courses.

And to top everything off, the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen, dead or alive, went on a prolonged, scuttling journey across my kitchen floor this week.

So I’m coming home. I was planning to stay until the end of February, but it just doesn’t seem to be the right thing for me at this point in time. This thought was echoed by Andy, who said flat out last week, “Just go home.” If Andy’s advising me to go home, it must be getting pretty bad. He’s never said that before. He’s more likely to say, and has often said, “Don’t give up,” or “Keep trying.”

I’m going to France on 18 December and was supposed to fly back to Sydney on 4 January. I ultimately made my decision by thinking about how I’d feel about that when I was standing in the Charles de Gaulle airport. I’d be at least mildly depressed at the prospect of going back to Sydney. But I’d be perfectly content and even a bit excited to go home. So I’m going to use the time and money I have left to see as much of the country as I can before I leave it. And I’m OK with that. I tried. It didn’t work very well. I’ll be back on 9 January.