Page 28!

Wow, what a week it's been! First off, I have the best excuse for not posting anything in the last few days - I have a brand new job! Yay! As well as that, I've moved all my stuff up from Hamilton, which makes life a lot easier, having more than three changes of clothes is nice! All in all, it's been a really good week, and now I've got the whole weekend off to celebrate! :-)

On the job front, I started on Tuesday, went through induction and found out what I'm going to be doing. The factory mass produce envelopes, which doesn't sound very exciting, but it's good work! They have a couple of dozen printing machines, operating 24 hours a day, and I've been rostered to day shift, 12 hours from Monday to Thursday. Fridays are optional overtime, and paid at time and a half too! My specific job on the factory floor is quality control, checking the product for defects, as well as packing envelopes, basically just keeping the flow of the machines up to what they're supposed to be. Yesterday I was working on a machine that was making over 750 envelopes a minute, which was pretty quick! It's pretty full-on, hectic paced work, but it keeps the time going, 12 hour days seem to be going pretty quickly in fact. I can honestly say I quite enjoy it! The other workers are really cool, everyone has been really nice and welcoming, and making me feel right at home. My friend who initially told me about the position has been keeping tabs on me too, he works in management, but has come down to the floor a few times to make sure I'm doing okay. I cannot say how grateful I am to him for helping me find work again!

I realized yesterday that I've been out of full-time paid contract work for over a year now! Since I was working at the pools, every job I've had has been 'on demand', or 'as needed', or only part-time or commission based. It's going to be SO nice to have a regular paycheck coming in again! As well as that, it feels so good to be back at work, where I feel useful, I can see how much work I've actually done at the end of the day, I feel like I'm finally being a productive part of society again. It's strange how that works, I didn't remember how good it felt for the time that I was out of work. But now I can say I go to work with a smile, and I finish work with a smile! Sure, we have laughs at work, I've found out pretty quickly who the more serious people are, and who aren't as much so, but everyone there is hard-working, and on the same page. I can see that it'd be quite good in a way, being that the work is so full-on and the day is so long, it would sort out the hard workers from the ones that can't hack it pretty quickly! I can see myself staying for quite a while though, I really enjoy the physical side of the work as well as the people and the environment. All in all, it's a really cool place to work. :-)

Last weekend I finally got around to moving all my things up from my old house in Hamilton, with the help of a few friends loaning me a vehicle and trailer and a hand packing and unpacking the bigger stuff. It was a fairly easy move to be honest, all my things easily fit on the back of the ute and trailer, and is now safely stacked away ready for when I find a more permanent living arrangement, hopefully close to my new job. I've already looked at rentals online, as well as 'flatmates wanted', and there are quite a few options not too far from the factory, which is good. Meanwhile, I can start saving for a bond, which should only take a few weeks. It'll be nice to have my own place, but I'll have to see how my budget works out once I've been working for a few weeks. Or, alternatively, a shared flat situation would be good too for the social interaction. In any case, I'll make a decision on that in a few weeks.

Other than that, there's not much else to report really! Oh, I was hoping to get to the next track day with my bike, in a couple of weeks, but it looks like that's not going to happen - I missed out on registration due to a lack of funds, and now it looks like all the groups are full. Never mind, the weather hasn't been the nicest lately, so guaranteed it'll turn to custard on the day (although I still hope it won't, a couple of my friends are going to be riding!) so I'm not too worried about missing out. I think I'm better off concentrating on work anyways, I'm hoping to pick up a few Fridays in the next few weeks so I can save extra for moving...

Anyways, now it's officially my weekend, so I'm going to go find some lunch, and have a relaxing three days off! It's amazing how much stress I've let go of in the last few days, I can finally relax properly now!


Until next time!

:-)