3rd and 4th day of work in Syd

The third day of work in Sydney, there was a steno, so I didn't need to voice much stuff. I just checked tapes according to vision, assisted the trainers and edited the trainees work. In fact, it was a quieter day and the only time I meebo-ed. But at 5pm, it was news preparation and pretty much crunch time, and I had to really work hard till 9pm. At least it wasn't as busy as the first two days where I couldn't even look at my phone to SMS or meebo. After work, I had a quiet night - did a hotel dinner order which came quite late, and slept. I think I really needed that sleep because every day I had been waking up at 7am. I really don't know why... Maybe it's the sun shining through my hotel room, maybe the weather or the environment or just too excited that I'm up in Sydney working.

By the way, I signed up for an Internet connection at my hotel - broadband - but the connection was really bad and it wasn't work very well. It only started working well on the fourth day. How crappy... Grr! Not that I'm complaining that much, because the Internet at work is super fast - the only downfall is, you might have to be careful with the personal stuff.

The fourth day was a busier day than the third. In the morning, I woke early and had a walk around the city. Oh, I did that on the third day as well during lunchtime and nearly got lost - was trying to find the Myers and stopped at the wrong station, so I had to walk all the way up to the next one. The good thing was I wasn't really in a rush so I got to take my own time. But it seemed weird walking slowly in Sydney looking around, because everyone seems to be go, go, go. Anyway, I shopped for a bit, returned to the hotel to put my bags and headed off for work.

When I got to work, there was a massage therapist and I was like, "Oh yeah, I need a massage!" Good thing I had one, because it ended up to be a really hectic day at work. We had a steno come in, but we just had more programs to do. In fact, I was about to leave earlier to meet a good friend in the city, but all of a sudden, the steno crashed with the rugby going to air and I had to take over. It was good experience actually to work on the rugby because I had never done anything like that. A good challenge. And with the amazing software we use for live voicing up there, I was like "Yeah baby!" - I felt so confident doing it because there were hardly any mistakes, just little stumbling words like "it's" coming out as "this" and "they" as "there" or "their" that weren't very important.

Anyway, I managed to message my friend to tell him what was going on and that I'd be late, and then messaged him again later to tell him that I'm still waiting for a cab. It was ridiculous waiting for a cab where I was because it takes about 20 minutes to half an hour - just waiting. And when you book for a cab, the phone puts you through to a robot who does the taxi booking for you. It's kinda strange because you are near the reception, and you have to say really loudly "Yes, Check or No" and the suburb name to the robot on the phone - it just seems that everyone can hear you. The worst thing is that every voice c-a-p-t-i-o-n-e-r working there has the same problem - that the robot doesn't understand what they say, especially when it comes to the suburb part. If it doesn't understand the first time, it'd get you to repeat yourself a second time, and the third time, you're put through to an actual human operator, which is better of course.

Oh, the fourth day of work in Sydney was my last, because in the morning, I had late notice from the boss in Sydney and my boss in Melbourne that Melbourne is pretty short-staffed and I'm needed back immediately on the next available flight. I could have left on the midnight flight but because accommodation was already booked for four nights, I decided to choose a morning flight, but the only flight available was before 8am. All the other Virgin flights were pretty full. Bad timing though, because the flight was the next day and the night before, I already promised my friend I'd meet him. Plus I didn't want to cancel as I hadn't seen him for a while. So after the dinner with my friend and by the time I got back, it was close to midnight. I hadn't even packed, but I just went to bed and then woke up at 4am and started packing, then checked out at 5am and got to the airport by 5.45am, checked in just in time and boarded the 7am flight back to Melbourne. I really didn't get much sleep. First, my flight was delayed and by the time I got home, it was about 9 plus... Slept for about 2 hours and then had to wake to head into work for the 1pm shift at the Melbourne office. I ended work at 9pm and then headed to Bell's for Xin Jie's bday. So yeah, it was a pretty exhausting day.

It's good to be back, but I really miss Sydney - the weather, my colleagues up there, my skin is better, I find myself not as tired and I get to do more stuff... But yeah, in Melbourne, there's Tee wee, my car, my Cuddles (the rabbit), his Kara (the cat), it seems much safer walking around at night, the roads are not as confusing and the taxi drivers are not "mad". Yeah, one of the taxi driver's for example lost his way and then asked me how to get there. I obviously didn't know how and so he stopped in the middle of the highway to ask his mate, and then after he found the directions, he was like "It's ok, you can pay cheaper. I found the way and I'll take you fast." And boy, he sped! He went into these side roads and at two roundabouts, he drove straight on each one. It was really looney driving. I was literally hanging to the edge of my seat. He even sweared at himself making the wrong turnings and apologised to me a lot. But in the end, he still charged me full price. Of course I didn't mind because I had a cab charge, but if I didn't, I might have kicked a fit. That wasn't the funniest thing... At the start of the journey, he even gave me a sheet of paper saying "Vote me for Taxi Driver of the Year." At the start he seemed friendly enough, so I was starting to fill the form, but at the end of the journey, I just chucked it in the bin. The sheet of paper even had about five or six check points. The first was "Knowledge of skills and roads" - No! The second was "Safety and Comfort ensured throughout journey" - No! Can't remember the rest...

Why I prefer my colleagues up there - lots of stuff really that makes a big difference. There's definitely less tension around, everyone's really accommodating and nice. There hasn't been one person who I seem to not like. But that's not really the main point. It's an important point, but also, the way they work - they share their bulletins a lot more, people don't stick to the rostered shifts they're on, they just simply share everything. Over in Melb, they get a bit like "This is my bulletin, don't touch it" kind of attitude. People in Melb put their initials in every work they do, but in Sydney they don't and everyone respects the supervisor there, because whatever they change, everyone goes along with it - no question asked - which should be the way, because the supervisor is put there and was trained for that position and they know what is right and wrong in terms of style issues. But somehow, in Melb, people go against the supervisor - they change the supervisor's work, they question the supervisor - even disagree with the supervisor. It's like all these tension we don't need. And people whisper among themselves which is not great. Over in Sydney, they don't. They probably only talk about people when people are not around, but valid reasons I reckon. Sigh... politics... I try to avoid them.

The strange thing is that in Melb, we have a window to look out and we're able to see what's the weather like, or look at the nice views around - in Sydney and at the Ch 9 in Melb, we don't, and the people are nicer. Also in the Melb office, there's this added tension of clashing personalities and people just sulking because they had a bad day, or just one person intending to pick at every mistake you make in an embarrassing manner.

Another thing - in the Ch 9 Melb, I don't find many departments wanting to get to know about the c-a-p-t-i-o-n-i-n-g department and the people working in it, but in Sydney, it's like almost every department wants to know what you do or tries to understand anyway or make conversation - even the news reporters, the ones on TV, come up to our department and talk to us.

Oh, just got me thinking about Sydney office again... did I mention the food at Ch 9 Sydney is excellent? They have lunch and dinner, which is sooo good. In Ch 9 Melb, they only have lunch and the cafe closes at about 5pm. In Sydney, cafe closes about 7.30pm I think.

So yeah, I think the working environment for my company is better in Sydney and it'll be easy to transfer over there in terms of work. Sydney also has more options available with regards to doing speech pathology next year. I did consider transferring, but I'll definitely miss TY, and also, Sydney's more expensive to live. For now, I think I'll just stay put and go to La Trobe uni over here.