Good for you!

It was quite an interesting twenty-four hour period for me earlier this week. I got fitted for Vibram Fivefingers shoes and talked to some people.

Of course I’m not putting the correct emphasis on those events. Monday afternoon was my interview session for ATO vacation work. It was only supposed to take thirty minutes but I ended up wasting forty minutes of their lives, asking a few questions at the end. ATO dress code seemed pretty casual. I found it funny how the interviewers brought up work-life balance as a pull factor towards the ATO while revealing that they don’t have scheduled lunch breaks, or any breaks for that matter, on interview days. They kept on saying congratulations on getting this far in the process – it started sounding tiresome!

Making the most of my time in the CBD, I decided to get fitted for Vibram Fivefingers shoes. My feet are too small for the men’s range. The ladies range has some outrageous colours. All the prices are pretty steep though.

The next part of the day was at Government House. I had only really orbited the place in high school as part of cross country running. Today I had a follow up for my exchange program. “Thanks for taking our money and doing stuff overseas.” Well more on that later. It was a bit messy outside the gate. There was only one person verifying guests coming in by car and on foot. Luckily for me there happened to be quite an attractive young lady within my field of vision with whom I could query the matter. Her hair was most impressive and she had an interesting voice.

While waiting for the ceremony to begin, a buxom lady who works in administering the program talked to me about a variety of topics. It was an opportunity for her to see who she administers the program for. At this stage there was finger food and alcohol floating about freely by waiters emblazoned with EIIR.

Important people made their speeches. The grants help strengthen ties in this global world. Apparently they’re fiercely contested too. Hmm. Each awardee was presented with a slab of glass labelled with their name. It’s pretty thick too. Looks nice. Group photos were taken in another room. Due to the official party being composed of largely tall people, the awardees had to be moved backwards, up stairs to be visible to the camera. I ended up next to aforementioned young lady due to a photographer instigated swap.

My mother wasn’t very helpful in the next part of the evening. She wanted me to make the most of the food and drink floating about. I had planned to talk to some representatives of a locally-based company owned by the group that finances these exchange grants. The organisers were helpful in helping me locate a representative. Unfortunately he was a few levels too high, being the chairman and all. It was nice to learn about the field from those managers. I liked how a CEO of a related company said he started off by living in a hut while installing hydro generators. Another guy who reminds me of Richard Dawkins managed to use “good for you” as a filler phrase while there was nothing said. I shall endeavour to try that at some stage. It was also stated that current graduates are expecting too quick a career progression, but can overtake older engineers by rank on merit, rather than the old system of age. I ended up having to drive the car home.

On the morning of the following day I had an interview at a detergent factory for vacation work. It was quite a long drive and the time was over allocated. It was interesting to note that this organisation runs its vacation work solely as part of its corporate social responsibility programme. There are no graduate positions available and only three engineers employed. Oh well, hopefully I get something suitable for this summer.