and i'm here with Narelle. My friend Narelle
has been really great to come along and
have a chitchat chitchat session so what
are we talking about today we're just
gonna chat about our jobs first java
first job mm-hmm and maybe a second job
and what that was like so I think that's
something interesting to talk about ok
so do you want to get that I'll go first
all right so my first job um I was quite
young when I had my first job and I was
12 at that time so at the time i was i
was living in my home town port lincoln
and just a small town in south australia
and i am I really wanted to save up some
money to get a stereo so I'm you know
showing my age of it yeah yeah yeahs
tapes beleaguered owner takes cassettes
we didn't even have CD so yeah and i
wanted i had a little one but i wanted a
bigger one so when mom was like we're
gonna get a job and save up some money
so I got a little job delivering
pamphlets putting them in people's
mailboxes yeah and so old leaflets
sometimes that well they're the smaller
ones but pamphlets are like a little
kind of booklets with that I used for
advertising and it has you know sales
and discounts from shops and
supermarkets so we would get a big and I
had a bicycle so I would just go around
my area and I had a certain area that I
had to cover and I'd get a bunch of
these pamphlets and I'd put them on the
back of my bike and just take off so
yeah so I did that for about six months
and you know we just got like literally
twelve dollars per sack of bag pamphlets
did you earn enough for your stereo I
did I did um just yes I saved up and by
Christmas I had I think a hundred and
fifty dollars to get my stereo a hundred
and fifty dollars
money back then well it was yeah and and
then I continued actually one side I'd
reached my goal I am I continued and
then I wanted to go to a concert in
Adelaide so um and I just kept saving to
go to that and then after about I don't
know maybe about a year I was just bored
bored with it and then school got busy
so you know had to kind of get focused
on that and yeah so that was my first
job sounds good how about yours uh okay
I was 14 I believe I'm one of my
girlfriend's was working down the road
at a local Woolworths and a couple of
positions came up so she recruited
myself and another friend from school so
I was like yeah sure I be good to end my
own money not after allowing my parents
pocket money and she wasn't things yeah
so yeah I was uh everything really i
mean we're on the floor helping
customers but mostly what i did was a
like a check out chick which means i was
like on the cashiers Oh putting the
sales tree wasn't very good at it I
really understand the concept of credit
cards and such and yeah wasn't terribly
good at the job yeah however working
with my friends was fun so I think I did
that probably for about a year however
1414 so when your age so I think I did
that for a year hmm I remember the first
time my very first shift when i finished
my mother father and brother were
outside of the store waiting for me like
oh you know it's just his first job
congratulations well done such a big
working girl yeah so yeah but how did
you feel about it did you enjoy it or
did you hate it I found it stressful to
be honest I you know being a kind of I
guess creatively minded to us
it wasn't terribly good at picking up
things quickly like learning how to use
their guns where you put the know that
the price tag on things you had to load
them and i found that complicated yeah
um and yeah i didn't actually like
working on the cashiers when it would
get the lines with some backup ENIAC
somebody come help me yeah on that on
the loudspeaker i would find that
stressful too cuz i'm not rated
technology and you know a little too
practical things fine i enjoy just like
going around the store like putting
things back in their place and cleaning
like I was fine with that I remember one
particularly fun job they gave me they
and I was like we're talking like a
really tall building my roofs they made
me get up on a ladder and dust the dust
off the fan I imagine there's probably
some kind of oh hey Chernus issue about
that that I shouldn't have been on it
but anyway Wow watching your old kidson
write the letter play all the time yeah
I'm going yeah yeah never having climbed
a ladder before so what were the bosses
like and everything there is it um
mm-hmm I remember there being so there
was like a the big boss but she wasn't
always there and she was actually the
mother of a girl I was taking drama
classes with at the time so I think they
may have helped my cause when I've
stuffed up you know did the wrong thing
um but then the guy that was sort of
next under her i guess the assistant
manager whatever he was on the floor a
lot and um yeah he was okay i think he
lost patience with me at times but you
know it wasn't like any kind of bad
situation where there was bullying or
whatever okay it was my first job and I
didn't really have much to compare it to
but I thought they were fun yeah so you
won't put off you know that doing that
will you put on I think that yeah the
next year I got and my second job which
was quite different again
I was a dental assistant yeah well that
is quite different there's quite
different so and that involved even more
technical things that stress yeah like
making molds of people's teeth and
developing x-rays in like you know fast
for an ID in there in the dark room
they've been banging on the door going
hurry up hurry up you know the patients
waiting so it like lightning speed again
yeah they wanted it was all had to be
done very quickly because you know I
guess more patients waiting in the
waiting room you know don't just wants
to keep on top of it also some of these
like dental molds for dentures or ya
know mostly for braces all right oh yes
graces um Wow so that was a couple of
years and then and then you kind of went
on from there well yeah i think by sort
of by the time it came to like your 11
or 12 I was more interested in
concentrating on my studies I was
married I can Jamie and I wanted to get
into University so I think my parents
were fine with me not having a job then
yeah well I actually you went straight
into another job but I didn't actually
work after about 13 until 18 Wow
basically the rest of your high school
years yeah my team hears I didn't I mean
a couple little things here and there
but I just you know we just went to
school and I got involved in all the
things that I wanted to do like acting
activities and and then it got busy with
school so and then then I really wanted
to get once of course once i finish
school i really wanted to get a job and
get some experience before i moved away
from it to adelaide as i lived in a
small town so okay so um so yeah i
started with what did i do first my next
job was in a cinema start of the movie
love affair yeah yeah so what i did was
i did some work experience at a few
places and I was just wanted to get into
the workforce a bit and get some
experience and I what did I do I um yeah
I volunteered to do three days work
experience of this cinema
trying to get my resume up you know and
they said yeah okay come on and that was
fun i enjoyed it and then they offered
me work so through the summer the whole
for about three months i got work there
and and the people were great i got on
really well with the boss the bosses and
yeah so so I just wasn't us that's like
a good job yeah I was an usher so I was
helping young show people to their seats
and check the checking the tickets and I
also worked at the candy bar as we
called it the kid yeah I think it's
still called on McCann debug and they
didn't have cash registers now I must
sound like I was living in the sticks
which I practically was and it was it
was the mid-nineties by then um so um
and but it was a small cinema and they
didn't at that time they didn't have a
cash register so we had to add
everything up in our hair door I didn't
be terrible at that yeah and I was
always nervous handling money but it was
a good challenge because I yeah yeah and
I didn't really is because they got ya
when it got really busy you know people
piling in wanting popcorn and coke and
everything I'll have this ice cream and
that and you don't really have time
almost you use a computer computer
calculator so I was pretty much adding
it up in my head and I'd worked out a
system I actually went home and kind of
worked out and practice and practice how
to do it but I know I made many mistakes
like I overcharged and undercharged and
people just mostly didn't notice no I
think they just accept that somebody
else is doing the thinking for them so
there we go and so what would you say is
your the worst job you've ever had what
was it one of those ones oh um was it
one of those ones no I don't think it
was one of those ones I think I think
later on
when I got into sort of the real
corporate workforce and it was like you
know just lots of hours and late nights
at the office and stressed restoration
pressure and you just ended up your
whole life became work you're all you
know and the night it was partly my
doing you know it's letting things slide
and not doing any extracurricular
outside of work things eventually just
yeah my health actually started to
suffer with that so yeah because you can
get really swamped though yeah you're
doing that work and it takes over your
life a bit forget to have a life yeah
and the mentality of that particular
sort of office culture wars to get sort
of lots of young people in and then you
know grind them to the ground work there
really hard and then you know you
eventually leave due to exhaustion or
whatever actually I think after that
yeah any job I took with some quite
different than a little bit more sort of
so you got clear about what you want me
to yeah and remind me 20s which I'm kind
of grateful for because lots of people
don't get clear about that too much
later sure yeah yeah it's good those
experiences I guess hope you realize
what you want to do but you know the 20s
are often about finding what you want to
do aren't they experimenting in touch at
trying things and so great all right so
there we go
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