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Browsing category: Uncategorized

  • October 10, 2009

    Thank you for applying, but…

    I’m curious. What are everyone’s thoughts on rejection letters?

    [picapp src=”6/b/5/6/woman_job_hunting_64d0.jpg?adImageId=5080135&imageId=5199438″ width=”234″ height=”314″ /]

    Something I’ve been hearing a lot lately is people complaining that nobody – recruiters or companies themselves – has the common courtesy to let them know that their job applications have been unsuccessful.

    Maybe it’s because I’m from a younger generation, but I’m well used to that! I thought that was the norm.

    I recall working in admin for a company, which received hundreds of applications for another administrative position. I got to wade through all the unsuccessful applications and replying to them, a task I shared with the new admin person. (Wouldn’t you think that was odd, starting a new job and being asked to immediately send “thank you for your application” emails to all the other candidates you beat out??)

    I’ve worked since the age of 16, and I’ve applied for countless jobs in the five years since (sounds like such a short time…) I  just assume, when I don’t hear anything back within a week or so, that I should move on.

    I applied for two jobs last week that were both a bit of a long shot. But they were jobs I would have enjoyed, and I thought it was good practice for putting together resumes and cover letters for my field. One, I haven’t heard back from – inside sources tell me they’re looking at someone who already works there – and the other, well, I was surprised to find a “thanks, but no thanks” email from today.

    I don’t have a problem with being knocked back – god knows it’s happened so many times before – but there’s something a little bit crushing about seeing it in black and white.

  • October 9, 2009

    Bus lockout

    I’m among one of the tens of thousands affected by the suspension of bus services. What bugs me the most is there’s no end in sight – we simply don’t know when the situation is going to be resolved. I’ve paid $110 upfront for my monthly pass, and can only hope that NZ Bus will compensate us for the lost days.

    In the meantime, I’m being forced to walk / get T to drop me off at Blockhouse Bay central to catch an Urban Express bus (which don’t come often) or take me all the way into town, and vice versa for the trip home. Each journey costs me $3.87 – that’s around $40 a week, if the lockout carries on that long! By contrast, my monthly pass works out to less than $30 a week, and provides unlimited travel…

    If I knew how long the NZ Bus routes would be out, I could purchase a 3day or 7day UE pass. But there’s no point doing that, so I’ll just continue to be left out of pocket.

    The bus drivers are not actually striking, so they shouldn’t be blamed. They are being locked out by their employer. They are currently in dispute over pay, and the drivers and cleaners were planning to work-to-rule; ie do exactly what was required of them, and nothing more. This would also include not driving buses which aren’t up to scratch in terms of safety standards. Sounds fair enough to me! It’s only the company that then decided they wouldn’t allow the drivers in to work at all. They actually physically are being locked out of their work grounds. Gates, fences, etc.

    The company has offered a pay rise of about 70c on their current hourly rates of $14.05c to $16.75c , to be followed by 50c next year and 60c in 2011. So that’s about 10 per cent. IMO, that sounds reasonable, especially given they’re negotiating at a time when we’re still in a recession. Apparently, the unions say take-home pay of $544 is not enough (Really? Now that sounds to me like a sense of entitlement…)

    I also disagree with those who say we should tip drivers. I catch the  bus at least twice a day. The vast majority of drivers are civil at best. They are surveyed by mystery shoppers, who assess not just their driving skills but their attitude and helpfulness. I’m sure those who go above and beyond are recognised for it (trust me, I do these surveys, and the criteria is tough).

    I do however, think the practice of split shifts is disgraceful. If nothing else, I think this is something that should be abolished. I don’t necessarily agree drivers are underpaid, but if you’re at work, you should be paid for every hour that you’re there.

    Either way – please, just hurry up and reach a solution!

  • October 8, 2009

    Nice surprise!

    I tweeted last month about my power company switching up their billing cycle and moving their due date forward. In the upheaval of moving, I went to pay my bill on the usual date and was mighty annoyed to be charged an extra $60!

    (Basically, we get a 20 per cent discount if we pay in full by the due day. It’s a pretty substantial discount – no other electricity provider does more than 10 per cent off as far as I know).

    Anyway, last week I took a final reading at the old place and got my final bill today. I was super confused, because the “amount due” was less than the charges. I called up Energy Online to find out just what the hell was going on.

    Apparently, even though I missed the deadline last month, they were kind enough to give me the discount, and credited the extra $60 odd back to my account. Woohoo!

    I wonder if this is a tactic to get more people to cough up on time? I wouldn’t be surprised if many customers are falling behind at the moment…

  • October 7, 2009

    Donating to charity

    Oy, guys, I made my first real donation to charity!

    I’m not counting things like dropping change into collection buckets, or doing the 40-hour famine as a kid.

    I mean a proper “grownup” kind of charitable donation.

    Granted, I did it with reward points I accumulated, so it’s not coming out of my own (holey) pocket. And after the conversion to real dollars, it only comes out to $5.  But that doesn’t make it any less valid – right?

    I picked Ronald McDonald house as my charity. I’ve been wanting to show my appreciation and do something to give back ever since T’s nephew was hospitalised earlier this year. Ronald McDonald house provided a place for his parents to stay nearby and cellphones so they could keep in touch with doctors and nurses.

    They inspired me to want to help out, because they were so awesome at helping this family in their hour (or week) of need. It’s not something I’ve blogged about, because the circumstances around the whole thing were pretty touchy, so I won’t go there. Let’s just say the baby is doing unbelievably well. He’s recovering well and is getting back on track, and should be just fine.

  • October 6, 2009

    Weekend spending

    Our kettle started leaking a while ago, and I finally got around to returning it this weekend. T’s sister had a spare one which she gave us, so we got a straight refund instead of simply exchanging it for a new one!

    So, in: $29.99 back to us.

    Out: $120 for groceries

    $3 for six months worth of the pill

    $12.99 for Saturday lunch (Indian food. So good)

    $5 for a cocktail at my friend’s party (gotta love subsidised drinks)

    $12 for a mini screwdriver set T needed to do one little job. Still considering whether to take it back – I guess it’s a little unethical though, plus he wants to keep it!

    2. In many tests, offenders who receive restorative justice
    commit fewer repeat crimes than offenders who do not.
    3. In no large-sample test has RJ increased repeat offending
    compared with CJ.
  • October 5, 2009

    Lazy Sunday

    Last night I was at Honey bar celebrating one of my good friends’ birthdays. As we grow older and get busier, and I grow further apart from my girlfriends in terms of finishing uni, starting work, keeping up a LT relationship, and just generally being at a further along stage in life, the occasions on which we all get together are rare. I’m on a different campus from them; the first couple of years I often wandered over to visit and we had a weekly Friday lunch going for a while, but that just wasn’t feasible this year.  And I work more than, well, pretty much all of them combined, so always miss out on their get-togethers during semester breaks.  So I really appreciate nights like last night, getting to spend time with my old friends, making a special and memorable occasion for her, and showing her how much we all love her =)

    Despite only having one drink, I felt absolutely trashed this morning – like a truck had run me over. I think it was a combo of the hours spent dancing, and too many (spicy) samosas. I’ve rarely met a buffet I didn’t like; unfortunately my delicate stomach often makes its disapproval known…. later on, that is.

    I managed to drag my sorry ass out of bed at 10.30, start my ethics essay, hit the butcher and grocer, and tackle our bedroom. Because I still haven’t finished unpacking! We’ve only just finished moving over all our bits and pieces. Thankfully, we decided against rearranging the room as planned, so all I had to do was move my desk and mirror, and unpack the last few bags and boxes… files, folders, CDs, etc. Thank god for lazy Sundays!

  • October 3, 2009

    Money down the drain

    Like Carrie‘s partner Lloyd, my boyfriend has a love affair with shiny, expensive flat screen TVs. I’m of the opinion that as long as it picks up more than two channels and doesn’t crackle excessively, I’ll have it! Luckily, we do have a flatscreen (keeps him happy) and we got it for free (keeps me happy). 42-inch-lg-42pc1d-plasma-tv

    How, you might ask? Comes with having a handyman around – and a sneaky one, at that. Someone he knew had the TV sitting around, with the display not working. He had a quick look, determined that a fuse (?) was to blame, and offered to take it off their hands for $15. Which they never ended up asking for.

    A bit underhanded? I don’t think so. If it had been a friend, yes, but this wasn’t a friend by any means. I’d chalk it down to business, pure and simple.

    Of course, that’s never the end of it. I refused to get pay TV at the old place. One, because it’s a waste of money IMO. I would have been paying for him to have it, essentially, and I wouldn’t have got any benefit from it. And two, I wasn’t going to be signing up for a 12 month contract! (Incidentally, the heinous flatmate eventually got Sky in his room, and they all congregated in there every Sunday to watch wrestling, and on the odd Monday for pay-per-views.)

    Now we have cable at our new place  and I never watch it). Now that he has a job T pays his share out of his own money, but now they want to get MySky (a little bit like Tivo I think). I’m like, seriously? What a friggin waste of money! It’s installation PLUS a monthly fee, and for what? Recording two thinigs at once? Pausing programmes?

    Honestly, I’m the only one in the house who has a fulltime schedule; everyone else spends most of the week sitting at home on their asses. And they all like the same things, so tend to watch the same shows – ones about cars, cops, and wrestling. They have no need for something like MySky. But they’re all super keen to fritter away their cash on crap like that just because there’s a “discounted” installation, or because  T’s sister (a stay at home mum) gushes on about how much they use MySky now and how great it is. Yet she was perfectly happy before MySky came along. It’s one of those things companies convince you that you need and rip you off for. – things you “never knew you needed”.

    I guess if they do end up getting MySky, and it’s only a few extra dollars a week/month, I’ll bite my tongue. But I’ll still resent it…

  • October 2, 2009

    T’s birthday

    In our years together, T has had a string of disappointing birthdays.

    The first was terrible – probably the worst. He was in a car accident the night before (thankfully no one was hurt). But he was uninsured, and got completely screwed over by the other party’s company, despite not being at fault. Then the next year he was sent out of town for work, so we weren’t even in the same city. He did, however, spend something like $100 at a bar. And finally last year we had drinks at home, ending in heinous flatmate having a bustup with his crazy girlfriend and ordering her out of the house, only to have her storm through and throw a rock through his back windscreen.

    Nothing spectacular this year either (cheers, recession :P) but at least it wasn’t disastrous. I left uni early, getting a ride home with a classmate, got home shortly after lunch, and we drove over to his sister’s for a visit. She actually shares the same birthday as him, but she’s 5 years older! I felt bad that we didn’t get her a present, but we ended up buying her cigarettes which she was desperately in need of. Damn smokers.

    Then we debated back and forth about what to do – the day started off with torrential rain, but eased up and got sunny later on. But it was still too cold to warrant doing anything outdoors…

    We settled on going out to a nice dinner at the Angus Steakhouse which boasts the biggest steaks in town – and they are not lying!

    They were huge, massive, enormous! I got through half of mine, with a little help from him, and he managed about a quarter of his.

    They even have cute menus with a picture of a cow, telling you where each type of cut comes from on the animal. (Sorry vegetarians!)

    And the salad bar was to die for. All you can eat, with pastas, potatoes, rices, regular caesars and coleslaws and even a couscous type thing which was divine.I’m wishing I’d taken photos… but at least I got a picture of our steaks. And that’s after we’d eaten our fill; what’s in the shot is what we took home in our doggy bags.

    His leftovers...

    His leftovers...

    .. and my leftover

    .. and my leftover

    So although I didn’t get him anything, I (obviously) paid for our meals – $32 for any steak, plus uinlimited salad – and $20 for him to spend on himself. A nice, quiet and uneventful birthday. That, and his friends came around on the Friday for the traditional beer jug – or boot, in this case. Observe…

    The beer boot, warming up in the hot water cupboard and waiting for the foam to settle

    The beer boot, warming up in the hot water cupboard and waiting for the foam to settle

    I’m really not down with the 21st traditions, having been raised by typical Asians, so all this kinda shiz seems silly to me, but I just go along with it! I’m just grateful nobody expected me to drink any beer on my 21st birthday *shudder*

  • October 1, 2009

    Fed up

    I am done, done, done with landlords. I’m never taking on a tenancy again.

    I will live with other people if it means not dealing with bullshit like this.

    Our run of good luck is up. Not that I  thought this would be simple, don’t get me wrong! No matter how many times T assured me moving out would be fine and how the LL wouldn’t make things a hassle, I knew it would be. He needs to trust my instincts!!

    So this week has brought the worst weather all year. Storm warnings were issued and although Auckland never really gets the worst of anything, we still got hit hard by wind, rain, thunder and lightning. I’m talking torrential downpours, beating down on my laundry line and leaving me out of clean underwear for days.

    Anyhow, the roof at the old house finally gave way and sprung a leak, soaking the carpet in the living room. It’s been a long time coming. In June the ceiling started bubbling up, which we mentioned to him. I even took a photo of the bubbling paint, so we can prove it. Back then, he said not to worry and that some of the roof tiles had been replaced. Whether they did or not, or whether they did a crap job, something went wrong this last week, and the house is now about as far from watertight as you can get.

    This prompted the LL  to send me a shitty text, saying one of us must have cracked the tiles while up on the roof. Can you say RIDICULOUS? Why on earth would anyone be up on the roof? Certainly not to remove the aerial, like he suggested – it came with the house, and that’s where it’s going to stay. And, what’s more, it’s OBVIOUSLY STILL THERE. And how much of a coincidence is it that the roof caved in the exact spot where the paint began bubbling months ago, where the tiles were allegedly replaced?

    Roof aside, the whole house is incredibly damp and always had had a problem with damp. Every time I’ve been back since we moved, my sinuses flare up and my nose starts running (or dripping, sometimes). Not surprisingly really; breathing in mould spores can’t be good for anyone. That place is turning into a health hazard.

    T walked the LL around, and did all the talking, explaining that we’d warned him about the ceiling months ago and that we had done nothing to cause damage to the roof (something he’s refusing to admit. He’s going to get a builder’s opinion, which I am more than confident will reflect the truth – that there’s four months of water damage in the ceiling, if not more.)

    I’m just irritated because this is the last thing I need. I do not need the stress!  Sounds like this is going to drag out forever and who knows when we’ll get our bond money back. Thankfully, T is happy to deal with this. I hate conflict, and he’s much more confident and knowledgable in matters like these. He says the LL was pretty quiet, unusually, and simply walked around the house looking mopey because he knows the house is falling apart. Our old room? So damp you can see the outline of the rafters coming through, the ceiling is getting soft, and did I mention how I could see my breath in front of me in there during winter?
    As if that’s not enough, heinous flatmate only turned up at the last hour this morning to clean. Then asked if he would be getting some bond back. Hello, you never actually paid any! This is partly my fault. When we first moved in, our other two flatmates shifted in two weeks before we did and paid the full rent for the house (ie, double). So I wasn’t too strict about chasing up bond in addition to that; I was just grateful they were willing to cover for us. When the heinous flatmate started “paying off” his bond, he was so far behind on bills, I put every payment towards bills. There was never any money left over to go towards a bond. Not, of course, that he keeps track of anything enough to know this.

    Kudos to you if you’ve read this far! /end rant

  • September 29, 2009

    Four weeks to go!

    Or three and a half now, actually.

    Although I roughly know how much I have to do in that time, there’s so much packed in I can’t face it. No to-do lists for me – that’s way too overwhelming. One step at a time. I’m taking it day by day and I know in the end I’ll get it all finished, in my own disorganised way.

    For example, tonight my main focus is compiling a CV to go in the “yearbook” that’s going to be sent out to a bunch of editors (a couple of whom are my current bosses…) so it’s gotta be good – and truthful!

    I’m also going to plug away at one of the three features I have left to write.

    Today I had my worst interview ever to date. Actually, let’s back that up; we didn’t even get to that stage. Basically, this was a person a contact recommended I call as she was an expert on a particular topic. I rang her on the work phone number given to me, only to be told she was no longer with the company. I got back online, tracked down her cell phone, and called it – only to wake her up at 2am in Europe. UGH.

    Thankfully, the next call I made went a lot better and we talked for about half an hour. Turns out South Africa and Malaysia have more in common than I thought. (I even surprised myself by remembering the Malay word for banana  – pisang – which apparently means the same thing in Afrikaans!)

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