And in answer to your questions, the new house is in Holder, but I know not what it is like, as I have not yet viewed it.
Dale is working part time in a supermarket and secretly seeing a recruitment agency on the side.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Hi ho hi ho
Today was my first day at work - actual work that is, rather than sitting around being talked at work. Unfortunately, I can't actually do any work until I learn M204 (crazy old database system that nobody uses except Centrelink and the NSA - and anybody else who wants an incredibly hardcore database that SQL can't cope with). Luckily Centrelink is sending me on a course (or three) so that I can learn said crazy database system, but not until September.
I did get a mug though. Complete with minties, fantails, a Tim Tam and the necessary ingredients for a cup of coffee or tea and a glass of Milo minus the milk. I also got STATIONERY. Like you would not believe. I have paper clips, staples, bull dog clips, funny paper clippy things, two different kinds of sticky tape, post it notes, three colours of pens, a pencil, a rubber, a sharpener, a ruler, sticky note things for marking your place, an in tray, a notepad, a hole punch and a desk calendar - with daily quotes.
Unfortunately, I do not have anything to do at work. I tried reading the ISIS Survival Guide, but, I am afraid to say, had my life depended on said Survival Guide I would not now be blogging away for your entertainment. The hour after lunch was almost my undoing - I suspect that falling asleep on your first day at work is frowned upon, even in the public service.
It's not my fault I was so tired though - I went to bed early last night, after a BBQ and a quiet game of Monopoly with me and seven of my new friends.
I have some pictures that I feel would enhance this missive, but, alas, the cable for my phone is in storage.
Until next time.
I did get a mug though. Complete with minties, fantails, a Tim Tam and the necessary ingredients for a cup of coffee or tea and a glass of Milo minus the milk. I also got STATIONERY. Like you would not believe. I have paper clips, staples, bull dog clips, funny paper clippy things, two different kinds of sticky tape, post it notes, three colours of pens, a pencil, a rubber, a sharpener, a ruler, sticky note things for marking your place, an in tray, a notepad, a hole punch and a desk calendar - with daily quotes.
Unfortunately, I do not have anything to do at work. I tried reading the ISIS Survival Guide, but, I am afraid to say, had my life depended on said Survival Guide I would not now be blogging away for your entertainment. The hour after lunch was almost my undoing - I suspect that falling asleep on your first day at work is frowned upon, even in the public service.
It's not my fault I was so tired though - I went to bed early last night, after a BBQ and a quiet game of Monopoly with me and seven of my new friends.
I have some pictures that I feel would enhance this missive, but, alas, the cable for my phone is in storage.
Until next time.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Another hard day at work
Today I got to work at 9:00. We had a mentoring workshop this morning, which basically involved an old lady and an old man talking crap. "If your mentor doesn't have time to have meetings with you, what should you do?" Apparently "get another mentor" is not the appropriate answer.
I tired of this game quite quickly, so at 10:30 (I waited for morning tea) I skipped out to go and look at a house. I then spent the next three hours getting lost, trying to find Dale's work (in Ainslie, for those playing along at home) to get him to fill in the application form, then trying to find the next house to inspect (somewhere near Kingston), back to the real estate (Tuggeranong) to hand in the application form and finally back to Parliament House. The next hour or so was spent wandering around Parliament House. The grass is all a funny green colour (not yellow like it should be), and soft, but we decided that it wouldn't be appropriate for employees of the Australian Public Service to go rolling down the hill while at work. Also there was a man guarding said hill.
We finished the day off by driving past all the foreign embassies and a trip up Mt Ainslie to see all of Canberra at once. I was a proper tourist and took a photo. The embassies were most amusing. The American Embassy is about three times the size of any other embassy (think they're compensating for something?), the Embassy of Iran is just a vacant lot with trees and the Canadian Embassy had a man dressed up as a mouse on a scooter out the front.
Are you satisfied with how your tax dollars are being used?
In other (good) news, we seem to have a house to live in. In case you're not up with what's happened, the rental market in Canberra is horrible at the moment (unless you happen to own a rental property). The situation was not improved by the arrival of 45 Centrelink IT graduates two weeks ago. Dale, quite cleverly, found an out of the way real estate, with minimal online advertising to increase our chances of being the only applicants to apply for a house. This was all going quite well, until it turned out that one of our previous real estates had black listed us. It just so happens that we took this real estate to the small claims tribunal and won. Also they were crap. The Canberra real estate wasn't willing to just take our word on the situation (apparently the Brisbane real estate told a different story). Instead they asked us for a list of all the other real estates we've rented through in the last couple of years and rang them all. They must have all said nice things because today the real estate rang back to tell us we had a house. Which is nice - I was beginning to think I was the only Centrelink grad left without one, and we only have one more week of free accomodation left.
And finally, something freaky. This afternoon, I left my car (a white Holden Barina) in the car park downstairs. When I came back, it had multiplied (ie another white Holden Barina had parked next to it). Closer inspection revealed that this second car was also toting Queensland plates (although the unfashionable maroon ones, whereas mine has stylish green). Closest inspection of all revealed that the car was bought at Ross Lewellyn (or possibly some other combinations of l's) Motors in Ipswich - the exact same car yard that mine was purchased at. Ah, a little bit of Brisbane, right here in Canberra...
I tired of this game quite quickly, so at 10:30 (I waited for morning tea) I skipped out to go and look at a house. I then spent the next three hours getting lost, trying to find Dale's work (in Ainslie, for those playing along at home) to get him to fill in the application form, then trying to find the next house to inspect (somewhere near Kingston), back to the real estate (Tuggeranong) to hand in the application form and finally back to Parliament House. The next hour or so was spent wandering around Parliament House. The grass is all a funny green colour (not yellow like it should be), and soft, but we decided that it wouldn't be appropriate for employees of the Australian Public Service to go rolling down the hill while at work. Also there was a man guarding said hill.
We finished the day off by driving past all the foreign embassies and a trip up Mt Ainslie to see all of Canberra at once. I was a proper tourist and took a photo. The embassies were most amusing. The American Embassy is about three times the size of any other embassy (think they're compensating for something?), the Embassy of Iran is just a vacant lot with trees and the Canadian Embassy had a man dressed up as a mouse on a scooter out the front.
Are you satisfied with how your tax dollars are being used?
In other (good) news, we seem to have a house to live in. In case you're not up with what's happened, the rental market in Canberra is horrible at the moment (unless you happen to own a rental property). The situation was not improved by the arrival of 45 Centrelink IT graduates two weeks ago. Dale, quite cleverly, found an out of the way real estate, with minimal online advertising to increase our chances of being the only applicants to apply for a house. This was all going quite well, until it turned out that one of our previous real estates had black listed us. It just so happens that we took this real estate to the small claims tribunal and won. Also they were crap. The Canberra real estate wasn't willing to just take our word on the situation (apparently the Brisbane real estate told a different story). Instead they asked us for a list of all the other real estates we've rented through in the last couple of years and rang them all. They must have all said nice things because today the real estate rang back to tell us we had a house. Which is nice - I was beginning to think I was the only Centrelink grad left without one, and we only have one more week of free accomodation left.
And finally, something freaky. This afternoon, I left my car (a white Holden Barina) in the car park downstairs. When I came back, it had multiplied (ie another white Holden Barina had parked next to it). Closer inspection revealed that this second car was also toting Queensland plates (although the unfashionable maroon ones, whereas mine has stylish green). Closest inspection of all revealed that the car was bought at Ross Lewellyn (or possibly some other combinations of l's) Motors in Ipswich - the exact same car yard that mine was purchased at. Ah, a little bit of Brisbane, right here in Canberra...
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Canberra, Week One
So, it's the end of my first week in Canberra. If I had to pick one word to describe my experiences this week, I'm afraid I would have to go with bor-ing (although I do expect things to improve at some stage).
Monday was my first day at work. Or, more precisely, my first day of a two week orientation program. We had a couple of important type people come and say hello and met our team leaders. I'm one of three new grads in my team, but the other two don't arrive until next week, so I'll be way ahead of them for the first two weeks. There's also a few grads from previous years in the team, so I'll have someone to go running too who'll understand what I'm going through. We'll be doing fraud investigation - or rather, writing the software that does the fraud investigation - so if you've lied to Centrelink, I will catch you.
We also got our security passes and name badges on Monday and I've still got mine (ie I haven't lost either permanently yet). While the security passes were being sorted out, we also had a tour of the Data Centre and BTV. The Data Centre is where all the mainframes and servers and stuff that Centrelink uses are. The lady doing the tour was super excited about it all, but as far as I'm concerned it was just a bunch of different coloured boxes - purple for Sun Microsystems, black for IBM, grey for everything else. BTV is Centrelink's TV studio from which they broadcast via satellite into Centrelink offices around Australia. Mum once starred in one of their productions.
Monday afternoon we met with My Mate Jeff (aka Jeff Whalen, the CEO of Centrelink). He gave us lots of good advice, like "get enough sleep" and "work hard, party hard". He also promised us things he couldn't deliver on, but all in good spirit.
Tuesday we met some of the previous grads and got some more helpful advice, and then had lectures on topics such as Security, Privacy and Fraud and Workforce Planning. One thing I'm beginning to notice about these lectures is that, regardless of the title, they all seem to contain similar information - Centrelink is big, Centrelink is important, the way Centrelink does things is the best way and Centrelink watches everything its employees does, so don't screw up.
For some reason, Tuesday also contained a lecture about our AWAs (Australian Workplace Agreements), which was not very informative because the lady basically just stood up and read it, and also wasn't very helpful as we'd all signed one a month earlier. Too late to read it now.
Tuesday night, Dale and I went out for dinner with Brigid. It turns out there are Chinese food shops in Canberra - we went to a noodle place at Manuka, which would have been quite tasty except that I wasn't feeling very well.
Wednesday was more lectures from people who for some reason believe that a talk on, say, Welfare to Work should begin with a summary of their life so far. The best bit about Wednesday was that my car finally arrived, so Dale was able to go out looking for houses.
Thursday we had more talks, a visit to the library ("This is where the books are, and this is a computer, and here is the library assistant. That's all") and a visit from the Secretary of the Department of Human Services, which we all had to be on our best behaviour for. She was actually reasonably interesting, and the new Accesscard (or Australia Card) program looks fascinating. Apparently 25% of people with concession cards aren't entitled to them. I have two concession cards I'm not entitled to, so I wonder if I got counted twice?
On Friday morning we had one of the IT support people come in and talk about the IT systems, which was kind of amusing (in a really boring fashion) as nearly everyone in the room had a degree in IT (or something similar) and so had a much better idea of what he was talking about than he did. The highlight of Friday was going home early and putting in an application for a house.
And on Saturday we came to realise just how little there is to do in Canberra.
Monday was my first day at work. Or, more precisely, my first day of a two week orientation program. We had a couple of important type people come and say hello and met our team leaders. I'm one of three new grads in my team, but the other two don't arrive until next week, so I'll be way ahead of them for the first two weeks. There's also a few grads from previous years in the team, so I'll have someone to go running too who'll understand what I'm going through. We'll be doing fraud investigation - or rather, writing the software that does the fraud investigation - so if you've lied to Centrelink, I will catch you.
We also got our security passes and name badges on Monday and I've still got mine (ie I haven't lost either permanently yet). While the security passes were being sorted out, we also had a tour of the Data Centre and BTV. The Data Centre is where all the mainframes and servers and stuff that Centrelink uses are. The lady doing the tour was super excited about it all, but as far as I'm concerned it was just a bunch of different coloured boxes - purple for Sun Microsystems, black for IBM, grey for everything else. BTV is Centrelink's TV studio from which they broadcast via satellite into Centrelink offices around Australia. Mum once starred in one of their productions.
Monday afternoon we met with My Mate Jeff (aka Jeff Whalen, the CEO of Centrelink). He gave us lots of good advice, like "get enough sleep" and "work hard, party hard". He also promised us things he couldn't deliver on, but all in good spirit.
Tuesday we met some of the previous grads and got some more helpful advice, and then had lectures on topics such as Security, Privacy and Fraud and Workforce Planning. One thing I'm beginning to notice about these lectures is that, regardless of the title, they all seem to contain similar information - Centrelink is big, Centrelink is important, the way Centrelink does things is the best way and Centrelink watches everything its employees does, so don't screw up.
For some reason, Tuesday also contained a lecture about our AWAs (Australian Workplace Agreements), which was not very informative because the lady basically just stood up and read it, and also wasn't very helpful as we'd all signed one a month earlier. Too late to read it now.
Tuesday night, Dale and I went out for dinner with Brigid. It turns out there are Chinese food shops in Canberra - we went to a noodle place at Manuka, which would have been quite tasty except that I wasn't feeling very well.
Wednesday was more lectures from people who for some reason believe that a talk on, say, Welfare to Work should begin with a summary of their life so far. The best bit about Wednesday was that my car finally arrived, so Dale was able to go out looking for houses.
Thursday we had more talks, a visit to the library ("This is where the books are, and this is a computer, and here is the library assistant. That's all") and a visit from the Secretary of the Department of Human Services, which we all had to be on our best behaviour for. She was actually reasonably interesting, and the new Accesscard (or Australia Card) program looks fascinating. Apparently 25% of people with concession cards aren't entitled to them. I have two concession cards I'm not entitled to, so I wonder if I got counted twice?
On Friday morning we had one of the IT support people come in and talk about the IT systems, which was kind of amusing (in a really boring fashion) as nearly everyone in the room had a degree in IT (or something similar) and so had a much better idea of what he was talking about than he did. The highlight of Friday was going home early and putting in an application for a house.
And on Saturday we came to realise just how little there is to do in Canberra.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Here We Go...
So, we (D and I) arrived in Canberra yesterday afternoon. We flew down in a Qantas Dash. If you are not familiar with this particular aircraft, then lucky you. Imagine a rather cheap coach with wings. It had propellors! And no TV or free beer. Generally, the flight was icky.
Canberra though, is not icky. It's cold, in a casual kind of way - you just get the feeling that it's really not trying. Yes, the temperature in the middle of the day is colder than Brisbane in the middle of the night, but you know it could get a lot colder if it tried.
We met some of the people I'll be working with at dinner last night at the Italo-Australian club. We got stuck at the geek table though because I was too tired to try fighting for a place with the interesting looking people. They all laughed at me for wearing two pairs of gloves, but in turn I laughed at their primitive smoking laws (you can smoke inside), ridiculously expensive beer ($17 for six Extra Drys) and lack of Paul's milk. It turns out though that the beer and milk is just a local phenomena in Manuka (pronounced Mah-nu-ka apparently).
Manuka is just like South Bank, with lots of expensive food shops, clothes shops and pharmacies. Breakfast this morning cost us $50, but by god was it worth it. I was a little skeptical at first about a $15 sandwich, but what I got was a huge pile of salad with rashers of bacon, swiss cheese, a whole boiled egg and half an avocado, with two little slices of bread at the side. And the avocado was a whole heap nicer than any I've seen in Brisbane for quite a while. I think the kinds of fruit and vegies available in Canberra are going to suit my Victorian-bred taste buds. I never could bring myself to like all the tropical fruit so fashionable in Queensland (with the notable exception of pineapple).
For some reason, half of the trees here are dead. They have no leaves at all. The grass and all the little plants are green though (there are even flowers - you know the floopy soft looking kind that like to get watered regularly), except for big yellow patches that I'm guessing are frost bite or something. Apparently, ice just appears here out of the blue. You wake up in the morning and your car is covered in ice and the water in the radiator has frozen. I'll believe it when I see it.
And the last crazy tale with which I will regale you is that there doesn't seem to be an Asian food industry here. I've seen one Thai restaurant and one sushi shop which was closed. The sub-culture is more European, with Italian appearing to be the flavour of the day - we went to the Italo-Australian club last night and I've seen a couple of Italian restaurants, an Italian cultural centre and an Italian baby clothes shop - "Bamboozle - The boutique for bambini".
Alright, that's all for now. I'll keep you posted when we've actually done something - I start work on Monday and we get the car on Tuesday so next time I post I'll have actually moved more than a km from where we're living.
Canberra though, is not icky. It's cold, in a casual kind of way - you just get the feeling that it's really not trying. Yes, the temperature in the middle of the day is colder than Brisbane in the middle of the night, but you know it could get a lot colder if it tried.
We met some of the people I'll be working with at dinner last night at the Italo-Australian club. We got stuck at the geek table though because I was too tired to try fighting for a place with the interesting looking people. They all laughed at me for wearing two pairs of gloves, but in turn I laughed at their primitive smoking laws (you can smoke inside), ridiculously expensive beer ($17 for six Extra Drys) and lack of Paul's milk. It turns out though that the beer and milk is just a local phenomena in Manuka (pronounced Mah-nu-ka apparently).
Manuka is just like South Bank, with lots of expensive food shops, clothes shops and pharmacies. Breakfast this morning cost us $50, but by god was it worth it. I was a little skeptical at first about a $15 sandwich, but what I got was a huge pile of salad with rashers of bacon, swiss cheese, a whole boiled egg and half an avocado, with two little slices of bread at the side. And the avocado was a whole heap nicer than any I've seen in Brisbane for quite a while. I think the kinds of fruit and vegies available in Canberra are going to suit my Victorian-bred taste buds. I never could bring myself to like all the tropical fruit so fashionable in Queensland (with the notable exception of pineapple).
For some reason, half of the trees here are dead. They have no leaves at all. The grass and all the little plants are green though (there are even flowers - you know the floopy soft looking kind that like to get watered regularly), except for big yellow patches that I'm guessing are frost bite or something. Apparently, ice just appears here out of the blue. You wake up in the morning and your car is covered in ice and the water in the radiator has frozen. I'll believe it when I see it.
And the last crazy tale with which I will regale you is that there doesn't seem to be an Asian food industry here. I've seen one Thai restaurant and one sushi shop which was closed. The sub-culture is more European, with Italian appearing to be the flavour of the day - we went to the Italo-Australian club last night and I've seen a couple of Italian restaurants, an Italian cultural centre and an Italian baby clothes shop - "Bamboozle - The boutique for bambini".
Alright, that's all for now. I'll keep you posted when we've actually done something - I start work on Monday and we get the car on Tuesday so next time I post I'll have actually moved more than a km from where we're living.
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