The first full-time working week

Hello my dears,

my first full working week is over and I am exhausted. I worked nearly 60 hours and I have to say my new job is physically quite demanding. But let me start at the beginning..

On Monday morning at 6 o'clock my alarm went off and it got serious. What would I wear to work outside all day at around 10 degrees celsius. I probably wear now what other people wear at minus degrees, but at least I'm not freezing. The next question was, what would I eat, I packed a tupperware with cornflakes, 4 sandwiches, an apple, a banana, a thermos flask of tea and a bottle of water. I can assure you, I didn't starve. At 7 o'clock I took off so that I would be on time on my first day. I had an appointment at 7:15 with the man who also hired me and conducted the training. We received our steel-toe boots, safety goggles and gloves that morning. After that, I was introduced to my team: Rob the supervisor, Tony, the long-term employee, Adrian, a temporary worker like me, in his last week, Joseph, called Psycho by me, also a temporary worker. We were then divided into two trucks and were told our work location. The meeting point is always at the depot and then you drive to your actual workplace. We were sent to New Brighton. Some of you may be familiar with that, Mom and I were there one afternoon and I took the photos of the sunrise there. When we arrived at our workplace, we first drove to a park and loaded one of the trucks with mulch. And then we went to the flower beds. These have to be dug out about 4 inches deep. This fascinates me because all other units of measurement here are like ours, in centimeters and such. But well, the dug up soil must then be shoveled onto the other truck. I quickly learned that I prefer to use the pickaxe to loosen the soil rather than shovel it onto the truck. When a bed is completely empty, it is filled with mulch again. The beds vary in size and you can spend two to three hours digging out one. Sometimes 5 people were a bit in each other's way. But that was okay because then you have small breaks in between where you can stretch or have a drink. The breakfast break is usually taken around 10 o'clock and the lunch break at 12:30. We usually return to the depot between 3:20 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. The working day ends at 3:50 p.m., but you are still paid until 4 p.m. because that is the afternoon tea break. And that's roughly how each day of this week looked like. I won't give a detailed description of every day now. Just as a warning. After work, I cooked something for myself and chatted a little with my roommates and then went to bed early to be fit for the next day.

Tuesday was exactly the same as Monday in terms of work, except that we start working at 7:30 a.m. and therefore have a nice 8-hour working day. After work, on my way home, I was given a piece of pizza. The Formagios, yes Mom, the Italian restaurant where we had delicious food, distributed pizza and flyers in front of the door at the traffic lights as a marketing campaign to attract more customers. And I have to say, the pizza was really tasty and maybe one day I'll treat myself to a pizza. Maybe there will be some occasion someday..

Friday was exciting because I had to start working at the bar for City Care early after work. My shift started at 5:30 p.m., which meant quickly going home, jumping in the shower, drying my hair over my electric heater, eating thawed soup and off I went. To my delight, Friday was not as busy at the bar, so we had plenty to do, but it wasn't a crazy night like the previous Saturday. After work, we sat together for a while and had a beer and chatted.

On Saturday afternoon I went shopping and then started work at 5 p.m. Saturday was also very pleasant in terms of work. We had a steady, pleasant flow of guests and a new young band who I really liked. After work, I was invited to a party by the acquaintance with whom I have done a few things before, as this was her last weekend. Unfortunately, the party had already peaked when I arrived there after work, so I didn't stay long.

On Sunday, my roommate and I drove to one of the Red Zones. The Red Zones were so heavily destroyed by the earthquakes that the houses there were completely demolished. It was a bit strange to see this huge green area interrupted by streets, streetlights, and driveways. I'm afraid that on my photos this emptiness doesn't come across at all, because you could also think that it's just a park. In the evening, we played Monopoly with a few roommates.

That's it for this week. I'm afraid that since I'm basically only working now, the next blog posts will be a bit shorter because work is not sooo terribly exciting. But next week I will definitely tell you a bit more about my colleagues, why I call one of them Psycho, and who knows maybe I'll experience something exciting after all. We'll see.

Until then,

Jessi