Sydney Life

Given my recent absence from the University of Sydney Blog-o-sphere, you would be forgiven for thinking I had fallen down the same hole as the global economy. Thankfully, old blogging habits Die Hard, and like Bruce Willis in 1995, I’m Back With a Vengeance. However, like Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4, I haven’t done this in a while, and this will most likely be a bomb.

So why, you won’t be asking yourselves, haven’t I written a blog in so long? Well let me answer my own hypothetical, rhetorical and nonsensical question with another question. Shut up.

The reason, if you really must know, why I haven’t written a blog in what seems like an age (incidentally, I’m nineteen, which is also an age… coincidence? I think NOT!) is because on September the first, a man in Vienna was hit in the face with a large fish, and this set off such an extraordinary sequence of events that if I were to begin to even attempt to explain to you all, you would all face a choice between having your heads explode, or accusing me of lying through my teeth and speaking out of various unusual parts of my anatomy about a bunch of things that never really happened in order to create dramatic effect. To save you having to make this choice, I will just say that this extraordinary sequence of events led to what supporters of Creationism might argue is less likely than Darwin’s grandmother being a great ape (although I hear she made a great “frail old lady”).

So what exactly is this hugely unlikely occurrence?

I got a job.

Me.

A real job.

Not just any old job, though.

A crap one.

Well, some might say it is crap. I on the other hand, think it is great.

I sort mail five days a week from 5:30am until 9:00am, and 10 on Mondays because the mail never stops, even though on the weekends and public holidays, we do.

So why do I think a job that most people would consider Hell on Earth is so good?

Well here are seven reasons, which you should also consider if you are trying to find a job while you’re at uni.

1. Location: The Post Office I work at is literally 2 minutes walk down the hill from where I live. This means I spend no money and virtually no time getting to and from work. If you have to travel a way to your job, be mindful of the weekly cost of getting to and from work, because that will usually eat into your pay without you really even thinking about it.
2. Hours: Although this may seem like a negative, the hours I work mean that by 9am, I’ve made 50 bucks more than you have, and my work is done for the day. So there. It’s important to find a job that fits well with your uni schedule, because you don’t want to be in a situation where you have to start missing certain lectures or even days of uni every week to do your work.
3. Days: Some of the most common jobs for students are in hospitality, such as bar work or serving tables at cafés and restaurants. This can often mean you’re working on the weekends, and this sucks. However, it’s not impossible to get work during the week, especially at places like bookshops, video stores or after-school care, so make sure you look around before you accept any work with less than ideal shifts.
4. Pay: My pay is the minimum my boss is required to pay me, but it is by no means the minimum I could be earning if I were at, say, a cinema, where the basic rate is about 12 bucks an hour, which is, quite frankly, redonkulus. That’s right, redonkulus. I also get superannuation, and after six months I get sick pay. I get paid to be sick! Awesome.
5. Difficulty: A wise man once said something I don’t really remember, but the basic gist of it was that let a lying dog sleep or something, and that mail sorting isn’t that hard. If you can make money doing something that isn’t too taxing, you’ll free up head space for all that aeronautical engineering I’ve heard you’re into (I have truly excellent hearing). You don’t want to be doing a job that takes up so much of your time and effort that you can’t do uni and your job at the same time, because one of them will suffer, and last time I checked, which was yesterday, the study and use of Newton’s laws to calculate the velocity and trajectory of flying objects of the Indentified and Unidentified variety doesn’t pay the bills, so it is likely that your uni work will suffer. Remember, School is Cool. I just lost cool points for saying that.
6. Boss: Having a good boss is important, because it just makes things easier. At the risk of sounding like a concerned mother, there are people out there who take advantage of young people. Read anything you have to sign, don’t be forced into doing any work before you’ve worked out payment and working conditions, and make sure you ask a lot of questions at the end of your job interview about anything you might be unclear about.
7. Co-workers: These are the people who most often make a job bearable, or if you’re unlucky, completely unbearable, so getting a job with a friend is great if you can get it. If not, try and be friendly yourself, at least until you’ve sussed out who the weirdos are.

If you’re looking for a place to find a job, the University of Sydney has a great webpage with lots of links to different websites like Seek and CareerOne all in the one place.
Go here:

http://www.careers.usyd.edu.au/students/resources/jobvacancy_australia.shtml

If you’re an international student, The University Careers Centre has a webpage specifically for Overseas students to find work:

http://www.careers.usyd.edu.au/students/international/index.shtml

If you come to Usyd and you get your unikey and your personalised web account, you will find that down the left hand side of your home page there is also a link to a Casual Employment Database, which is updated with job ads looking for students on an almost daily basis, and this is another good resource.

Happy hunting, and make sure we’re all BARACKING for Obama, otherwise the financial crisis as it is now will PAILIN comparison to what finding a job might be like if America disappoints AGAIN with McCAIN! I for one, am sick of Biden my time. Ok, that last one was horrible and quite frankly untrue, but they were all pretty bad.

Anyway, good luck and I’ll be back soon, I swear.