We’re back from the Blue Mountains! Longer entry later, but for now, photos!
I am posting from a hotel!
…which is surprisingly not at all awful. It’s pretty much exactly what we were expecting considering the price. No idea what the hell the reviews were complaining about, everything’s clean and tidy.
The Zig Zag Railway was fun, and very sooty! I ended up with a bunch of black ash in my hair, which looked disturbingly like dandruff. After that we drove to Katoomba and stopped off at the viewing platform. There’ll be some rather spectacular photos coming on Monday or Tuesday! The clouds were all puffy and angry-looking, which made for much more interesting photos than what just blue sky would have.
We checked into the hotel about 5, and were pleasantly surprised as mentioned above. Dinner was at Savoy on Katoomba St, which was a wonderfully 50s-feeling cozy place. The food was absolutely fantastic. After that we went for a wander and stopped into a couple of antique-type places. The first one was bizarre… everything was just average crap, but so overpriced it was insane! They had a set of four “vintage country” wooden chairs for $320!
By the time we were leaving it was properly night time and all the angry clouds had come over, followed by a bunch of fog that was on the way. It was very creepy! Probably also because of the lack of people around in Katoomba at night.
Tomorrow the only solid plan is the Jenolan Caves, and we’ll see what else looks interesting!
Going Awayness
kungfupolarbear and I are going up to the Blue Mountains this weekend! We’re leaving Saturday morning, and staying Saturday and Sunday nights, then coming back on Monday at some point. I borrowed a book from the local library that has a bunch of good places to see and things to do. I’m looking forward to going on the Zig Zag Railway again, which I haven’t done since I was a kid! And the Jenolan Caves are apparently fantastic, and I’ve never been. There’s a bunch of other stuff as well.
We kind of forgot to check the reviews for the hotel we’re staying at before booking the tickets though, and they’re kind of awful. :\ Several people did make the point that for that price ($150/night), it’s not going to be a five star hotel or anything. We’re planning on being out and about for most of the weekend anyway.
Very exciting! And of course, there will be lots of photos. 😀
YAY!
I GOT THE JOB!
At Atlassian, that is! And holy crap, the pay is significantly better than at Apple. AND they’re giving me a voucher for kungfupolarbear and I to stay in a snazzy hotel for a few nights before I start! And I don’t start until April 12!
I also got a call last night from the Catholic school asking me to come in for a second interview, and an email this morning from the place in Artarmon asking me to come in for a face-to-face interview! Man.
But YAY! I haz a job! One of my co-workers from Apple also got a job there too, which is awesome, so there’ll be a familiar face there to begin with. WHEE!!
When it rains, it POURS
So, I had the interview at the Catholic school yesterday, which went pretty well. They said they have pretty much no proper Mac experienced people there and they’re rolling out MacBooks to the whole of Year 11, followed soon thereafter by the entire 1100 students at the school, so it’d be pretty hectic. I’d also need to be training up the staff as well, in weekly sessions.
The Atlassian interview went really well, they mostly asked me technical questions, which I knew all of the answers to. The only they asked about that I didn’t have any experience with was Java, and one of the interviewers laughed and said “Willing to learn?” to which I replied “Absolutely!”.
I sent the interviewer a follow-up email basically saying thanks for interviewing me, and kungfupolarbear suggested adding a line about MyMac probably going to make me an offer soon, which I did. I got a call yesterday evening from one of the HR ladies there asking if I could come in today for a second interview!
I had the phone interview with the place in Artarmon this morning at 10, they’re looking for a jack-of-all-trades sort of person with both hardware and software troubleshooting. Then I had the second interview at Atlassian at 11:30, which was via video conference to one of the support managers who was in San Francisco at the time, which also went very well, followed up by a quick session with one of the other HR people. They said they’d get back to me by the end of the week.
I got a missed call on my phone from some random number while I was on the bus on the way home, checked my voicemail and it was a friend who used to work at Apple who had left, and it turned out one of the jobs I’d applied for was with the company he’s at! He was just calling me to let me know it was a relatively junior role and to check what sort of money I’d be after, and to make sure I was interested before he put my résumé forward. I asked about promotion prospects, and he said that he’s actually going to be moving over to the UK at the end of this year, which nobody else knows about, and that whoever was in the role that I applied for would end up taking over his position. And the money he’s getting at the moment is quite a lot better than the initial position. I told him I was definitely interested.
And THEN at about 5:30 I got a call from a guy at the University of New South Wales about a job I’d applied for back at the start of this month, saying he was very keen to get me in for an interview and that I’m their number one candidate for the job at the moment!
And I’m still waiting to hear back from MyMac as well.
Holy crap.
Job annoyance
Well, that’s annoying. I had an informal interview today with a recruiter, but it was only $25/hour and a contract that was only until the end of the year, so I said I wasn’t interested in that particular role. It was a pain to get to as well… it shouldn’t have been, but there’s been a bunch of construction on the way to the area, which meant Google Maps was totally wrong. Urgh.
And I was meant to get a call for that job that’s ten minutes away from home, but didn’t. Emailed the lady that originally contacted me, no reply. Called her, and her voice message was “I’m not available, please send me an email”. Useful!
On the bright side, I’ve got two interviews tomorrow, the one at Atlassian that I mentioned previously, and one at Monte Sant Angelo Mercy College in North Sydney. Which is a Catholic girls high school. If I got that job, I could say, “At work I’m surrounded by Catholic schoolgirls!” and it’d be true. Hah.
Well, it looks like our luck may be turning around! kungfupolarbear had an interview this morning for a QA position at a place only about ten minutes drive from our house, and she did so well they want to get her in for a second interview next week!
I’ve gotten two more responses to jobs, both for interviews, one is also about ten minutes from here, and another is in the city. The first is a Mac service-type job, the second is for a company called Atlassian that makes software development tools and are apparently pretty huge, from looking at their customer list! And next week should be when I hear back from MyMac as well.
Myself and a few ex-Apple people went for a photo outing today, we just went wandering around the city and Darling Harbour, I managed to get a few good ones! And from my lowly point-and-shoot PowerShot S5, no less.
Yes, it’s more job stuff!
I had the interview at MyMac today. It went very well. They’re definitely interested in hiring me, but they’re just not quite sure in exactly what capacity yet! They were saying they’re looking at expanding and hiring some more staff, and they realise that someone with my skills doesn’t just walk in off the street every day. The store manager is going to a conference in Chicago for a week starting next week, so they won’t have a chance to put their heads together (there were two guys interviewing me, the store manager and the chief operations manager) and work out exactly what they’ll do. It might even be a new role that they create.
I already know three other people there, all from the call centre, so I’d fit right in. They’ve also got three people from the Apple Retail Store on Regent St in London, so there’s quite the pool of talent there!
I won’t hear anything until probably week after next, but that’s okay. I’ll just enjoy the unemployment! Hah.
Monies!
Woo! My redundancy pay came in today. We now have ZERO debt of any sort! It’s a good feeling.
Although the lack of job is less good, heh. I’ve been applying for a bunch of jobs, got a follow-up questionnaire email from one this morning, I’ve replied to that so we’ll see how things go.
On a totally different note, anyone who has an Xbox 360 and likes tower defense games should check out Toy Soldiers on Xbox Live Arcade. It’s a WWI-themed game and is fantastically fun. I’ve been playing it rather obsessively since it came out last week!
[EDIT]
And having mentioned the jobless thing, I just noticed there’s two positions for Mac Service Technicians at local service centres, one just five minutes drive up the road in Chatswood and the other at Bondi Junction, where several of the people from the call centre have actually ended up! I’ve applied for both. 😀
Well. I’m now officially unemployed. It was a weird feeling handing my badge in and leaving the building for the last time.