So I started the job. On the first day they told me not to work in the sun but I wanted to see what the work was like so I ignored them and took some leaflets over to Floreat and delivered them. This was a taster and to be honest I learned a lot and not much. The heat I dealt with fine and I didn't cover much on an area. I realised that I would need to correctly assess the fluids I would get through in a day and thus I started buying larger bottles and more of them (this is course meant a day or two when I got to endulge in delicious liquids that I might not in the future... maybe). Anyway the work seemed fine and I was able to do it fine even with the heat. So the very next day I was tasked with Cottesloe (you might want to google these places in Perth and see for yourself what I'm talking about). Cottesloe is on the coast and is one of the many beaches that are named different as you head north. It goes North Fremantle, Cottesloe, City Beach, Scarbourogh and North Beach and this is where the daunting aspect of the size of this city becomes reality. I was informed recently that Perth has only a population of one million. You consider this with other places and the area the city covers you start to see the expanse. At first you don't notice... but when you drive the distance from Gloucester to Cheltenham just to move from the office to start work you start to get a size of it. No matter how far you travel you're still 'somewhere' in Perth and this gets to me after a while. Soon though you start to respect with the different areas of Perth are called cities instead of neighbourhoods like I would have at first.
I realise that I have gone off a bit of a tangent... back to Cottesloe. So I just pulled up to the first stop. We get maps, which are just print offs of google maps (copyright much?) with the blocks drawn around in pen with an arrow at the end. On the first day I was a little skeptical of the point of these lines as if I couldn't work it out myself but the reason soon becomes clear. The blocks aren't straight forward. Sometimes you're just going around a block of houses and ended back at the car without interruption (like Barnwood Avenue's middle where I live in Gloucester) but other times you get something that you wouldn't have expected and that's why the pen is there. It was drawn on by people that have been delivering to these places for about nine years! Before I started work on Cottesloe I was phoned by Tom who told me that he was starting his work on a farm and that he was at least happy to be making some money even if he knew he was going to hate tomatoes after about five seconds.
At Cottesloe on day two I had to deliver three leaflets for three different houses. I had to keep a bunch of three in one hand, so squeezed in between my fingers. The last space on my hand was for collecting a bundle of all three at a time. I soon learned that time soon disappears when doing this job and that the area you cover really does add up. I also learned that you have to be very careful when estimating how much stock to put in your bag when you leave for a block. You can't carry it all but if you take too little you could really end up in a bad situation where you waste time and energy doubling back :/
I couldn't finish the whole map this day because of errors and time mismanagement. I then drove back in the dark with faulty lights that really had got in a bad way. I learned early on though not to drive at night again in the future o_o I was starting to learn of different ways to get around, the shortcuts and the places that don't go anywhere, to avoid the pitholes and to plan your journey from the beginning all the way to the end. I learned the most critical lesson and that is where the road names are posted. They don't appear at eye level in a hedge at both sides at the end of the road but instead on a lampost raised into the air pointing down the road. I learnt a lot more things too like how big apartment blocks aren't the lifesaving wonder monies that you might have expected. Most letter holes in apartment blocks have no junk mail signs and sometimes there is a big one covering all the holes so you tend to expect that as you approach. Also apartments tend to be on main roads because the housing is cheaper, makes sense, but this means you have to stand there looking like a creep as you overload people with junk in full view of people driving by and you just wish that job to be over so you can go back to being sly about the bringer of junk.
Something to note, when doing this job you really do see and think of everything. The post man here drives around on a motorcycle and the AUS people really do come up with some odd letter box designs. The no junk mail signs are usually straight forward or drawn on but it doesn't help your mental state when the plaque or writing is half there... do I deliver and get monies or not annoy them but have extra stock left over? I wonder sometimes what it would be like to take things literally like when they say no junk mail do they mean advertising is fine but please don't place genitalia in the letter box?
Then I moved on to wraps and something interesting which earn me 12.5 cents per drop. They are faux magazines that are called highlights and while the front cover has cool looking cyclists and the back is about fun with really cheesey toy story cosplayers the insides are just adverts for houses on sale. But I'm guessing that the AUS people must think about moving house a lot as there are so many removal vans and lorries, I did removals myself remember with Big R. People love to upgrade and mostly all I deliver is advertising material for housing. These booklet magazine things really do fill my car though. I stuff six boxes on the back seats fine but that only brings the number up to 450, a 500 single item drop can take up less than half of one of these boxes. But the size goes down quickly which makes it fun, but running out round a block because you're not a pack mule does get annoying. There is only so much you can carry yet even that sometimes is not enough if there are that many houses.
Then we move on to the infamous 14 cents. I believed that at 14 cents I would be a rich man. I could earn potential $20 an hour on my new scooter which I bought to roll down the hills and speed things up a bit. At $20 an hour things would really be going well for me... however things are never that straight forward for us are they? In order to earn that delicious 14 cents I had to deliver a wrap of leaflets and the highlights magazine. Now considering that at city beach you earn 11 cents for a single item (something I did) to then only pay 14 cents for four or five leaflets and a booklet the office really must be raking it in (however before you get angry I'm sure they're not; so I should man up and be happy that its not 11 cents all the time). In order to take 450 drops I had to fill my back seats as it takes up that much space then in order to deliver on block I had to carry what must have been between 10-15 kg. Luckily as you deliver this weight quickly goes down... which is why junk mail restrictions are my nemesis. The scooter helped a deal but then sometimes I'd go somewhere where the road was too rough, a lack of pavement so I had to pick up the scooter across grass or a hill which would destroy my calf muscle and render the scooter pointless, and then that added to the weight of the journey. With all these things considered 14 cents may be more money but the time it takes to get that much weight around, especially as you need to load up once again after every block, means for the same time you basically earn the same as at 11 cents.
However! Before we get depressed there is always the future. The best part about this job is that it is on going. The longer you stay somewhere the more respect you earn. The guys there finally learnt my name, even if I am 'Mr. Judd' now, and I got more work, which is good as I have nothing else to do. With the scooter I can work faster than I would before. I was leant a second bag to split the two different drop items which dissolved some of the hassle. The problem I have been having recently has been work ethic which is... no incentive to get up in the morning and working without enough energy, food or stimulants. I have enough water but drinking it warm is not a good idea.
My camera ran out of batteries though so I have no more pictures but I will be getting more soon. The problem here though is figuring out where to get a new charger. The shops here are all topsy turvy and when you walk into a supermarket you tend to only expect to buy food, nothing but food or drink.
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