Baby vs Big Daddy

Ever since leaving school four years ago I've been working for the same people, slowly making my way up the ranks, beginning as Receptionist, then Secretary, then Loans Officer and now a Loans Analyst. I think I’ve handed in my notice about 4 times and each time have been lured into staying by offers of more money, more responsibility, telling me to properly think through my decision (see number 3. in Duh!) or all of the above. Next time will be the last time though; no amount of money or responsibility can make me stay this time.

Anyway, what I’m getting to is that not long ago the little sized company, never having had more than about 8 employees, was sold to a big daddy sized company. This meant the little baby boutique that I’d come to know and love was to merge into becoming a side cog of an already big, well oiled machine. Once upon a time I think I would have been excited about working for a big company but that was before I knew big companies tend to come with big rules and regulations that dampen the excitement somewhat.

Here is a list (because in case you didn’t already know, I like lists) of some pro’s of working for both small and big companies, at least in my limited experience anyway:

Pro’s of working for a little baby boutique company:

• You get your own office compared to being shoved in a cubby hole so small you bang chairs with the person next to you if you move back at the same time
• You can personalize your desktop picture instead of having black nothingness
• You can save shortcuts/documents to your desktop that won’t disappear every time you log off and on
• ALL internet sites are accessible
• Speakers on your computer are allowed
• USB ports on your computer are actually usable
• Your computer has a CD drive
• The view from your desk is of the Auckland harbour rather than a grey divider
• Your bosses actually know you on a personal level
• It’s fine to email asking for leave a few days before rather than sending in leave applications with up to four weeks notice

Pro’s of working for a big daddy company:

• There are morning teas for someone’s birthday almost weekly
• On your birthday you get shouted a cake compared to having to shout the staff morning tea
• IT staff are on site most of the week
• Gold Coast is the Christmas function venue
• There are more than 3 people at Friday drinks
• There is more than just Chardonnay to drink on a Friday
• Team building events involve going out sailing for the afternoon

I will however concede that I was pretty fortunate in getting to work for such awesome people at the small co. And I suppose the big daddy co is not really as gruff and mean as it may seem.

Duh!

The other day my dear friend Jessie asked me “What is the stupidest thing you have done this year?” Which made me stop and think, shit, what is the stupidest thing I’ve done this year?

Here are some options:

1. Forgave my ex for being a dirty cheat
2. Became a cellphone geek by having one phone for each network
3. Tried to resign from my job a day after my three year relationship had ended
4. Thought it’d be fine getting involved with someone who was heading overseas shortly
5. Created a blog
6. Agreed to mountain bike out to the blue and green lakes with my parents

Place your votes people!

Countdown

Because I’m excited about traveling but also starting to fret a bit about things I have to do before I go, I decided I’d share my load a little by telling you all what I have left to sort out. Those of you who are more experienced travelers than myself feel free to respond with anything you think I might need to remember to get/do that I may have overlooked.

• Go to the doctors to get my vaccinations and sleeping pills
  
• Sit my full license so I’m allowed to drive overseas (yes I know, shocking that I’m still on my restricted)
  
• Fix and then sell my car (any takers?)
  
• Ship my winter/work clothes over to London
  
• Get a new credit card so mine doesn’t expire a month after I leave NZ
  
• Open an HSBC bank account
  
• Get travel insurance
  
• Apply for my UK visa - which I excitedly discovered can now be done online
  
• Book my Bangkok accommodation – any suggestions Andrew?
  
• Buy a pack

Hmmm what else? I’m sure there is tons of other stuff I’ll need to buy but that’s a start. Ooo and I picked up my tickets a few days ago which made it all a bit more real actually having the words Auckland, Melbourne, Bangkok, London printed on a ticket in front of my eyes!!

Also, keep the 19th of Jan free for my birthday/leaving party. Anyone got any ideas for a venue/bar that will be able to accommodate an extra hundred odd people?

Less than 12 weeks to go….

Yuppie Yachties

A bunch of us at work had been told that we were to do some team building yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t exactly enthused by the idea of it to be honest since in my mind team building consists of cheesy introductions, playing “trust” games and being forced to pretend to like the oddballs that normally you would try to avoid in the staff kitchen.

The only details we had been given was to make sure we wore casual clothes and footwear suitable for the outdoors. After the inevitable cheesy intros we were finally put out of our misery and told we were to split into two teams of seven and have a yacht race out on the harbour against each other.

On a regular Auckland day it would be a bit of a gamble with the weather but we struck lucky being blessed with clear blue skies for the afternoon. It was even almost too hot sitting in the cockpit of the boat as our instructors gave us the mandatory safety lesson. As we soon discovered though the wind on the harbour was almost non existent which made for an interesting afternoon since wind tends to be an integral part of yacht racing! Funny that.

Basically our afternoon was spent bobbing around the harbour for two hours trying to get enough speed up to race around a yellow buoy. The problem being that it seemed to only get further away the longer we stayed out there as I swear we were going backwards at times.

Being a team building event you would assume that the teams would work together to maneuver the yacht and hopefully win the race. Our team didn’t seem to take to this idea too well though. I actually think I didn’t touch a rope or winch the whole time we were onboard and I know I wasn't the alone there either. It soon became clear what the females main objective onboard was - to maintain maximum sun exposure to themselves throughout the "race". I even took to swapping sides every time we tacked so that the sail wouldn’t block my precious sunrays. I know, what a girl! In saying that, the guys weren’t much better. We kept joking that if only we had known we were going sailing and we could have brought along the champagne and beers. No matter, it turned out there was more than enough drinking post racing.

Eventually we got the call from the other boat to say should we give up so on came the motor and we headed toward the buoy. The motor was turned off to make our way around the buoy before heading back. Team two didn’t manage to maneuver around the buoy which made for plenty of debate as to who should win the trophy. A.) The team who used the motor to assist temporarily during the race but got around the buoy or B.) the team who didn’t use their motor to assist but never got around the buoy. I think it will be an endless argument, well between those who actually cared about winning anyway.

A few after race drinks in the viaduct somehow turned into several with a bunch of us enjoying the clear, surprisingly balmy evening for a solid 5 hours or so. Once again chatty Tui was out to play which can be a little dangerous while drinking with bosses who don’t know about my travels. Thankfully I managed to keep my mouth shut at all the appropriate times so as to not give myself away. It was not an easy feat I must say!

Bring on the next team building event if it is going to be anything like cruising the harbour followed by hours of drinking in the viaduct…

Vegas, baby!

When I said to people I was going to Rotorua with my parents I don't think they had any idea of what kind of weekend I had in store.

What better way to start of the weekend by polishing off the $50 bar tab I won at the Carpark bar a few weeks prior, not to mention the Jager shots we won from fortune cookies handed out while there. Chatty Tui was definitely out in full force when it came time to be picked up from the bar by the parents.

After some unsuccessful drunken attempts at taking a photo of the full moon and amazingly not needing a toilet stop before then, we made a much needed wine and dine stop at Matamata’s Workmans café. It has received best café in the country by Café Magazine and upon entering the café was immediately apparent why. The interior has been decorated with an assortment of collections including; fire brush sets, retro humour postcards, 1950’s mirrors, greeting cards, retro wall statues of African women, freestanding ashtrays, transistor radios, matching retro tables and chairs and not forgetting the coffin and sequined up mannequin thrown in for good measure. Singly the collections are all very kitch but as a complete scene it makes for a fun and quirky place that is not what you would expect to find in a small NZ town. To top it off one of the male waiters there was extremely “decorative”, as my parents put it, and was also personality plus. I couldn't help but give him a coy smile and wave before we headed off on our final leg of the trip (oh and the food was great too!).

We awoke bright and early on Saturday morning to find that it was a cracker day outside. Off mountain biking we went. Mum took me inside St Faith’s Church along the way and announced that it was her “favourite church in the world”, which coming from her, is a pretty big statement as she is a fairly seasoned traveler. I could see why though upon walking inside. The church has a very prominent Maori theme with all the woodwork inside being carved into Maori designs and the stained glass windows displaying Maori motifs and New Zealand summer scenes. The stand out feature of the church is the window with an etching of Jesus wearing a Maori cloak and is positioned so that he appears to be walking on the water of Lake Rotorua which is behind the window (symbolizing Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee). Anyway, that’s more than enough about godly matters.

Our ride began with a 9km cruise around lake Rotorua. As mum said it was “so surreal” riding along pathways through scrub before emerging onto boardwalks that wound their way through sulphurous pools steaming like a hot, grey, stinky soup. The next 10km were spent exploring the mountain bike trails of the Redwood forest – thankfully we didn't come across any dead bodies though. The final 9km was some more cruising back along the lakefront, where we returned to our hostel at Kiwi Paka. Due to my mum being the fitness freak that she is, she decided that 28km of riding wasn't quite enough exercise for the day, meaning a 10km walk through the Redwoods was next on the list.

We had definitely earnt a drink after that effort, and drink we did! A bit of a bar hop ensued before heading home to the bar at Kiwi Paka for a night cap. Somehow I was suddenly downing a Rotorua version of the Jager bomb (lift + Jagermeister, not as bad as it sounds I must say!) and having my photo taken with the people who’d supplied me with the drink. The guy who had given me the drink didn't take to well to me asking him why a local would want to hang out in a youth hostel though so I escaped to hang with my parents.

I was pleased I made the escape as I sat down in time to witness one particular young fellow put on a great show for us. He was sitting in the corner of the bar by himself and proceeded to make heart pumping movements, stroking his forearms and making his arms do the "snake". This was just a few of his wide range of extremely entertaining hand and arm gestures that he performed (all while seated) in what was possibly his own sort of interpretive hip hop dance? Luckily he was so caught up in practising his "moves" he was completely oblivious to Mum and myself in hysterics.

I don’t even know where to begin with Sunday except to say that it was one of the hardest days physically that I have had in a long time. It was up there with doing the Tongariro crossing (9 hours of scaling a mountain side). I must say though that the scenery was magnificent, riding through native bush alongside the blue and green lakes is a pretty amazing experience. It was just a shame that I was so focused on being able to breathe and having enough energy to make it up the next hill that I didn't take as much of it in as I would have liked. 34km along a tar sealed road isn't very much but 34km of up, down, up, down along mountain bike tracks is another story. Some of the ups were so uppy that it was physically impossible to make it up without having to get off and push and some of the downs so steep that I had to squeeze both my front and back brakes for dear life so as to prevent myself from becoming another Redwoods casualty. Aside from the moments where I was fight back tears of exhaustion and was screaming “FUCK YOU mum and dad for doing this to me” in my head over and over again, it was actually an amazing ride that, without a doubt, included some of the best tracks I've ridden on to date.

So that was it. 62km of riding, 10km of walking, eating delicious food and drinking delicious wine about sums up how my weekend away in Rotovegas with my parents was spent. There was plenty of laughs had, mostly at my nutty mother (not forgetting hip hop boy though) and maybe one sneaky tear of exhaustion, which I would never concede to mum and dad of course!

Good times with the olds... Not many can say that now can they.

Inspiration

This is a bit of a prelude to my next post.

As you might be able to tell I'm into two things at the moment, travel and writing. Naturally this has led me to become inspired to start writing more in depth when it comes to my travels. Obviously I will be able to submerge myself into this a lot more once I head off overseas but till then you are all stuck with reading about my sporadic travel within NZ.

Where this has all spawned from I guess is that I've begun reading Erik R. Trinidad's blog about his trip around the world, which I've found really interesting and a good way to kill some time during down time at work. I'm aiming to have a similar sort of format to him by having a daily entry and photo of the day, will see how long that lasts once I'm actually there though!

Apologies in advance if it's a bit boring and shite for you to read but is really more of an online journal for me (for now at least). Fingers crossed I'll eventually get into the travel writing groove though and it might actually become entertaining for you!

Fortunate Flatting

I've been thinking a lot lately about how fortunate I am that Duncan decided I was good enough to make the cut to move into Brown Street.

The thought of flatting again terrified me. I had had a bad experience living with a friend, who became a friend no more after about nine months of living together. Due to this experience I decided I hated flatting and never wanted to do it again. Ever. Well, a few years later circumstances eventually forced me to have to look for a flat and so the flat hunting begun. The first flat I visited the couple were the playboy bunny type, you know the ones... the girl is a bleached blonde with regrowth, wears lots of pink and the boyfriend wears white singlets, flat peaked caps and is into cars (gross generalisations here). Knowing living there wouldn't be for me I politely declined the room. The second flat I went to I met a kind of shy, giggly (quite cute) guy drinking a macs beer (promising!) and he showed me around their cute villa. I liked it and told him so but didn't spend too much time talking about myself as I tend to feel awkward and clam up in situations where I'm meant to "sell myself".

Well that giggly guy was Duncan and after me being sure I wasn't going to get it, I received a call a few days later from him offering me the spot in their flat. I now know I was actually pretty lucky to have managed to get the room for a number of reasons, a.) they offered it to someone else first(!!!), b.) I barely talked about myself when I came to look at the place (I discovered while we were looking for a new flattie that they don't like that at all) and c.) Celine and Neha didn't even get to meet me, so they had to rely solely on Duncan's judgement of me.

Aside from the obvious plus of our flat having such a sweet location, the best part about having moved in there is the people. Having never been to varsity, I'd never really had the opportunity to meet any new people since leaving high school but I struck lucky and found a flat of strangers that turned out to be cool, like minded people who I can now call good friends. I've also met a heap of new people through my flatties (mostly Duncan), all of whom I get along with well, some very well (you know who you are), and some too well! It's made for lots of great times over the last eight months and a very welcome change from the same crowd I'd been hanging around with for far too long and was in desperate need of moving on from.

So I think I owe some thanks to Duncan... for suggesting me as an option for the flat, for being a cool flatmate, for introducing me to all your awesome friends and girlfriend and last but not least, for introducing me to d'n'b!

It is going to be sad day for me when I have to leave you guys at Brown in only a few months time.

The Brownies - Celine, Tui, Duncan & Laura

Update: Ideal Job

Since writing the blog post 'Ideal Job' (see here) I continued to think about this and realised what my ideal/dream job would in fact be. It is still within the realms of Media and Journalism too which is promising! So, I would love, love, love to be a travel show host. I'm actually having to wipe away drool just at the thought of it.

Now I am aware that there is quite a high likelihood that it's not nearly as glamourous as it appears when they are on television, but I do still think that it would be an amazing job. I cannot think of anything better than being paid to travel the world and pass on your experiences to your fellow citizens back home. The only con I can think of would be that you would be away from home a lot, even though this doesn't really bother me right now, I guess it could pose problems later on. Meh.

In my original 'Ideal Job' post I mentioned getting ideal monetary return in balance with job satisfaction. Now, in my books being PAID to be flown around the world and experiencing the local culture and different activities locations have to offer gives a pretty ideal job satisfaction/ideal monetary return ratio. I mean shit, people (including myself) generally SPEND their money doing these things, not get paid for it.

My problem is that I need to stop being such a lazy ass and actually start taking steps to reach a goal of mine... watch this space.

Precognition

My Mum once told me (the precise details are a little hazy) that when I was a baby a family friend of ours was holding me and he said something along the lines of "this girl is going to have augur type abilities." I know it sounds ridiculous and I thought so too when she told me (and my mum being as much of a sceptic as me wouldn't have taken it to be true either).

Anyway, lately I've begin to wonder! No way do I think I can predict the future or any bullshit like that, but over the years quite a few things have occurred that I'd just known were going to happen. I'm aware that I probably sound like a raving lunatic about now, but it is seriously starting to creep me out (stop rolling your eyes Duncan). There's the old txting someone at exactly the same that they txt me that is at one end of the scale then there is the knowing what someone is going to say before they are going to say it and then, what really scares me the most, is when I dream things are going to happen before they do.

I suppose it all could just be some sort of weird coincidence each time it has happened but the frequency in which these things happen is what makes me wonder.

What the HELL, just now I was looking up something on Answers.com and then there was a link saying "are you a psychic?". So of course I clicked on it and whadda ya know, the test result is shown in the screen print below....

I rest my case.

Five boys and a Tui

Going to the mountain with five boys, only two of whom I knew, was quite a scary thought. But to my delight, it turned out to be quite a treat.

It was insisted that I sit in the front seat for the whole drive down where I was handed cold Corona's and toilet stops were only given upon my requests. When we finally made it to where we were staying, rock paper scissors was played for one of the double beds and the other left for me. I was woken up at 6am on Saturday morning to "Tui, breakfast is ready", whereupon I stumbled downstairs to find a full cooked breakfast laid out on the table ready to eat. Up the mountain they would all check to see if I was ok when I bailed and then wait for me after each run. The cherry on top was when we were out at the bar that night and I was being hit on by an extremely drunk snowboard instructor, where my bodyguards looked on and discussed giving him a beating before deciding to come and escort me away from him. Aw, bless.

I always knew that I find it easier to get along with guys but holidaying with guys is so, so easy! I guess it's because there is no competition being the only girl and providing they are decent enough guys, they will look out for you. Sorry to all my girlfriends, but think I might have to make it a habit of mine to only holiday with boys from now on! Mind you, can you really blame me after getting royal treatment like that?!