Tag: favourite stories

An Australian treat

I’ve been visiting country bakeries. I’d say 20% of the reason I put my hand up for this job in Shepparton was because I wanted to buy baked goods from small country towns.

One of our favourites is the Nagambie Bakery. We’ve tried their apple cakes, carrot cakes, iced coffees, hot chocolates, foccacias and pizza bread, roast beef sandwiches, vanilla slices…

One day, Jamie recommended a particular sweet. It had a biscuit base, a lemon/vanilla cream cheese type-filling and a layer of red jelly.

“That’s a jelly slice, Joan,” Jamie said. “A great Australian treat. You’ve never had one? You should definitely try it, then.”

So we bought the jelly slice and it was, indeed, a treat.

That weekend when I got home from Shepparton, my mum and dad told me that Aunt Tuty was coming for dinner. Aunt Tuty grew up and studied in Indonesia. She came to Australia to do a Masters in Information Technology. She met a nice Australian bloke called Graham and they got married and bought a house in suburban Melbourne.

“Hello Joan,” Aunt Tuty said when she arrived. “How are you? When are you off overseas?” She was carrying a large white tray with a semi-transparent lid.

“What’s in there, Aunty?” I asked.

“I don’t know what it’s called,” she said. She placed it on the kitchen bench and lifted the lid. “Graham’s mother taught me how to make it. It’s very yummy and easy to make too.”

I looked inside to see an ordered array of cake squares with red jelly tops.

“I know what they are!” I cried. “Jelly slices! I had one the other day!”

“Jelly slices,” Aunt Tuty repeated. “Probably. I think Australians like them.”

The pub with no beer

We drove to Leitchville, a tiny town of about 500 people. Why were we in Leitchville? Because it was the nearest town to the middle-of-nowhere place we had to go to. We were there to meet David, who was going to give us a tour of the Pyramid Creek Salt Interception Scheme.

“Meet me in front of the pub,” David had said. “You’ll know which one it is. It’s the main building in town.”

We pulled up in front of the pub and parked alongside another car and a van. On the other side of the carpark, David waved to us. After a short discussion, we hopped into his car and started the twenty minute drive to the Scheme.

For the next two hours, David showed us the structures that they used to control the flow of Pyramid Creek. He took us to the pumps that sucked salty water out of the ground before it flowed into the creek. Jamie and I tasted the groundwater — it was almost as salty as sea water. David then drove us to the evaporation pans: 200 hectares of pooled water, waiting for the sun to evaporate it and leave behind white crystals of salt. The salt is then processed and sold as gourmet salt, amongst other things.

We were almost finished when my mobile phone rang. I was surprised I was even getting reception.

“Hello, Joan speaking.”

“Joan? This is Michael from Avis. Do you have one of our rental cars?”

“Yes, we’ve had it for about two months.”

“Is it parked in front of a hotel?”

I was confused. We had left our hotel in Shepparton this morning. “Um. You mean, a hotel in Leitchville?”

“Yeah, Leitchville. We’ve just had a call from the hotel owner. He’s going to tow your car away in fifteen minutes.”

“Excuse me?”

“He says that you’re parked in a loading zone and a truck is coming to make a delivery. If the car isn’t moved in fifteen minutes, he’ll get it towed away. I’ve got his mobile number. His name is Ryan.”

“Oh.” I racked my brains. “We’re not actually in Leitchville at the moment. I don’t know if we can get there in fifteen minutes. But, look, I’ll deal with it. Could you give me the number?” I scrawled the number down on a media release about the salt interception scheme.

I hung up and called ‘Ryan’.

“Hello, it’s Ryan.”

“Hi Ryan. My name is Joan. Avis called me to say that our car is blocking the way in front of the pub.”

“Yeah, a little silver car? It’s in the loading zone. The beer truck is coming. I need to get it moved.”

“We can get there in twenty minutes,” David murmured to me.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said into the phone. “We didn’t realise. We’ll be there in fifteen, twenty minutes to move the car. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, no worries. The truck will arrive about then.”

“Good, then. I’ll see you soon.”

We wound up the tour and got back to the Leitchville pub in 17 minutes. Jamie hopped out of David’s car.

“I’ll move it and go into the pub to let them know it’s been moved,” he said.

“Thanks, Jamie. The guy’s name is Ryan.”

Jamie tells me later that when he went into the pub, it was like a scene from a Western film, when a stranger walks into town.

“I walked in,” Jamie recounted, “and everyone turns to look at me, dead silence. I said, ‘Uh, g’day. Is Ryan around?’ and they all pointed to him.”


An inland ocean near Leitchville

Being brave

It was the end of the formal part of the Friday luncheon. The speaker was thanked and everyone was invited to stay for drinks.

I knew what ‘drinks’ meant. ‘Drinks’ is a chance to get up and network with people. Have you ‘networked’ before? Sometimes I call it ‘schmoozing‘. You talk to people and somewhere in your mind (it could be at the back or the front), you are conscious of making a good impression because this person could be important to you one day.

It’s scary. If you’re nervous about cold-calling, of introducing yourself to random people, of breaking into conversations that have begun without you, then networking is scary. I think it must be even scarier when you’re a junior engineer and there is no compelling reason for the others in the room to speak to you.

I stood up with my glass and looked around. I sipped. Oh. I was looking at the white table cloth again. I forced myself to look up again and caught the eye of my big boss. Quickly, I averted my eyes. That was the easy option, talking to someone I already knew. My boss probably knew that too. I wasn’t going to burden him with my conversation.

As I hovered by my table, I thought about leaving. Others had. It would stop this feeling of wretched stupidity and awkwardness.

Okay, that’s it.

I turned and walked past other tables, past my boss, past the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the sunset over the Yarra River, and approached two men sitting near the front.

“Hello! Can I join you?” I smiled.

“Sure,” they said.

I pulled over a chair and sat down.

Suitably male

At Friday’s luncheon, I found my name on Table 6 and sat myself next to Ben. Ben works for the management services business group, which is in a different building to where I work. So even though we had worked for the same company for a year, this was the first time we had met. I knew the rest of his team mates, though, and they were all women.

“So Ben,” I said, “Are you the only guy in your team?”

“Joan,” he replied immediately, “it’s been like that my whole life.” I found out that Ben used to be an occupational therapist. “At uni, all the occupational therapy students were girls, so when I started working, I worked with females too. Now that I do communications and sociology, they’re all girls again! I must have the kind of skill areas that are traditionally female-dominated.”

I laughed. “That’s… a weird sitatuion, considering you work for an engineering company.”

“That’s right. There are plenty of men around — I’m just not working with them! Don’t get me wrong, though. It’s all good.”

“Well, I’m an engineer. I’ve always worked with guys and as you probably know, when you get to know people, it’s not like ‘He’s a guy’ or ‘She’s a girl’. They’re just people. Except when they start talking about shoes, right? Then they’re girls.”

“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “I have trouble relating when they start talking about shoes.”

“So, then, do you do something suitably violent and male when you’re not working?” I asked.

Ben brightened. “I do!”

Football, right? I thought. That, or karate.

“Yeah, I do kung fu.”

Bingo.

It’s a small world after all

Today was the second day of our negotiation workshop and the teacher introduced us to a class observer, Ann. Ann was visiting to see how the course could fit into a training program for school teachers.

During the morning break, Ann walked over to me. “Joan, I have to ask… Did you go to this Primary School?” She named a little suburban Roman Catholic primary school.

“Yes!” I was taken aback.

“I taught you!” she said excitedly.

“What?! What’s your surname?” She told me and my jaw dropped. “Mrs F? You taught me in Grade 1! Oh my god, that’s so amazing! You remember me?”

“I remembered your name.” Ann pointed to my name badge. Everyone in the workshop wore a name badge. “Oh, I remember how little and clever you were. You used to love writing poems. Do you still write?”

“I do! I have a website, a blog, which people seem to like reading.” I was delighted.

“And how about your brother, Jason? He was so cute,” she laughed, “and so shy. Is he still shy?”

I was so floored that she remembered both of us and our names from seventeen years ago. “Jason’s doing really well for himself. He’s not shy anymore, he’s very outgoing.”

“The stories I could tell!” Ann said. “I remember when we were at camp and at the concert, everyone had to go on stage and dance. Jason was huddled at the back, so scared. I thought he was going to have an asthma attack, he was that anxious!”

“And another time, we were learning about money. When I got the jar of coins back, just 5 and 10 cent coins, half the jar was empty! I looked at little Jason and his pockets were full and hanging so low. He had take all the coins!”

“I remember that!” I nodded. “Don’t know how I heard about it…”

“Well, it happened once and I thought, ‘Hmm, okay.’ But when it happened a second time, I had to talk to your father.” We both laughed.

“Oh my god, I can’t get over it. That’s so amazing. I was so little and you were huge, and now I’m an adult…”

“And I’m still an adult…” Ann added.

“I’m calling you Ann and not Mrs F…” I shook my head. “Unbelievable. And somehow, we’ve both ended up in the Negotiation class in the conflict resolution program. It’s such a small world.”

They made me cry

Every year at work, we have a Professional Review and Development (PRD) process. In the PRD, each person writes about how they performed in the previous year, what skills they want to develop next year, and sets goals for themselves. Your team leader then reviews your PRD form and you have a formal discussion about it. At the discussion, your team leader will evaluate your performance for the year.

At my PRD review, I had two interviewers: my previous team leader, who looked after me for most of the year, and my new team leader, who will manage my training needs and evaluate me for next year.

Some time between the morning and my PRD review in the afternoon, I developed a severe cold. While Paul and Diane were talking to me, I was constantly snuffling into tissues.

“I’m sorry I’m so teary,” I apologised. “I seem to have a cold.”

“That’s all right,” Diane said, and continued saying things, quite nice things, about my work this year.

I nodded and tried to smile through my tears.

There was a knock on the meeting room door and my big boss, another Paul, stuck his head in.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Diane, could I –” He saw me. “Wow!” He looked taken aback. “Is it really going that badly?”

Putting up a fight

“We’ve still got an hour,” Peter said. “We can wait in the Qantas Club.”

Clair and I hesitated. When we tried to get into the Qantas Club in Melbourne this morning, the staff had allowed us in reluctantly. Each member was only allowed one guest per trip.

We walked into the foyer of the Canberra airport Qantas club.

“Excuse me!” the receptionist said. “Can I see your boarding passes?” Peter showed her his. I sort of waved mine at her too. Clair did the same.

“Only one guest,” she said. We looked at each other.

“Can you let us in this time?” Peter asked casually.

“No.” She shook her head firmly.

“Go ahead, Peter,” I said. “We can wait outside. I’ve waited in airports before. I don’t need the Qantas club.”

There was a long silence as we stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

“Well, no, you wait here,” Peter said. “I’ll see if there’s anyone I know.” He disappeared into the club. What? What’s he doing? What’s he mean, see if there’s anyone he knows?

Clair and I waited at the edges. I tried not to look at the receptionist.

Two minutes passed and Peter emerged with another gentleman. His companion looked at us with a small smile.

“Right, let’s go” was Peter’s brisk introduction. Surprised, Clair and I scurried after him.

“Hold on!” the receptionist called. “Do you have a guest already?”

Peter’s companion shook his head. “No.”

The receptionist glowered as the four of us walked into the club, where complimentary wine, food, magazines, TV and internet access awaited us.

As soon as we reached the lounge, we waved goodbye to the accommodating fellow.

“Peter, was he some stranger you just picked up?” Clair laughed.

“Oh, I know him from the university,” Peter said vaguely. “I just thought there might be someone I knew.

World versus Telstra

I went along with Miriam to the nearest Telstra Shop. We waited for someone to help us. It was very busy this lunch time.

Finally, Graeme beckoned us to the counter. Miriam brought out her new phone car charger. She had bought it at another Telstra shop in Wodonga, around 4.5 hours north-east of Melbourne. It turned out that the charger didn’t fit her phone, even though she had shown the store assistants the phone she needed the charger for.

Miriam politely asked for a refund; the other store had assured her she could get a refund from any other Telstra shop. Graeme looked surprised.

“I’m sorry, we don’t sell this phone charger. It’s not even in our inventory… so I can’t give you a refund for it.”

“What do you mean? I bought it at a Telstra Shop.”

“Well, yes, it was probably a licenced Telstra Shop, you know, a franchise shop. Most of the Telstra Shops in the city are owned by Telstra but Telstra also franchises the shop, especially in rural areas. The franchises can sell whatever they like. The Telstra-owned shops have a strict inventory. Now, if this charger was part of our inventory, I could refund the money for you but…” He shrugged helplessly.

Miriam gave him a hard look. “Well. What should I do, then? Do I need to courier this to Wodonga?”

Graeme looked uncomfortable. “Well, you could…” All three of us were thinking about the high cost of couriers. “Try calling the Wodonga shop first,” he suggested.

Awkward silence. Miriam looked polite but she must have been frustrated.

Suddenly, a large brown bird flew in and dived over Graeme’s head.

“It’s an Optus bird!” I cried. “He’s come to get you!”

Graeme and the other store owners paused in confusion, then laughed. I could tell it was nervous laughter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just say the word, just say the word…

Working on the prairie

I was typing at a furious pace, hurtling towards a deadline when suddenly, there was a *tick* and everything went black. A unified gasp of horror reverberated around the office. I leapt up from my seat. At the same time, everyone else had stood up, craning their heads over the pod partitions. We looked like dozens of prarie dogs peering out of our holes.

People’s confused expressions were soon replaced with looks of distress and anger. Wails of despair could be heard as engineers, scientists, planners and architects realized that their last hour of work had been snatched away by the blackout.

“What can we do? We can’t write reports, we can’t make calls!” they cried. Some consoled each other, while others went to the tea point to drown their sorrows in coffee and biscuits.

After a pause of worry, I brightened. Finally! Here was the perfect opportunity for me to tidy my desk! Over the past two weeks, I have been so busy doing charegeable work for clients that I couldn’t file the mounds of paper building up on my desk. The untidiness and disorganisation gnawed at me.

Hooray!

Tracking Cody

I plonked the thick yellow envelope onto the counter.

“Hello. I need to get this to England as quickly as possible.”

Charles the counterhand looked at me doubtfully. “It’s going to be very expensive.”

“How much and how long?” I asked, steely-eyed. He could see that I was serious.

“Express Courier International,” he replied briskly. “It’s the very best. You can insure it, register it, track it. It’ll be there by the end of the week, guaranteed.” He named his exorbitant price. I paid in cash.

As soon as the barcode was swiped, someone darted out from the back mailroom and snatched my envelope from the scales. I just managed to glimpse his nametag before he sprinted past.

Cody the Courier ran onto the street, his hand reaching high. He expertly dodged the pedestrains to reach a taxi 60 m up the road.

“The airport, please,” he said. The driver nodded, rubbed his e-TAG to warm it up, then took off from the curb.

As the taxi careened through the suburbs, Cody pulled out his BlackBerry to book his flight. The only seat available was in Busines class on the Emirates.

Half an hour later, Cody was checking in (“No checked-in luggage. One hand luggage, 7 kg. One envelope. Aisle seat, please.”) and boarding the Boeing 777-300.

In the flight attendants’ first sweep, Cody politely refused a scotch on the rocks (“Sorry, I’m working.”) but did accept the offer of a Playstation 2. He played for a couple of hours (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) then watched a nature documentary about beavers before flicking a switch to convert his business class recliner into a bed.

He didn’t bother shopping during the stopover in Dubai (he’d been there just last week).

As the aeroplane approached London, Cody quickly filled in his arrival documents, barely glancing at the familiar options (“Not carrying animals, drugs, plants, radio transmitters, sealskins, vegetables or weapons.”).

He waited quietly as the plane came to a standstill and the boarding passage was extended and docked. He disembarked with the other passengers but as soon as there was space, Cody exploded into action. He sprinted past the crowd transfixed at the baggage carousel, flew through Customs then burst into the wet London weather.

His hair whiplashed into his eyes as he whirled around and shouted, “Taxi!”

And that’s where he is now. How do I know this? Because I’m tracking him, of course. I guess you do get what you pay for.

Cody’s adventures