It was raining when we came into Wellington, and the first thing I did was steer Kara the wrong way down a one way street.
But we didn't die, and our hostel, The Dwellington, is LOVELY. Update more later!
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Kara had her interview at New World on Wednesday, and I had a couple of temp agency interviews scheduled. I met with one recruitment agency in the morning, and they had a part-time job in mind for me, which was incredibly exciting as I was expecting to have a very difficult time finding work. I told them I was really enthusiastic about it, and to let me know as soon as possible. Then, that afternoon, I went to a second recruitment agency and they had a job in mind for me too, this time full-time, and they thought I could interview as soon as the next day. As I was in that interview, I got a call from the previous agency offering me the part-time job, but I turned it down and crossed my fingers for the full-time job, which made me SO NERVOUS.
The next morning I had yet another agency interview, and they didn't have anything for me right away, which was okay. I headed off to the Te Papa Museum to see the exhibit on Gallipoli, a battle/seige that New Zealand took very heavy losses at during WW1. It was just incredibly, incredibly sad. It did, however, have some genuinely amazing sculpture work by Weta Workshop. (See Kara and Jordan's Wellington post for picture!)
My job there was dealing with a list of charities that had donations coming to them from a program called Good in the Hood that Z Energy runs. The charities needed to fill a form confirming their tax info, and about 200 hadn't. I had to call each of them to remind them, and compile a list of people who needed the e-mail resent. Easy enough, and everyone was actually really happy to hear from since they're so excited about the program!
I had a nice spot towards the reception desk, free fancy coffee, and a headset, and I was quite comfortable there for my two days. And I'm actually going back for a few hours on Monday to get the e-mails sent out- it wasn't part of the original job, but it needs to get done.
On Friday, I took a long lunch to go interview with the full-time job the second recruitment agency found for me. It's at the Ministry of Education in a temporary but ongoing Senior Office Support role. Apparently my team takes the incoming communication from the ministers and gets all of the communication to the right people, and deals with everything when questions have to go to multiple departments. I met the woman in charge of all admins, and also two members of the team I'll be working with. It was a really quick but very pleasant sort of “meet and greet” interview, and I got offered the job just an hour after it! I start on Tuesday, on a VERY generous salary, so I'm a bit nervous and VERY excited. I think, if all goes well, that I'll be able to get a room in a house here and even save some money to travel on my way home- and not go home broke!
But it's been a surreal few days. I almost have whiplash; I figured that it would be very hard to find work here, since Kara and Jordan struggled immensely and they were trying really, really hard. I really am unsure why it was easier for me. (Jordan says: My guess is that Lizzy's NZ work experience and previous temp agency work were very helpful in this regard.) Also, we've been traveling almost non-stop for 7 months, and so the fact that I start a full-time job in 2 days is really strange.
Kara and Jordan have left Wellington to head to some amazing wwoofing in Wanganui. I think Kara would very definitely have gotten the New World job, and Jordan actually got offered a temp assignment late on Friday, but by then they'd already decided to give Wellington a miss and head out. So also now I am alone (or as alone as you can be at a hostel), after nearly 7 months of being not alone. Everything changes.
Kara says: given that Jordan and I had already spend a lot of time, money, blood, sweat, and tears trying to find work in Wellington, we decided that it would be best, and more enjoyable, to go wwoofing. I had gotten a lead from my sister about a job in Seattle at her office for the summer, which was on our minds, and Jordan and I had to think seriously about what we really wanted out of our experiences in New Zealand. It was a difficult decision to make to leave Wellington (though Lizzy is much more sure of my prospects with the sandwich making position than I am), but I think the path for Jordan and I lies elsewhere!
Jordan says: It was a difficult decision to leave Wellington, particularly since I started getting calls for temp assignments as soon as we made the decision to email our wwoofing hosts. Over the next week I had several offers for work, but we had committed to wwoofing, and were looking toward our prospects in the US. I think we've created a good situation, but the process of getting there was stressful.
Part of what makes this so surreal and exciting for me is that, back in the day, I used to spend hours and hours pouring over interviews from the Lord of the Rings cast, where they talked about how much they loved living in Wellington. I wondered and wondered what it was like. And now it's my turn to find out!. Let's see what happens next!