Tag: young professional

May 27, 2005

Arts bitterness

One morning, I wanted to treat myself to a hot drink. I considered awarding my patronage to Gloria Jeans, Hudsons, Coffee HQ or some other coffee chain store but then I decided to support local business. I walked into a new coffee shop near the train station. Staff there had been trying to woo me in for weeks with their free raisin toast samples and mo’aves.

“One soy latte please,” I said to the attendant.

“Sure,” she said brightly. She tapped a fellow staff member on the shoulders to pass on the message. He got to work straight away.

“So,” she said in a friendly way, “What do you do?”

I was a little surprised by the directness of her conversation starter (What happened to ‘How are you today?’) but I proudly said, “I’m an environmental engineer.”

“Where do you work?”

“Just over there, in that building.” I felt the need to add something. “I only started a few months ago.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “So you did one of those degrees that actually gets you a job.”

Whoa. I stepped back a little.

“Um. Yeah. Environmental engineering. It’s quite vocational…”

“I did Arts. Lucas here did Graphic Design.”

Lucas stiffened and continued making my soy latte in uncomfortable silence.

“Oh.” I tried to nod understandingly. Quick! Say something not condescending! “…Do you find yourself using your skills now? This seems like a pretty… funky place.”

“Nah. Not really.” She looked at me expectantly.

(Cautiously) “Is that disappointing?”

“Yeah. I guess. But we all knew when we were at uni that we weren’t going to get jobs. We were expecting it. Now I want to do Education so I can get a job.”

“Ah… Some of my friends who did Arts have done that and they love Education now.”

“Yeah,” she nodded enthusiastically. “But, you know, I kind of look back on it and think, ‘What was the point of those three years?’ “

“Surely it wasn’t a waste of three years, though…” I murmured.

“One soy latte.” Lucas had spoken for the first time. He pushed my take-away cup towards me.

“Thanks.” I wrapped my fingers around the insulated hotness.

“See you next time!” she called as, stepping back onto the street, I walked towards my professional career.

May 2, 2005

Come work for my company

At about 10 AM, I noticed the people in my pod and the adjacent pod getting up and heading towards Meeting Room 8.07. Tim was leading the group. Tim is our tall white-haired air quality guru.

“Joan,” he said as he passed me, “We’re going into the meeting room to celebrate Scott’s newborn son with a Russian tradition. Would you like to join us?” I got up and allowed myself to be ushered into the meeting room. The door was shut behind us.

Tim put a bag onto the table and took out six little shot glasses and a jar of clear liquid. Oh! I looked at the adults around me. I could see where this was going.

Tim casually poured the vodka into the glasses, then gestured for us to take one.

“Is Junior on the phone?” he asked Scott.

“Ready and waiting,” Scott said as he turned up the volume on the speakerphone. We heard a distant gurgling and cooing.

Tim said, “Now, we all have to sing the traditional Russian song. There is only one word, which you sing three times. Then we repeat the whole thing another three times so we end up with three verses. I’ll start and I expect you all to join in by the end.”

Tim began singing with gusto and unexpected musicality.

We all began laughing and tried to follow. “Nemstrode…ta! Nimenostreta…um…taaaa! Namistrone…….ta!”

Then in unison, we all downed our shots of vodka.

I felt warm and fuzzy the rest of the work day.

April 20, 2005

Really, I’m not chatting you up!

I met Warwick at the Engineers Australia seminar. I hear that these events are prime networking opportunities so I decided to engage him in friendly conversation. I found out that he had graduated from the Australian National University in Canberra and moved to Melbourne two years ago to work for a wind energy company.

J:	“How was the move to Melbourne?”
W:	“Good, good. It’s a great city. Lots more happening compared to Canberra.”
J:	“Did you have to make a whole new bunch of friends when you came over?”
W:	“Actually, I met a lot of Melbourne friends while I was travelling overseas.”
J:	“What about at your work? What’s the workforce at your company like?”
W:	“It’s quite a small company. There are a few guys my age so I socialise with them a bit.”
J:	“What about girls?”
W:	(taken aback) “Well, um, I moved in with three girls when I got to Melbourne, so…”
J:	(calmly) “No, I mean, are there many female engineers in your company?”
W:	(flustered) “Oh! Sorry! That’s what you meant. Sorry. Erm. No, there aren’t any female engineers. We used to, ah, have one but she, um, left…”
J:	“Ah. It looks like us girls haven’t yet penetrated the wind industry.”

Tee hee hee…