I finally resigned from my job
I've been going to do it for the last 6 months, but have hung in there till now (I actually finish at Easter)
First and foremost, I hated the commute in the fog last winter. Its a 120km round trip commute each day for me, on a road where there are log trucks every 20 seconds on the road. People don't slow down in the fog anymore. I don't understand overtaking when you can't see if theres anything coming? Scary.
I don't get paid enough danger money to put myself through that again. No. They only pay me a miniscule $249 a week (take petrol out, and I'm left with less than $200 a week) So thats another reason to leave too. The nature of the job meant that I had to take work home with me too. Which made it hard to find the time to earn any additional income .
When I took this job on 16 months ago, it was advertised as a 15 hour a week job with the possibility of increasing the hours. I chose this job over a temporary full time job I was offered as a tour guide at the Beaconsfield Mine Museum. Basically because this was an ongoing job with the chance of increasing the hours. But, reality soon set in, they were never going to increase the hours. The workload was huge and as I said, I ended up taking work home and found myself working 7 days a week.
And because this place sold second hand goods, it was against company policy for anyone to buy anything from work and sell it on ebay. Well, ebay is how I have always generated some income between jobs, but I never bought anything from work and sold it on ebay. But I did feel that if I sold something of my own from around the house, that it might be misconstrued that I'd got it from work. So this always held me back from selling online for myself while I was working there. Thank goodness for Facebook and my lovely Vintage Queen customers!!
I'd really love to have the time to expand the vintage queen thing, so now that I've resigned, perhaps I will do a bit more of that?
Another thing, I had a fall down the stairs at work last November and the lasting effects from that, is that I have a torn Achilles tendon, which has limited my mobility immensely. If I was looking for another job that required me to stand on my feet all day, well, that is just out of the question now. Grrr. Its going to take a good 12 months for the Achilles to come right.
I used to play lots and lots of tennis years ago. I was keen to get back into it too. I'd just purchased a new racquet and tennis shoes and was about to join the local tennis club the week after my fall. Well, its not going to happen any time soon now. Bummer.
Why else did I need to leave? I have to write this down because I soon forget the bad stuff. Money, yep I'd like to earn more for the time I put in, thats for sure. It was never going to happen in that job. As much as it was great work, the bosses were awesome, the other workers all became great mates with me (everything I'd missed since I worked for Australia Post in Launceston years ago)!! There was one worker here tho, we got on fine and worked well together, but she sorted the books, and had unreal expectations of what they were worth, and was always on at me for selling them too cheap. On one hand I wanted to generate sales to keep my bosses happy, and on the other hand I wanted to keep the book-sorter lady happy too.
The bottom line was that I got sales on the board and sold items online for them for greatly more than they would get in their retail stores. But then this womans nagging got the better of me, and a few months ago, I decided to list the books for sale at the prices she told me to list them at.
Well, can you guess what happened? NO SALES. Hmm, we were suddenly not even making enough to cover my wages. This lady didn't think this was anything to be worried about.
By this stage I was buying time at work. I was ready to leave, as long as I was finished before for the foggy weather returned. (I look out my window as I write this, I live near a river, and its foggy as. First one for the year. I have 6 more days to commute before my last day, hopefully I can crack some fine weather on those days.
Anyway, it just showed that the formula I had been using previously was working, but this womans nagging was getting to me, so as a little exercise I tried selling the books at her price, and it didn't work. I think I just had to do that before I finally quit!!
So, after Easter, I can put some more time into my own little business, I have boxes of jewellery that I must take to the market and sell, plus I have a ROOM FULL of Holy Clothing items that I have imported which I need to figure the best way to get in and sell. Markets ? Party plan? Online selling? Not sure.
Also, I've been going thru interviews for the last few months to work at this place http://www.salesforceathome.com.au/ Training should start soon. I will be able to work my own hours and for the first time in 10 years, I'll finally be able to earn a REAL INCOME, I know someone who works for this place already and there is seriously good money to be made here (not mega millions, but compared to the pittance I've been earning for many years, I will finally be able to make ends meet again - YAY) bring it on I say.
I'M GOING ON A WORKING HOLIDAY
I'll only have just started out in my new venture when I will be taking two weeks off and going to Queensland. Every year my friend Lorna sends me her surplus clothes to sell on ebay for her. She has great taste in clothes and her stuff usually sells really well. We split the takings 50/50 each. Usually we make a couple of thousand bucks out of each little exercise, so its well worth it. Last year when she sent her stuff down from Qld, the postage cost HUNDREDS (I think it was close to $400) Well, I decided that next time, I would get cheap airfares and fly up there, have a short holiday and sell the clothes up there for her. Lorna runs a caravan park on the coast outside Bundaberg. So, as long as its not school holidays, she can give me a cabin to stay in. I cashed in my frequent flyer points which paid for the airfares. I'm flying to Brisbane, then the next day, will be catching the TILT TRAIN up to Bundaberg. How exciting, I've never done train travel on the mainland other than inner city commuter trains and once got the train up to the Blue Mountains (and can I count the Karanda tourist train in Cairns?) No, this is going to be something different, I think the tilt train is supposed to be one of those FAST sort of trains. Anyway, it will be better than driving the 5 hours up the Bruce Hwy with all the traffic and trucks. Its a horrible road. We usually go up the coast to Noosa and then link up with the Bruce, but its still a yucky drive from Gympie to Bundaberg, so very happy to be taking the train. Lorna also has a car we can use while there, apparently its a bomb and its been in an altercation with a Cane Train, but what the heck, no-one knows us up there, and as long as its got wheels and moves, we are happy. When I get there, I'll quickly photograph her lovelies and pop the pics on Vintage Queens Facebook. If they don't sell on there, they'll go straight onto ebay for a week. Once theyre on ebay, we are going to sneak off to Hervey Bay and Rainbow Beach for some relaxation time. Then it will back to the caravan park to post the goodies to the new buyers.
I'm flying home from Bundaberg airport and I think that I have some checked baggage allowance on the return flights, so I can bring home anything for Tassie buyers and things that don't sell, if I think they are worth re-listing, I'll bring them back too.
Lorna is a busy lady and doesnt have time to do this herself. She was inspired by my initial weightloss in 2007 and went and had lapband herself after a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. She has had great success and now wears around a size 16 and is absolutely thrilled with that. So, I don't know what size her clothes will be that I'll be selling this time, probably size 22-24 on average I'd say? Can't wait to see. She loves funky gypsy hippie styles, and is a big lover of purple. All the things that other buyers adore! Stay tuned. They'll be on Facebook at the end of May
As far as I go, not much has changed, still fluctuating around the same weight. Can't eat anything less than what I already eat, I know I just have to get moving again, after I hurt my ankle at work, this has not been easy, so I'm trying to get back into the Wii again. Love the Tennis game on Wii Sports. I also have a Zen Chi massager that I'd forgotten was in the cupboard since we moved here two years ago. I must get that out and use it. I used it religiously twice a day when I was losing all my weight after the banding, not sure if it helped, but it claims that 30 mins on the machine is equivelant to running 4km. Now I have no hope of running 40 metres, let alone 4km. I couldn't even walk 4km with my torn Achilles. So, lets see how this goes!!
BELOW IS A PHOTO MONTAGE OF LORNA'S JOURNEY WITH THE BAND