by The Dark Knight » Fri Jul 19, 2019 12:01 am
I'm really looking forward to my holiday.
Just over 8 weeks now until my girlfriend and I go to Europe, we've planned (with some help from Flight Centre) a 4 week trip where we fly to London then travel to Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Zurich, Venice, Florance, Rome, Athens with a ferry tour to and staying in Mykonos and Santorini then back to Athens then we fly home.
We stay 2/3 nights in each place and we've pretty much got everything finalized now. Flights there and home we fly Qatar, stopping in Doha even staying a night in Doha on the way home. We used Flight Centre to book our Qartar flights and the various hotels and hostels that we will stay in. We have booked trains, planes and even a bus ride inbetween the places we are visiting ourselves as it is much, much cheaper than going through Flight Centre to do it. We have also booked some tours in a few of the places we are visiting.
I'm looking forward to it more because I've had a pretty rough time with work lately. It's been f*king stressful.
The 14th of June was my last day back at ASC, as they got rid of contractors pretty much making way for the full time guys rolling over from the AWD project to the current OPV project that is filling some time between now and the future Frigate project. The Valley of Death is still well and truly happening despite the government (in particular that wank stain Christopher Pine) suggesting otherwise, but thats another story.
I was there 15 weeks after being given a time frame of 6-12 months. It was bitterly disappointing to be cut so short but it's just the way it goes as a contractor so I can cop it, move on and bide my time before the next project starts.
I managed to start a job the next week, a few guys I worked with mentioned the job to me as it's so close to home, literally in the same suburb. I went in there on a Thursday and met the manager, I was told he was full on (A.K.A a c*nt) and he offered me to start the following Monday. I said yes and thought you beauty, new full time job straight away and this close to home. I thought what a winner, I was wrong.
I quit there last Wedneday, end of pay week. I could not wait to get out of there, while he knows his stuff and is a fantastic tradesman the boss there has terrible people management skills and talks to his crew, who is relatively young, like absolutely shit. I understand there's times when bosses give people a rocket or a firm talking to but consistently talking down to people is disgraceful. Trying to motivate people by talking down to them doesn't work. The guys there essentially work in fear, the way I saw him talk to his apprentices (an attempt to get them to learn and remember something) angered me and made me not want to go to work. Being a small company there was no one really I could go to and talk to them about him and also only being new there I didn't feel like it was my place to say something or I was worried as to what might happen if I did say anything.
He came to me 7 working days into my time there asking how I was going, I told him I'm going ok, bit slow to start but picking things up. He told me that the job probably won't work out for me and that I should look elsewhere. I was a bit shocked when he said it, thought why is he telling me this when I've been there just over a week, I haven't had a chance to prove myself here yet but I copped it and starting looking into jobs elsewhere. To his credit he encouraged me to look for other jobs, leave early to go interviews and just asked if I can keep him in the loop about what jobs I'm applying for so it was civil in that sense.
Then the next week I was talking to him about jobs and he told me that I'm starting to prove myself and he thinks I should now look to stay, but on less money than what I started on. Again I was shocked when he said that and by then the horse had already bolted as I'd already organised an interview (and gone to a few others) for the job I started at on Tuesday.
One of the Labor Hire companies I went and had a chat with told me my former workplace was going to use them to employ guys but they failed their safety check also they had issues dealing with the boss. In terms of safety my former workplace is pretty dodgy and their safety culture needs to be improved.
You might read this and think of me being precious and think it's a bizarre story but it actually happened, it was a bewildering 3/4 weeks and I've never been in a position where I don't want to go to sleep at night because I don't want to go to work in the morning. I had to get out ASAP and I did.
So I started my new job Tuesday and it is really good, it's refreshing to be in a workshop where the blokes, in particular the bosses are easy going and respectful. I'm there though the Labor Hire company I was with at ASC and by the sounds of things there's potential for full time work there. My workplace is using a couple of labor hire companies to employ guys and have an ad out looking for full time workers which I've applied for.
For now it's all about getting though the next 8 weeks and getting on that plane with my amazing misso and going on our dream holiday. Can't bloody wait.