My current employment status is really starting to become a drag. The original plan was to get to Australia, find a job as a vintage soccer apparel model and start saving money for a few months to fund further travels. I soon realised vintage soccer apparel models don't exist in Australia, or in fact anywhere outside my head, and had to start applying for jobs that actually exist. After the window cleaner application fell through, I decided to increase my odds by applying for every single job vacancy in Melbourne. I've now applied for work as a Crane operate, a TV extra, a Pizza chef (Fluent Italian essential) and a Netball umpire to name but a few, but no matter what I try I don't seem to have any luck. It seems nobody wants to hire backpackers regardless of how brilliantly they portrayed Theseus in a 1995 production of A midsummer nights dream. Things have got to the stage where I'm willing to do almost anything.
In England, the chances of me getting up on a Sunday morning, travelling 100 miles to Leicestershire and handing out flyers at a Nuneaton Vs Kettering match for £40, are fairly slim. But it turns out that in Australia, a 3 hour train journey is considered a totally reasonable commute for a poorly paid weekend job. When I was asked by a friend, "Do you fan
cy doing some advertising at a footy match just outside Melbourne?" I jumped at the chance. What they failed to mention was that "just outside Melbourne" in Australian terms translates to anywhere in the state of Victoria. A state approximately equal in area to the entire United Kingdom. Sadly, a man in my current financial position needs all the work he can find, so I just popped my Ipod on shuffle and got on with it. Handing glossy paper to people, who 5 yards further down the street dispose of it on the floor, is not the most satisfying of occupations. It's also pretty degrading, especially when asked by the authority's to tidy up the mess left by my dissatisfied customers with my bare hands. Needless to say, it was a rather bleak outing.
