In which Dan earns 14 cents.

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.

In which Dan becomes the Flash.

You know that super hero, the one that should definitely have had a film made about by now... that would be so awesome. His costume may be tight but its still awesome and his super power is just the most awesome thing ever. Talking of super heros, in my view super heros are like competing foot soldiers, some have slightly bigger rifles, more pockets than others (batman) maybe a little stronger (captain america) or more high tech (iron man) but this makes superman a tank and thats no fair.

Okay so I didn't actually become the Flash and that is not the point of this blog entry. I got a job however and this was good news. How it happened... well quite basically I was just loitering around wasting the day as I have been doing all this time. I'm waiting for a job that comes my way but I get told different things about how long I have to wait but I think I should just wait until March now, I know that's a long time but I have to, simply. So I anyway I was wasting time and money and I could ignore the call of the empty wallet no longer so I knew I had to get a job. I was feeling that there have been no jobs, on gumtree or advertised and so I, for my sins, had given up over Christmas... but now things had changed. I was checking online and finding out that there were a lot more jobs than before and so I quickly saw that I could start applying for some. I saw this ideal job that was basically a courier job. I tried ringing them twice, on two different days but got no reply. One has to admit that when I know I need to do something I do get on and do it!

Then I saw it... a leaflet delivery job... Now we all know where this is going. Go back a few blog entries and you will see that I've been down this road before and you will be wondering where I'm going this time... well. I was brought in my the image, this ad had an image and I started thinking that maybe it was a proper business and with that I sent an email, and then I saw another one and rang them... I got through to Steven... who was in an interview which made me question why it had said 'please ring...' anyway I rang the other person and he set up an interview for the next day at 11. So I was encouraged by the progress and decided things were good... but I was still confident because things were progressing. I found the place on google maps and let me tell you... there are some hard to reach places and this is one of those. I drove up a highway, straight forward enough but then I got to this dual carriageway with a central reservation I couldn't cross. Then I got confused by the U-turn system here and then when I got on the road I had to try and read the house numbers while whizzing by at 70kph, it took me two attempts and even then I was guessing.

The interview went well, its a structured job, they deliver pamphlets and the work won't end any time soon so I finally have a stable job. Now... the first day I got the job I didn't want to go back and sit around not doing anything when I could start work... but it was the middle of the day now and we were having the first of our five 40+ days. So I went to work :/

It was my own choice but I probably shouldn't have. I wanted to try the job out though so I got on with it, it took a while. I was basically a living waterfall and I was learning about all the potholes with the letterbox systems in this country. I could tell you all about them. The letterboxes are on the street not on the house door. They tend not to have a flap you push back but a rectangular slit you push the mail up into which then falls down into a box, these mail boxes can be quite imaginative, including a a rock, a miniature light house, an old kettle, a barrel and today a cylinder with pig ears. Some letterboxes look like electrical boxes so that's no good. Some boxes are really small and some are completely covered by ivry. Some are along walls nowhere near the main gate, this raises questions with me. Some boxes are in the middle of the lawn and I'm still not used to walking across grass as if its the normal type of path.

Any I could go on, I really could, but I'll not bore you to death. I must talk about what the job means. It means I can stay in AUS and live, I was running low on funds, and it also means I can use my car, something that has been bugging me since I bought it, why did I buy it? The fact that I needed to have the car to get the job means it was important that I bought it. The job is fun even if you don't believe me. I get to work to my own pace, I'm outdoors in the air even if it is really hot but I can start however early in the morning I like which means I can beat some of the sun. I get to move around and see the suburbs, which is really fun as I like knowing about all the intricate hide away details of a place, it feels like I'm really submerged in the place. Something that also happens when you get this submerged is the funneh stories I can tell. My camera by now has run out of batteries and I'm in the heated debate over whether or not to buy a new recharger (whether I have the monies) I have the stories of the pictures I've taken so far. I also get to go out and visit the shopping centres they have here which replace the massive Tescos, ASDA or Sainsbury's back home with smaller supermarkets and have more specialist shops.

I later found that most of my walking consisted of walking along concrete to the next house and if there is a restriction on junk mail I'd have to keep on going which is basically a waste of time and steps which adds up if you do it all day and every day. So on my day off I checked gumtree and the next day headed down Canning Highway and found another tucked away place to buy a kids' scooter with which to roll between houses. Now this was a seriously great idea. It bumped up my rate of hourly work from about $11 to $14 for 10 cents per leaflet (the lowest I've worked). This is very close to minimum wage and while I know you could say I should be earning more, I don't need to. There are other jobs, like Delaware who got a job doing a bikini car wash and got $250 in four hours but truth be told I just look horrible in a bikini. There are other jobs like walking sales and fund raising but these are hated by people and they tend to quit but I like what I do so it works out for the best if I need to keep this up which I do. The only problem is that obsessive exercise in the heat with one meal a day makes things a little hard to keep on working at and I do get tired, but really I'm just wasting time so this isn't a life long plan to destroy myself :p

In which Dan proves that dropping all that cutlery was leading to something.

When I cook, I tend to spin the cooking instruments around my finger. I hold a knife and I have to wait a few moments, so I start spinning it round my fingers, same with forks, ladles, potato mashers you name it. I do this with pens, pencils and when I go for walks I pick up sticks... why you may wonder would I want to keep doing this? Well yesterday I found out.

I don't know how many people back home I told about this, I wouldn't be surprised to find it was no one but I had applied to a job that was advertised in the hostel. It was going to be Australia day and there was going to be a massive firework display on the swan river, apparently the biggest firework display in the southern hemisphere and seeing as I didn't even know there was such a day as Australia day I had not made plans and decided that this would be a good investment of time to make some money. So I rang up and he was like yes... so quite simply I waited until Thursday then turned up at the Glowman stand.

The guy in charge was very keen to assume lots of bad things about different parts of the world, he very strongly reminded me of that British guy who sits in the pub all day and complains false things about foreigners and also doesn't understand what Nationalism is, basically he just likes to complain. Everything I was going to try and sell was glowing except the flags, of which he only gave me five but more on that later. So this Australia day. It took place on the water front where the fireworks would go off from several floating barges (unlike those barges that don't float) and when I got there at four there were already people around waiting. I was given some paper work and I had to count out how much stock I had in order to check with the spread sheet. So I had a trolley, two big bags or glowy stuff, my rucksack and my hat... very important. I started walking... but there was no one around buying. I felt very much out of my depth straight away and felt like all eyes were on me. I knew that with things to sell I had the perfect weapon to avoid peoples' gaze and by looking at them I got them to look away from me, but that was still hard to do. I circled round and felt very bad. I was waiting for that delicious first sale but it wasn't coming... I felt like quitting as I was fed up of moving around and being too shy to hassle people to buy my crap.

But I am not a quitter and instead I made my way over to this large field that was the picnic area and just sort... of stopped. There was a large mass of people moving from the entrance and across the field and I knew that if I stood in their path then they'd all see me and decide for themselves if they wanted to buy something and sure enough I was approached by three girls. Now I'm not trying to boast, I am merely saying that doing this job is more evidence that I am not inept or geeky to a socially problematic level. People call me quiet and shy and mumbler but I'm saying these are not problems I have... anyway moving on. These girl wanted to by a flag and one of these awesome light sabre things which I spent the whole evening wanting to fight someone with. It was the first sale and it was a massive confidence boost. My time standing in the field yielded the sale of all my flags and made me really want to get some more to sell but after going back to Glowman he couldn't help me... which is silly because he was explaining how not many flags sold, yet I was asked by five more people if I had any flags and I don't know how many others looked on and saw no flags when they wanted some... anyway I had glow things to sell now. Three girls who were also attempting to sell things swung by me and asked how it was going. The problem I saw them having was that even with three of them they only represented one stand and therefore any monies they made would have to be split between the three of them. I advised they try and soak up the crowds as they entered and they said they couldn't... as one of them had an ex boyfriend in that direction, hmm...

So I decided to move on. Sales on the glow sticks went on, I sold all my flags. Then I decided it would be awesome to put on the flashing ears and glasses and I proceeded to walk along the busy path at the waterfront. This is where I was sure something would get robbed but I kept an eye out and things seemed to be going well, although I wasn't selling anything. Then I bumped into Paul and Claudia who were walking along. That's when I got my picture taken and was laughed at, yet somehow by then I was just enjoying it rather than feeling really bad. Some drunks got into the picture too and it was all very funny. Then suddenly I was being asked for stuff and I sold two or three things. I finally moved on and caught a big crowd coming past me and more things were being sold.

Then four girls came up to me, excited and a little drunk and bought some things. I sold three ears including the ones on my head and something else. Then as I was gearing up to move on one of the girls came back and told me that the ears they'd bought didn't work. I checked them over and agreed but at that moment, the moment where I was taken aback by something not working this lout nips by with his mates, we're talking same age as me or older with broad shoulders and just picks up one of the sabres and disappears into the crowd. I was carrying two bags, was dealing with a customer and had the trolley to manage so I couldn't go after him. The girl said something but I showed her I was in no position to move after him. I traded ears and she insisted I take a swig of her mixer can, which I did ohoho the celebrations. Then she started asking me whether I did this all the time and I was like no, a one off and then she asked me what I was doing on Saturday and whether I went out at all and I just replied that I was going to Wai-con and we talked a little more and she stepped off saying have a good evening and then once I started moving again I realised that she had just been hitting on me and I didn't know what to think, but I did laugh.

I moved on and sold a group of sabres to some Indian ladies and their children. They kept insisting I lower the price but if I did that I wouldn't get any money for them, but I didn't tell them that. If I chose not to sell them I wouldn't get charged either as the stock carries over to the next event. I sold some more to other people and then moved around and saw someone completely wasted and being stretchered into an ambulance. I was asked by loads of people how much stuff was and they all thought it too expensive. I bumped into some more one day sellers like me and they were doing about the same. I like to think I was doing better as I was moving around on my own instead of in a two and I had at least a half smile. Then the fire works started going off and I started to watch them. Then I bumped into the three girls from before who were also selling things. The thing about these people is that you know if you met them elsewhere you'd get along really well with them but instead you're never going to see them again, its getting over this that makes a mature social life. They were trying to sell during the fireworks and while at first I was tempted to just watch I did realise that these fireworks weren't anything different to what I've seen before elsewhere so I started to try selling too. I did actually sell quite a few things too.

Then the evening started to wind down. The fireworks ended and people started leaving. You'll love to hear this, I walked right down close to the exit, turned around and waved light sabres like mad and hoped people going home would be interested... and they were. But I also got some people asking if they could have anything for free. Then these people that were asking just wouldn't leave, they weren't pushy either though but they did get in the way of two girls, I think they were twelve, who bought a pair of flashing glasses each. The worrying thing about that was that while most people were spend conscious these two were like, right, yep, done... some families have too much money o_o Then I got fed up and gave this woman the glasses I was wearing on my head, they'd been on most of the night and they were no longer in a bag, and then I claimed they were stolen :P

At the end I unloaded over $200 but my pay was less, but receiving $83 for walking around seems pretty good to me. A guy that appeared at the end though made over a hundred and I felt sheepish at that.

Now enjoy me looking very serious.

In which Dan gets whipped into 'shape'.

So Paul managed to get a job for two or three days. It was through a friend and it was office removals and I was very jelly that he was getting some income. Paul didn't like to discuss everything he did in the work day but he did tell me the story of how the big man who hired extra hands, let's call him big R, saw a woman walking down the street and thought she was hot and thus decided calling to her from the lorry cab was the wise thing to do. He was shouting for her number but she didn't reply and then Paul was asked to hold out a sign with the question for her number, to which she stuck up her finger, not the middle one but the one with a ring on it.

So we're not talking about the most ideal work here but it was still moneh at the end of the day so I was jelly... then one day Paul comes back and says its a four man day tomorrow and that he suggested my name... not to get caught up in it I was humble and unabashed but then it was more confirmed and then I was there at seven the next day waiting with two other chaps. We waited but then nothing happened for an hour and we all felt sleepy and bored. Then there was a text and we were to expect him in half an hour, only one hour and a half late so not that bad. Anyway as you can imagine things aren't going to smooth out and in fact they are going to get very worse as we dive into the unprofessional to all but the clients.

Big R arrives outside and we walk up to the lorry, a white lorry with nothing printed on it. I had been encouraged to believe that I would be sitting in the back of the cab but in fact I found myself in the middle at the front. In said cab there were a lot of bottles, I mean so many bottles. There were water bottles and pop bottles and they were all empty. There must have been over ten in the cab and we had to wade through them to sit down. Then we started off and headed up to the freeway and if I'm honest I have no idea how we got on to the freeway because I'd gone that way myself and not been able to figure it out, anyway we headed up to North Beach. This is where things started to go awary as big R wasn't the best person to trust with your safety. First he picked up a map while driving and handed it to Paul to find an address and then when he'd done that and handed it back to him so that big R knew where to go he put the thing right in front of his eyes as he was driving at 100kph on the freeway and swerved into the other lane, then regained control and looked in his mirror and luckily there hadn't been anything in that lane. Once on that road he couldn't look in the side mirror because we were sitting in the way, which is just rich because where else are we supposed to go?

Then we managed to arrive at the place and bounded out. This is where I discover big R's no fools policy, oh and he loves to invent fools in the most simple ways possible. First of all we went to the back of the lorry and two of them opened the doors. Then big R got me to help him fix the ram... bear in mind here in case you didn't already know, I'd never done this before. It pulls out from under the doors and then you lift it into place on two bolts at the top. So here I was having no idea we're even pulling out a ramp and he's like put your hand there! And I'm like why is he so angry we haven't even done anything yet. Something you'll come to discover about big R is that he is the opposite of humble and everything is someone else's fault, there's no way he could have done anything better. So instead of explaining what I was supposed to be doing he just stood there shouting calm orders at me like 'hold the ramp' and then getting more angry when I held it wrong... this was just the beginning! O_O

So I was holding it wrong and he'd rather tell me off after I'd done that than he telling me to watch how he was doing it so I could copy it. He was about half a metre from the lorry end and holding the ramp by two hands half a metre or more apart, so I copied that and then we brought it up to the peg holes... only I didn't know these were there and I missed them and he complained at that too instead of telling me about the holes. Then the work began and seeing as I hadn't been told to do anything I kind of just stood there. We were all wearing bright orange vests which was odd and mine was too big. Big R told us to 'look fresh' but straight away I had no idea how you were supposed to do that. I mean a piece of fruit will look fresh if its been covered in water but for us that would just make us look wet. 

So we enter the house and look at what rooms need to be moved, oh yeah we're helping someone move house today. There were two little girls there and they were heavily interested in the new ness of it all. Something that bothered me a little was that they weren't afraid at all of four tall male strangers entering their house in bright orange... that would have at least troubled me as a kid.

So after seeing the rooms we were expected to move the things but seeing as I hadn't been told what to do I just stood there and was shouted at again and he told me that as a new guy I was supposed to just follow him and help him out where ever he needed it but like once again he tells me this after the telling off. So we got to work and I started by helping big R move some two man stuff together. I don't even remember what I was told off for mostly at this point but there were many things. I wasn't holding things the right way, something he decided on after I'd picked it up. I felt that if he had such a problem with the way I was doing things he should explain them before we got under way, other wise it's just a waste of time. I remember needing a drink real bad and that my shoulder was peeling so I needed to put a shirt on underneath, peeling from the beach on the previous Saturday. I was told I stank so he threw me some deodorant. As it turned out the house was only really half ready to be moved and we spent a long time moving small loads and some pictures. Eventually we'd filled up the truck and were ready to move out. I got into the car with the grandmother who was there over looking the house moving and we would lead to the next house. She started off and realised that we weren't being followed closely so she slowed right now. Then the truck gained and the lady asked me how long I'd been working there and I told her it was my first day... and right away I knew I shouldn't have said that. But in truth I don't lie so what was I going to answer? Everyone has a first day anyway.

So the new house was very close, about 400 metres away, and we looked on in wonder. This house was amazing. Large windows and very spacious it made you think of the houses you see in the movies when they try to pretend everyone lives like that. Needless to say I felt out of place and I must admit that it didn't feel right that I was helping strangers move house instead of moving into a house myself at this age but maybe I'm not thinking this through properly. So I was told off for more things again I think but big R found himself doing other things at this time and I stayed far away from him. I managed to get drinks while he wasn't around and things started to actually turn into a normal working day, except that I was madly hungry as I hadn't eaten all day and because I hadn't eaten properly for the last three days. So when a subway appeared I was very keen to take a bite. We were working well and quickly and managed to finish emptying the truck in no time. We went back for more and were told off more and more about things we couldn't help. There was a fridge full of wines, some expensive, and we were told to carry it and we couldn't, so we got the trolley and then we were told off for using that and told to carry it and we couldn't and we were told off for that and told to use the trolley and Paul was steaming. Big R continued to be vague in order to tell us off. He told our other worker friend to lay a blanket down on the floor so the next piece coming in wouldn't get damaged and then when they brought it in he just suddenly started saying 'kick it' and we were all massively stumped over what he was talking about and finally he managed to mention the carpet and strangely enough as soon as he knew what to do he did it. There was much pointing and going 'this', 'that' and 'there' which really didn't help. Big R decided for himself that everyone responds to criticism instead of praise and I'm fiercely the opposite so that wasn't good. There was a kids play house we couldn't dismantle and were told off for wasting time. He told us we wasted twenty minutes wrestling with the ramp one time when it was less than 30 seconds and because we were being shouted at we couldn't calmly decide on what the problem was. Anyway we finished two lorry loads and were given beer... that's right.

We hadn't finished the day yet and here we were drinking beer. To be honest I have my own reservations about what to think but its quite clear to all of us where this is going. Big R guzzled the stuff like it was going out of fashion. We had two packs of six between four of us and while we were driving for a final third load he guzzled two bottles as if they were water. So now we had to contend with a very energetic big R while doing the last bit and trust me this wasn't pleasant, but I was tired and used to it by then and just got on with it. This is where I discovered that the starter motor was gone and we had to push the truck to get the engine going and then jump in before he left us. When we got the ramp out that time he told us off for holding it wrong when it was exactly the same way he'd done it that morning. Finally that job finished and in true sod's law style we had some other job that we had to make. So after burning down the highway without a seat belt, there just wasn't one, and watching big R drink more water that was actually beer, we turned down a right hand road we almost missed and drive up and parked on a road that said no stopping.

This house... hmm... well it was full of lesbians... apparently. I don't know if they were but they were all butch. Big R got into a fight with one of them who was drunk and patronising and we were taunted from the balcony as we loaded their really unprepared stuff into the lorry, luckily they didn't spit or drop beer on us. I was told to take small stuff and then suddenly, literally by grabbing the scruff of my neck, I was asked something about this bed in the room they were in. He goes something like 'can you dismantle this bed?' and seeing as it wasn't what I'd been told to do I just thought he was being funny and wasting time so I was like 'yeah, but it needs an alan key'. Then he got angry for some reason and was like 'break this bed down' and I didn't understand and then he decided to reveal the tool box and they left me to it. I immediately found a right sized alan key and broke the bed down in what I thought was quite a quick time. Then I sought his advice and he angrily, as if I should have known what to do, told me to tape things together and I said I had no tape and luckily he didn't get angry at that and instead told me there was tape in the cab. This is where he told a lady he couldn't do anything if she only said 'that' instead of a name and I was tempted to express my concern at his hypocrisy.

So then we finally left and it was night time. This is when we were driving and he told us about how he always looked out for police because his vehicle wasn't licensed... and he was drunk so he should avoid breath tests. At the end of the day we didn't get paid either and luckily the next day some cash appeared but I was only paid for ten hours... something about me being sloppy at the start of the day which is bollocks because that is when I lifted two person things with him o_O but I was glad for the money... even if my arms still ache today and I can't open them out properly!

This is me looking silly in an orange vest:

 

In which – Little notes about AUS part 1

There was a massive lightening storm last night at around 2am (4^th Jan today). I managed to sleep through it apart from being woken up once by the thunder and then suddenly I was woken up by someone knocking loudly on our door... but seeing as if you've lost your key you need to go down to reception and identify yourself I left them to themselves and after knocking loudly once more whoever it was left. A lightening strike set off a small fire near the airport here and by noon is was seriously raging. They closed two highways and evacuated homes. Towards the evening now it looks to be under control. We all scoofed in the TV room after this woman who was interviewed at the airport said 'the police were no help, our plane leaves in only ten minutes' and I couldn't help think of the idiots who complained at Stansted when I was heading to visit Lucy who couldn't believe they were held up in the walkway between gates as every one was standing still for two minutes of silence on Nov 11^th.

The traffic lights here are raised on yellow poles and the red light jumps from red to green which is a massive pain because you either have a panic attack when you're at the front of the queue waiting for the sudden green or you miss it and get beeped... therefore a helpful amber light should not be underestimated O_O . The pedestrian crossings here are a nightmare, not only do they take ages but they also last the length of Usain Bolt crossing them from front of the queue and if you miss the green man you get the flashing red man which means you can still crosss... but so can the cars ?_? They have nothing to tell you the button has been pressed and I have been stuck somewhere before where I couldn't cross the road as it hadn't been pressed and you get to thinking you don't need to.

The news networks here are like the US where everything is mid good and bad at the same time and that everything trivial is amazingly interesting and worth dicussion on a bigger scale than back home. They also feature important British stories like today I caught 9 news and discovered about a rolled lorry near Edinburgh brought down by high winds.

The police do random alcohol driving tests and I was pulled over by the police within five minutes for two alcohol tests and a cannabis and marijuana test. There is nothing more freaky than having the red and blues flash behind you when you've done nothing wrong... because all you can think about is why they've pulled you over... and you can't think of a reason!

The Aboriginals named six seasons to the year with December – January being the first summer with plants blooming and February – March being the second summer... where you don't do much... and you just burn... so... something to look forward to :D

They have burger king here but it's called 'Hungry Jacks's' which is funneh. They also have a fast food resturant here that looks like its on the same level as KFC from the outside... but it tastes no different from eating cheap take away chicken you could get in any scary take away shop. But they also have this amazing chicken place called 'Red Roaster' and I really like it. I think its more expensive for fast food but more like on the same level as KFC and the most important thing is that they do different things to KFC and anyway it is nice! Red Roaster's trademark quote at the moment is 'don't think twice' which raises many questions but its obvious they're just saying you don't need to think twice because you know who is the best... still it does sound a little over powering, like as if the offer isn't going to be there a second time.

In the heat here you can get through 1.5 or 3 litres without needing to go to the toilet to get it out of you!

They have ravens here but for some reason the ravens here are obsessed with making a lot of noise and they don't so much 'ka' as they scream (luckily not high pitched). They also have magpies... but they aren't magpies. They are birds with black and white on them and the first people to colony here decided to call them what they looked like back home, oh those colony people ohoho

They have a giant TV screen by the state library here and you never know what's going to be played. There was this depressing song about garbage before Christmas and one day I spied Top Gear being played.

In which Dan realises there could have been no such puddle to get his socks that wet.

So I put a lot of trust in this yellow pages job. It was a job that I had found on gumtree and after searching for days and only finding the tomato one and this one I was very eager to take them. The simple logic of 'a job earns you money' was in my mind and no matter how hard or how short it was still at the end of the day money in my pocket and time well spent.

But after tearing at my flesh in the heat and frustration of the tomato vines in order to gain less than minimum wage both here and probably back home I had thought that nothing could be worse... well when does anything go to plan?

This blog entry will be a blog of numbers now as you try to decide for yourself whether what I decided on was right, too silly or too lenient to the job.

Minimum wage in WA - ~ $15.50

Roughly $182 divided by roughly 5+8+6+6+5 (30) hours = ~ $6.06 per hour Tomato job

One must also consider two things, one is that Alex applied for a carpentary job for which he had quals but was instead put on manual labour and worked for 13 hours a day and getting $25 an hour which levelled him with a cool $325 a day and Matt got a job on gumtree which worked him out at $300 a day for 12 hours work (when you work after midnight here the hourly rate goes up a lot and working silly days like Christmas day can rake you on $50 an hour in some cases). So I wanted a job, that much is clear, and there were good jobs out there, that too is clear, and Matt got a job through gumtree, this is clear. What I'm saying is that initially you feel you're doing the right thing and you follow on with the same course of action because you believe it'll go somewhere good... but you have to have an open mind about these things because they can nip you in the butt.

Today I wander to Kewdale. I got the train to Oats Street station and looked for the 99 bus, which I didn't get and so instead I walked for 50 mins in the heat to get to the address and then I was only five minutes late but felt foolish especially as I had walked the last two roads without pavement because that's how they do things here. Things started to fall apart straight away as we were instructed by sign to walk across an active warehouse car park with lorries moving about without hi vis and one guy was told off for wearing sandals funnily enough. So we gained the other side and it was a mess as to what we were supposed to do so me and a few other peps just stood there... then we finally moved on to this odd introduction. Now this is also where things were fishy as in an email conversation I asked about raiding private property to place yellow pages and was told to throw it over the fence... at the induction she quite rightly told us not to do this, amongst other things like don't tackle dogs. So after being given hi vis after walking across the terror of the warehouse outside we were suddenly picked by this excited old man from Asia (I don't mean to be racist but he wasn't exactly Irish for example)... (I have nothing against the Irish either).

Something else that makes this whole thing dodgy was how we never saw the name of the company on any signs, buildings or vehicles. Something else that made this dodgy was when asked about pay the woman said she didn't know as it was not up to her. So suddenly we were being told to grab a GPS (for identifying if a house has been delivered to or not) and suddenly I'm being told I'm not allowed to do that. So it was all very messy and I just when along for the ride. Then we were in a car... and I just went along for the ride. Then we were at the first road... finally. There we found some yellow pages that had already been dropped off and after discussing what who should be doing what part of the street we split up. So I did three houses and then bam... there was this massive amount of apartments. So I went back to find out what I was supposed to do at them again and this is where a man who was with us rage quitted and after thrusting the paperwork in my hand drove off with his girlfriend in a hurry. So now there were three. It was me and two Alexs'. Something funny about these two apart from being called Alex, one was from Germany and the other had a Dutch accent as he was from South Africa and he was 15 which just made it hard to understand what to think of him... oh and he was very organised and while he did take charge he also showed his age quite a bit and I don't think he would have done everything without our help (us old guys ;). Then we tackled the apartments by ringing a random number and they let us in. We made the delivery and headed donwn Canning highway to delivery to buisnesses. I went to Hungry Jack's but because they had no number I was like wahhh. What was funny was that we dilvered to houses and buisness around the KFC but not the KFC... like it wasn't really there ~ ohh. We were told to deliver between numbers and people who had said they didn't want to be delivered to so KFC... might really have been a mirage.

Then some houses weren't really there and then we moved on up this street and delivered some more books. I tackled a 28 door apartment/house place and ran out of books so we had to wander for like 300m to get more which I then had to walk back with, we were issued no trolley, and then that's when things started to get fishy. We had been offered a fourth man, from Canada so we really were getting around the world, but we had also been offered some more information. Tina, the girl giving the induction, said that they expected people to do a map every two days and that a map was about 700 books. That works out as $70 in two days which is terrible, especially as we were expecting to receive $100 a day. But the worst part was that we had been told now that the money of $70 would be divided by however many people delivered them which would be $17.50 each for two days work. Now I don't want to sound like we're weak or anything. I don't want it to sound like I'm afraid of hard work or that I'm lazy... but after five hours of lifting and walking in the summer sun here I would like to get a little more than $10. That's is how much we would have earned if we had kept at it until four which we were told to do. Instead of that we sat down together and stared at each other in disbelief that the cokes two of them had bought was basically what they had just worked two and a half hours for.

So then we decided whether it would get better and we realised that at $2 an hour this really was the worst conceivable job ever. One person then went so far as considering that the sweat factories in mid China would pay $0.50 for an hour or $1 per hour and here we were... not even sitting down!We worked out some more things and ultimately I came to the conclusion that no matter what the work was... at $2 an hour I wouldn't even be able to pay the hostel rent for the month and also that seeing as the job would go on all day it would be better pay to sit around doing nothing for the month until the last week then get a job paying half that of Matts and bang out work then.

To put it in perspective, because I know you want it to be, it's like sitting in a petrol station and every hour standing up and serving one customer who buys a coke probably costing the company $1.50 to get there per bottle, you get $2 and the company gets $1 profit for $4.50 and then you go back to sleep or crying or whatever it is young people do these days and then repeat once every hour.... not a nice thought when you come back to the hostel and find your very tired and quite sunburnt.

Then we phoned the guy back up because no matter how angry we were we still had their GPSs and we didn't want to steal them. He arrived and we managed to miss the whole point of why we had stopped working and done little and he got angry, I said nothing because all I wanted to do was return the GPS and get out of there. He can keep his $5 for like three hours sizzling and melting, I gave him only a name and an email address and there is no way he can remember who I am so essentially all I did today was try a job and decide that it wasn't for me... for anyone in the whole world because you can't live off $2 an hour.

So there are some things to cover like how you'd make more money with a trolley and if there were only two of you but then other problems would get in the way. In order to bring a yellow pages to a house with a locked gate you have to put it in a bag and that takes time. Unless you get a book appear in your hand every time you need one you are tripling the distance and time it takes to deliver one; if you move one metre to deliver a book then move back, pick up another and then move on that same metre you will have covered three metres.

So quite simply it doesn't work out as a job and I earnt more doing a paper round, although that was only on Sunday mornings, so there is no way I could do that job and instead I must keep looking for another one but as it is I might as well start looking for geology ones now even though it is not mid Jan. It just pains me to think that once again I have no income!

In which Dan goes spider hunting

 It's too dangerous to wander out into the bush, especially alone. It's also too dangerous to go poking spiders with a stick... so what did I actually get up to? Well I decided to waste some time so I took the free bus up to King's Park. It was very hot this day and I later found out that it had been the second hottest day of the year... in December. Anyway, fighting the heat and downing half the water fountain I thought it would be a good lol to wander off into the city bush which is that area of the park which hasn't been built on, its just been left as it was before the city was there; bushland. It's not insane bush land with all manner of dangers, as one man once said only bad things hide under rocks and that is why AUS is full of bad things because it is under the world. I also took along a sketch book but its times like these where I remember that I'm not actually that good at drawing. Then I saw this bug:

and then I decided to go spider hunting as there were so many cobwebs. I wondered how many different types of spiders I could see in this bush land, although I did only stick to the path, which was a good idea I think. I got to see Canning Bridge from far up and away in the park. This is a bridge you'll remember from the lovely leaflet drop job that just didn't work out... you know... that giant walk I had to go on for no reason seeing as the place was right next to the bus stop.

You can see a lot of jet skis on the Swan River from up in the park

Below is a picture of a 'black boy' which has a crazily dark bark trunk and a funny head dress looking leaves top. Apparently this scared the colony people as when walking amongst them in the dark or evening would raise a certain fear.

So the first of the three spiders I counted and saw is this crazy little one. It is only a centimetre or so big but it looks quite intimidating. It's red and orange with black spikes. The cobwebs are the same as spiders back home in that the web is a hexagon and gets smaller inwards until the middle where the spider sits.

The second spider is a kind of freaky one. Opposite to the previous spider it has long legs and a small body. The head is like half a centimetre big and the legs go on for an inch at least. It was quite freaky finding these spiders because they literally just hang off the cobweb, and the cobweb has no structure. It's just like a giant net. The long legs and the fact that it dangles down on the web make this a very dangerous looking thing. Luckily it isn't very big.

This third spider is the scary one. I wanted to get a closer shot to show you how big it is but it hides out far from the path. It manages to make a giant bridge across the path at like three or four metres in the air. This cobweb really is like a giant net and there really is no structure to it. I don't know how it gets from one tree to the other because the gap is like about four or five metres. Maybe the spider attachs the web to one tree and then drops down on a line and then swings until it reaches something else to attach to and then climbs up. So this spider it about two centimetres body size but the legs make it up to palm sized or beyond. The head it black and small but the behind is white and much larger. The two giant pincers on the front make it scary to approach too so maybe its good it was far away. Plus you can never tell how fast anything here moves until it does it and you also don't know what kind of damage anything could do, except those hammer sharks, they could give you a certain whack for sure :/

Below is one of the magpies that they have here, as you can see they are nothing like the magpies back home other than the colour, they like zebras to horses. I chased this particular magpie around a tree.

Then I found the DNA tower at last. The last time I was in King's Park I was running about the park going from one side of the 2km bushland to the other along sand paths without a bottle of water (I did have water) and although I did find many things I didn't find this tower. On this trip though I did find it and I hope you like the look of it for it was a mirage to me in the heat. Nawww I'm joking but the weird thing was that because of the heat there was no one around. There was no one in either direction in sight, no one climbing the tower and no one in eye shot even after climbing the tower. This I thought was an attractive place for people to come to yet here I was without people, go figure. So a picture of the tower and a pictures from atop the tower.

and then I thought I'd show you this massive meal we ate of which I paid nothing because they bought too much, they bought a whole bag of potatoes and didn't consider keeping any so we turned them all into mass; nom.