Update in Melbourne Diaries

Finishing up at work just before the public holiday, and nothing much to do. Sent off yet another job application this morning, having turned down an offer for a relatively lousy job on Tuesday. As time goes on, the level of desperation could increase, and result in me accepting such a crap position. The agency I provide advice to will get hit by government cuts soon, with the announcement likely to be next week. Operating largely unsupervised, I am putting more effort into looking for work than in doing the work I am employed to undertake.

The main impact of all that’s going on is the absence of any sense of career progression, let alone salary profession. Notions of a steady promotion through the ranks are a joke, and in negotiating for a new workplace agreement the central authority informed us that a 0% pay rise was a possibility (making the negotiation process largely pointless). While this is all in the name of efficiency, what it is instead being created is resentfulness and apathy. My parents are a bit bewildered about my situation when I try to explain what’s happening – it doesn’t gel with their own working lives. It’s inconceivable to them that somebody would purge an entire legal area of a department simply because she’s cross with them. If this happened ten years, it would be she who would get the sack.

My own thoughts are wandering more than usual, to DVDs unseen, bands long forgotten, an attractive new Asian secretary in her mid-30s (with whom I get on very well, but I think has a boyfriend). Now work has been established as pointless, distractions are taking over.

I’m preparing myself to move cities if needed. Sydney and Brisbane would be real possibilities. Sydney is, like Melbourne, a large and exciting city, but I would be more disconnected than ever there. Brisbane is preferable, as it is cheaper and sunnier, and is close to jogging tracks and national parks. Even Hobart (freezing cold, but pretty and near Australia’s best mountain ranges) and Perth (pretty, but hundreds of miles from anywhere else) are viable options. But such planning seems to be in the abstract at the moment. Are you supposed to be this wishy washy in your thirties?

Because of what’s going on with work, I’ve had to cancel any plans for leave until November-December this year, which rules out any travel in the Northern hemisphere. China (and Kyrgyzstan) will likely have to wait.