Jan 2003 – April 2003

This was my first temping job in Edinburgh after a few months of travelling. There were about a dozen of us hired to reorganise all the patient files into a new system, label them, and re-file them in preparation for moving to the new hospital site. It was a pretty boring job most of the time, but I worked with lots of crazy fun people, a couple of whom I’m still in touch with! (Hi Ezza!)

We used to head to the pub with our boss (who ended up marrying one of the temp workers!!) every Friday around 4pm which was sweeeeeeeeeeeet! Good times.

June 2002 – Oct 2002

Once I finished uni in June, I had some free time on my hands, and the cafe next door to YACMU needed an EXTRA set of hands, so in I went! I used to work in the cafe from 8:30am til 11:30am, then head over to YACMU til 5pm. It was the perfect mix of project work (at YACMU) and people-work (at the Cafe). I gotta say, I made a pretty mean latte! It even had LAY-YERS! (This is not one of my lattes, but it looks about the same!)

Again, I left this job to travel abroad.

Jan 2002 – Oct 2002

This was the start of a beautiful friendship!

I was hired by the Youth & Children’s Ministry Unit to implement the Working with Children Checks (Blue Cards) in Queensland Uniting Churches. I worked with an amazing group of people, a lot of whom are still there. I must have done something right, as I was offered 2 more contracts with them over the next few years.

I left to travel overseas for a year!

2000-2002 & 2003-2004

I babysat every Thursday night from 5:30pm for 2 gorgeous kids while their parents went out on “date night”. Sometimes I’d work for 3 hours, sometimes 6 or even 7 hours. It was all cash in hand – the easiest money I’ve ever made – and the kids were fantastic. We had lots of fun! I left this job when I went overseas in October 2002, and resumed when I came back in September 2004 for another 12 months. I wonder what the kids are up to now…

2000-2001

I was a child carer here, Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 9am til 11am. The money was great and it was cash in hand which was REALLY great! During school term, I’d only have 2 – 5 kids to look after, and not usually all at once. During school holidays, however, I’d have up to 12 kids and sometimes a couple of them were babies. That was a bit much. I used to off-load the babies onto the trainers and then try and keep the other kids under control.

Fridays were sometimes not-so-fun as Thursday night was student’s night at all the night clubs in town which meant $1 drinks. If I didn’t have any kids for a bit, I’d have a little kip in the cubby house! I left this job when the place closed down.

(You’ll be happy guaranteed!)
1998 – 2000 Casual

I was a casual check-out chick out at Aspley Hyperhole, as it was affectionately named. I quite liked this job. It was very cruisey work, and VERY social. I got to chat to people all day (some weirder than others!) and I worked with a couple of friends from Aspley UC which was so much fun. Once I turned 20 though, they started only giving me 4 hours per week, so I had to look for something else as well.

1998 (for about 4-5 months)

Mum got me this job as she worked here (and still does!) as well. I also used to work here over the school/uni holidays with my friend Cicely. We were the envelope stuffers! It was fun working with Mum, and it didn’t take me too long to start calling her by her first name, instead of “Mum” but she had a hard time not calling me “darling”. It was quite funny! I think I left this job due to health reasons (headaches that turned out to be nothing exciting – I’m a bit precious!!)

1997-1998
I worked at the MYER Centre shop as a volunteer shop assistant and then they offered me some paid work too. I worked Friday nights from 5pm til 9pm and Saturdays 9 til 5. I worked with lovely, crazy, hippie people and there were a few perks to the job as well. Can’t remember why I left.

1996 Christmas holidays
Casual work at Kelvin Grove State Primary School. I got paid $7.77 per hour!! I also got told to “**ck off” by a 10-year-old. I was most appalled. Amazing the things you remember.