When I came to Australia, I decided that my first week or two I will just relax and go about exploring new places. I didn’t want to look for a job just yet. I had worked up to the day before my flight to save money and wanted to take a break. I browsed over some job listing online and did my RSA course. (Responsible Service of Alcohol) Which you absolutely need to to work in a restaurant, bar or any venue that sells alcohol and that is exactly what I was planning to do.
Come the beginning of week 3, I was getting bored of just exploring by myself and not meeting anyone yet made me kind of lonely. I guess it was time to go out and start looking for a job. I wasn’t planning on looking for anything serious or anything with too much responsibility since my main goal is to just work to make some quick money to continue my travels and meet some cool people.
As it turns out, it is not that easy to get a call back. I’ve went into multiple places and applied to dozens of online ads for places that I thought would be great to work at. Nothing. No replies or callbacks. I started to get desperate and started applying to everything that the search on job sites would bring up.
Boom! Bingo! Got a callback within 45 minutes of sending in the application. Wow! Another one! I was pretty proud of myself. I should have done that right from the beginning and not have been picky. Both of them set a date and I was invited over for an interview to both jobs. Even better! I didn’t even ask what the job was, nor did they go into detail. I didn’t care. I even stopped applying for other jobs, because of my previous track record. Before, if I ever went into for an interview, I pretty much had the job. Mistake number one, but like I said, I was proud of myself and feeling pretty good.
I went in for my interview at the first job. It turns out it was a marketing company. Okay. What does a marketing want with me? I don’t have any marketing experience, my resume clearly shows that. Well as they explained it, they are looking for people with hospitality experience and great people skills for around the city, working malls and events promoting non-profit organisations like “The Breast Cancer Foundation” and other alike around Christmas season. Sounds good. Help promote a great cause and get paid, who would say no? We will call you back for a second in depth interview they said.
They did. So did the second place, which just happened to be an identical marketing agency, doing the same exact thing, giving just as little information. I figured I’ll go to both. Only one problem, they wanted me to dress “business casual” but I left all my shirts, pants and dress shoes at home. Who brings that on a backpacking trip?! Which meant if i wanted to go to these interviews, I had to go out and buy a whole new outfit. I did. No surprise.
When I showed up to the interview the next day, I found out it was a group interview. Half interview, half information session. No one else except me was dressed for business. Fantastic! Now I stood out like a sore thumb. I found out later that the rest of the candidates were also backpackers and didn’t have business clothes, nor did they want to buy them for just one interview. If only I have been so smart! Well at lease I impressed the guys at the company, or so I thought since they called me back again for non paid training day.
The person on charge of the information session and the training day explained that the job was commission only and was basically selling people a subscription program that takes money out of your account every month to give to the foundation and non profit organization I was to represent. Even knowing that I decided to go for it an try it, I mean I’ve gotten this far. The guy leading the training day, who was also the owner of the company ensured us it was really easy and that we would be making alot of money in no time. ( provided we can bullshit our way into getting people to sign up)
I already understood that this was your regular sales at a shopping center job. Trying to get people to stop and then sell them something that they absolutely don’t need, but the surprises kept on coming. They wanted us to register for an ABN, Australian Bussines Number. What!? Why!? Ohh, we weren’t even employees, we are private contractors. Ok sure.
My curiousity gotten the better of me and getting this far I decided to keep going, only because we didn’t have to register for the ABN right away, which I wasn’t actually planning on doing. I got teamed up with 2 other people who have been there for awhile. An Irish girl still in her teens, who was my team leader and an Aussie guy in his mid twenties. Both of whom have been doing this job for a few months and were already making good money. We got pink Breats Cancer shirts and got sent out to Armadale. Not the ideal place you want to be. Armadale isn’t exactly the most well off suburb in Perth. It’s the sort of place, where you see people with no shoes and a rat tail or a mullet walking around the mall.
So here I was wearing fancy dress pants and dress shoes, in a bright pink shirt with a ribbon on it. I didn’t exactly fit in. I was like a clown to these people, so stopping them wasn’t exactly easy. Not to mention trying to sell them something they can’t afford. Well my team mates did alot better. They knew something that I wasn’t told, that we can bring a change of clothes to fit in better. My team mates constantly telling to fake smile through out the day wasn’t helping me at all. For a job where I was supposedly working for myself and had no boss, I sure got bossed around a lot and told to do thing that I was not comfortable with. I knew it was not the job for me about half way through the day and I have thought about just leaving, but having little to no money left on my bus card and knowing the price it would cost to get home changed my mind.
Because we worked on a 40 minutes on, 20 minutes off rotation, I spent most of those breaks contemplating if I want to keep trying or just give up. After making up my mind on giving up, I spent the rest of my breaks applying for other jobs online. I even got a few responses 🙂
After getting through the day in new dress shoes, my feet were very sore. I was not in the best of moods. I guess getting rejected by strangers makes it very difficult to have a smile at the end of the day. Once we got back into Perth, I left all the things I was given in the team leaders car and just said bye. There was no way I was coming back the next day.
The job itself isn’t very hard. I mean you get to stand around wearing a bright shirt, chatting with people and trying to get them to sign up. ( if they stop that is) Even if you don’t get any to sign up, just getting to know people from all paths of life is fun. It is a job for someone who has their things together and someone who can spare a month of working 12 hours a day, 5 days a week for free, until they get better and actually start signing people up to make money. It is not at all a job for a backpacker, who just wants to make some money to carry on his travels. Even though that is exactly what the agency/firm will have you believe.
My advice to anyone who is backpacking and comes across this kind of job offer is: DON”T BOTHER! Unless you really have a lot of time to spare and money is not an issues or you want to learn that skill set, it is not worth the time or effort.