For my last night in Bali I was a solo traveller once again. Usually that circumstance means I go to a local bar or restaurant and try to be friendly with some people who might turn into my friends for the next three days or so. This is the 20-questions game solo travellers play, which is a) unavoidable, b) uninteresting and c) unnoying (play on words, win!). So I decided not to do that, and I treated myself to a 20 dollar three course meal, and wallowed in my anxiety about heading to a first-world, western country for the first time in one year.
These sorts of anxieties are pretty normal while traveling, especially when crossing borders and hopping between very different cultures. But OZ would have a few new circumstances: First, I would no longer be a celebrity among the locals (either for money, hair color or eye color), the cost of living would be much higher so I'd definitely have to find a job for the first time in over a year, and since I was flying for the first time since leaving South Korea, I was thinking of my family and friends from home, who I'd love to see if only for a week or two.
So I was glad that I had a friend picking me up from the airport in Perth. My plane took off at 2am, and I arrived around 5:40am without sleeping the entire flight. Morose and exhausted I waited through immigration and customs, expecting to get interrogated -- at least in comparison to the border "control" process in Southeast Asia -- but it was a breeze except for the amount of time I spent queuing (aka "waiting in line" for any Americans reading).
As I emerged, I saw my friend Chris waiting at the gate with a coffee and already Perth felt a little more homely than I imagined it a few hours before. She gave me a drive-by tour of Perth on our way to her house in North Fremantle, where I got a small cot on a wood floor -- as good as any Asian hostel. Then she helped me figure out the train into the city and I got a SIM card. Then I worked on my resume and looked for jobs and apartments in Perth. A few more days passed and I managed to open a bank account, apply for a tax file number, and get a metro card (I guess that isn't exceptional), and damn, I'm basically mayor now.
In the few days that it took me to write my resume, I decided that I wanted to live somewhere on the Fremantle train line where it is easy to get into the city while still living in a suburban area. I wasn't inclined to push myself too hard in doing this and to be honest, the thought of working again seemed daunting. I've become accustom to my available free time during the day being basically 100%, but a job would probably push it down to meager 40%. *Sigh* I tried to procrastinate, but one day Chris force marched me on a parallel path to the train line while pointing out all the decent restaurants, shops and stores for where I should/must hand in my resume. Did I wear out my welcome already? (Actually, she told me she masochistically used to do this to her younger brother, and enjoyed the same enjoyment with me out of nostalgia).
The last place I walked into was a posh seaside restaurant called The Naked Fig. A head chef of a sister restaurant, The Pickled Fig, interviewed me and told me he was looking for a "kitchen hand" to fill in odd jobs inside his kitchen and develop as a chef. That sounded pretty cool. They were desperate, since they were understaffed and their staff overworked, so they asked if I could start the next day. Sure.
I got a ride to the restaurant from the head chef. When I asked him what is in store for the day, he told me, "Basically, just roll with it." In the kitchen I meet two other chefs finishing up cooking and serving the lunch and breakfast shift, and in another part of the kitchen, a pile of dishes, cutlery, pots and pans the size of a small elephant. As the head chef left me standing in the kitchen uninstructed, I felt a strong sense that I should "roll" into cleaning the dishes. Fortunately, the dishwasher was recently repaired, so I assured myself I'd make quick work of it and then I could work on the "kitchen" part of my training. But the dishwasher stopped functioning on wash number two, and thus began the time consuming and zen-like art of hand washing.
Flashback: I once spent an high school summer at the Dune's Restaurant in Rye, NH washing dishes. Half of that time the dishwasher didn't work at all, and the other half it only worked as a steam sanitizer. That was a miserable job. Revert to present.
Somewhere in the first half hour of cleaning dishes at the Pickled Fig, I remembered how much I hated that job in Rye: how my feet always hurt from standing all day, my back hurt from leaning over a sink for 10+ hours a shift, my hands always pruned and swollen, or dry and cracked afterward, and how I never had an evening or Friday/Saturday free since the weekends are the biggest nights. I saw all things fun in Perth being squandered by this job for the next few months, and it replayed in my mind a few times and I shuttered.
It took me one hour to conclude that kitchen work, especially a glorified dishwasher / "kitchen hand", is not worth the hard work in relation to its pay -- at least for me. I didn't go to college and get a 150K degree that says I'm a chemical engineer to work hard as a dishwasher and get paid jack. If I'm going to work hard, I'm going to do it as a chemical engineer and get paid for it. At the end of the second hour, I told this to my boss without any malice. I said I'd finish the shift and for a free meal and a ride home, I'd call it even.
That's pretty much what happened. At the end of the night, around 1am, the manager said he appreciated the hard work I put in especially without a dish washing machine, and appreciated my honesty about not staying on, and he wanted to pay me my wages in appreciation. So my first job in Perth lasted 12 hours but I learned something which will help me narrow down my job search in Perth in the future: Find a job that is easy and pays jack.
One final point to share. The head chef kept talking about food as being sexy, which I just don't get and usually apply a whole different set of adjectives to the subject (except for "hot"), but he made some delicious food that I had a chance to sample. He told me a few of the recipes and here are the two that I intend to try sometime in the future. He made a "honeycomb" (which is basically carmelized sugar, maple syrup and baking soda, causing the carmel to foam up before it solidifies) which he put into the center of a chocolate souffle. For our dinner, he made sandwiches with slices of a cheap cut of braised beef topped with an English mustard-mayo on artisan bread. It terms of the meat alone, it may have been the best beef sandwich I've ever tasted.
These sorts of anxieties are pretty normal while traveling, especially when crossing borders and hopping between very different cultures. But OZ would have a few new circumstances: First, I would no longer be a celebrity among the locals (either for money, hair color or eye color), the cost of living would be much higher so I'd definitely have to find a job for the first time in over a year, and since I was flying for the first time since leaving South Korea, I was thinking of my family and friends from home, who I'd love to see if only for a week or two.
So I was glad that I had a friend picking me up from the airport in Perth. My plane took off at 2am, and I arrived around 5:40am without sleeping the entire flight. Morose and exhausted I waited through immigration and customs, expecting to get interrogated -- at least in comparison to the border "control" process in Southeast Asia -- but it was a breeze except for the amount of time I spent queuing (aka "waiting in line" for any Americans reading).
As I emerged, I saw my friend Chris waiting at the gate with a coffee and already Perth felt a little more homely than I imagined it a few hours before. She gave me a drive-by tour of Perth on our way to her house in North Fremantle, where I got a small cot on a wood floor -- as good as any Asian hostel. Then she helped me figure out the train into the city and I got a SIM card. Then I worked on my resume and looked for jobs and apartments in Perth. A few more days passed and I managed to open a bank account, apply for a tax file number, and get a metro card (I guess that isn't exceptional), and damn, I'm basically mayor now.
In the few days that it took me to write my resume, I decided that I wanted to live somewhere on the Fremantle train line where it is easy to get into the city while still living in a suburban area. I wasn't inclined to push myself too hard in doing this and to be honest, the thought of working again seemed daunting. I've become accustom to my available free time during the day being basically 100%, but a job would probably push it down to meager 40%. *Sigh* I tried to procrastinate, but one day Chris force marched me on a parallel path to the train line while pointing out all the decent restaurants, shops and stores for where I should/must hand in my resume. Did I wear out my welcome already? (Actually, she told me she masochistically used to do this to her younger brother, and enjoyed the same enjoyment with me out of nostalgia).
The last place I walked into was a posh seaside restaurant called The Naked Fig. A head chef of a sister restaurant, The Pickled Fig, interviewed me and told me he was looking for a "kitchen hand" to fill in odd jobs inside his kitchen and develop as a chef. That sounded pretty cool. They were desperate, since they were understaffed and their staff overworked, so they asked if I could start the next day. Sure.
I got a ride to the restaurant from the head chef. When I asked him what is in store for the day, he told me, "Basically, just roll with it." In the kitchen I meet two other chefs finishing up cooking and serving the lunch and breakfast shift, and in another part of the kitchen, a pile of dishes, cutlery, pots and pans the size of a small elephant. As the head chef left me standing in the kitchen uninstructed, I felt a strong sense that I should "roll" into cleaning the dishes. Fortunately, the dishwasher was recently repaired, so I assured myself I'd make quick work of it and then I could work on the "kitchen" part of my training. But the dishwasher stopped functioning on wash number two, and thus began the time consuming and zen-like art of hand washing.
Flashback: I once spent an high school summer at the Dune's Restaurant in Rye, NH washing dishes. Half of that time the dishwasher didn't work at all, and the other half it only worked as a steam sanitizer. That was a miserable job. Revert to present.
Somewhere in the first half hour of cleaning dishes at the Pickled Fig, I remembered how much I hated that job in Rye: how my feet always hurt from standing all day, my back hurt from leaning over a sink for 10+ hours a shift, my hands always pruned and swollen, or dry and cracked afterward, and how I never had an evening or Friday/Saturday free since the weekends are the biggest nights. I saw all things fun in Perth being squandered by this job for the next few months, and it replayed in my mind a few times and I shuttered.
It took me one hour to conclude that kitchen work, especially a glorified dishwasher / "kitchen hand", is not worth the hard work in relation to its pay -- at least for me. I didn't go to college and get a 150K degree that says I'm a chemical engineer to work hard as a dishwasher and get paid jack. If I'm going to work hard, I'm going to do it as a chemical engineer and get paid for it. At the end of the second hour, I told this to my boss without any malice. I said I'd finish the shift and for a free meal and a ride home, I'd call it even.
That's pretty much what happened. At the end of the night, around 1am, the manager said he appreciated the hard work I put in especially without a dish washing machine, and appreciated my honesty about not staying on, and he wanted to pay me my wages in appreciation. So my first job in Perth lasted 12 hours but I learned something which will help me narrow down my job search in Perth in the future: Find a job that is easy and pays jack.
One final point to share. The head chef kept talking about food as being sexy, which I just don't get and usually apply a whole different set of adjectives to the subject (except for "hot"), but he made some delicious food that I had a chance to sample. He told me a few of the recipes and here are the two that I intend to try sometime in the future. He made a "honeycomb" (which is basically carmelized sugar, maple syrup and baking soda, causing the carmel to foam up before it solidifies) which he put into the center of a chocolate souffle. For our dinner, he made sandwiches with slices of a cheap cut of braised beef topped with an English mustard-mayo on artisan bread. It terms of the meat alone, it may have been the best beef sandwich I've ever tasted.
Haha nice one Adam! Good luck over there. Greetings from the Netherlands: it's back to the college benches for us!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Tim and Bram