Sat. 26th July

Perhaps it is a reflection of how desparate times call for desparate measures that after just two full days in Airlie Beach, I have already landed myself a job, albeit one with a shockingly low rate of pay, in an establishment where half the patrons at any one time are likely to be under the age of ten.

I arrived here with $8 in my bank account, which quickly shrank to $3 after having to put a $10 cash deposit for my roomkey (which I had forgotten to allow for!), on Thursday evening. Friday was mega-job-hunt day, in which I distributed CVs to nearly every bar/pub/cafe/restaurant in town, and suffered as series of knock-backs before a couple of places responded positively and gave me a glimmer of hope.

Only two out of all the businesses in town got back to me, one offering full-time hours in a cafe, but entirely daytime shifts, between 7am-6pm. The other was the Hog'sBreath, with less guarenteed hours, but more variety of working times as it is open all day AND evening, from noonish til 10pm. I asked the cafe for time to think about the proposal, but decided against it; I LOVE the sun. This heat and sunshine is one of the reasons why I came, and one of my very favourite things about australia, I am not happier than when I am lying, reading, soaking up some rays. I do not think I could actually be happy here, if I was working all day and missing out on, for me, the best part of the day. I would have had evenings off, which is no good to me! I don't particularly like evenings, it is difficult to be productive and get stuff done in them, would most probably resort to going out and drinking. Boring!

So I had a trial Sat night at the Hog's Breath, it turned out to be super-busy, we all ran round like lunatics and it was great fun! Apart from having to dodge round children all the time, and having to sing happy birthday to accompany the delivery of a birthday cake to three separate tables. Ugh!

The Hog's Breath is an Australian chain, quite popular, very successful and all over Aus, it's kindof like TGI Fridays or the walkabout or somewhere and specialises in slow-cooked steaks, whcih the customers will no doubt frequently ask me my opinion on, which is always hilarious. So it seems like a fun place to work with shifts that are perfect for me (not too late nights, plenty of daytimes off) but the pay is s***!! It is just $15.49/hr, which will leave me with around $11/hr after tax. Ok, so I should get the tax back but not until next year and it's what I get now that counts! Was also informed today that I have to fork out another $40 for the uniform, of a shirt and apron, which they omitted to tell me before, so annoying. I had to buy denim shorts today to wear with the uniform ($50) so even after working tonight, I will not have covered the costs I have spent on the outfit so far!

I'm going to give it a chance, I am not in a position to be picky, hopefully they will give me enough hours/wk to enable me to at least break even, but I have a suspicion at the back of my throat that I may very soon come to resent working for such low hourly rate. But for now any money is good (except I won't see any of it til next week). I'm working this evening, which is good. And I had an excuse to buy a very nice pair of denim shorts (I have wanted a pair for ages but not been able to justify spending the money on them), which is great!