Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

"I never want to work in an office"

It was the proclamation of a tween girl, working at her family's takeaway business next door to an office of a printing business in a formerly industrial area of inner Sydney. The air conditioning, the mundane trek to the same store every day for lunch, afternoon chocolate trips - I wasn't going to have it.

My Aunty Margaret was surprised, and I can't remember if she was skeptical. "What are you going to do then?" she asked, and I remember rambling on about something outdoors or something practical using my hands.

Cut to my graduation from a commerce degree - I was in and out of university in three years - which I'd chosen over psychology and food technology degrees for the greater career opportunities. With a marketing major, I looked for my first post-university job for about two months, without a very clear idea of what I wanted to do.

There were a handful of interviews: a junior role with a media buying firm, a sales and marketing role with a direct marketing agency, even a group interview with a conference company. For the latter I'd applied for a sales role, thinking it was selling physical exhibition booths. But in the group interview there were other jobs on offer, including one as a conference producer.

I think I was the only one from the group interview to land a job and it was a pretty good introduction to the corporate and events world, especially straight out of uni. It's probably also where I developed a drinking habit as a coping mechanism for stress, met one of my best friends, and became familiar with the Surry Hills area down near Central Station and Foveaux Street.

I moved onwards and upwards in the corporate "office" world from there, with three jobs over seven years within the same block of the Sydney CBD. This period included a 7-month GFC-induced break when I started blogging to kill time between job interviews and meeting up with friends.

When I quit corporate life for good last year, these words came back to me, reassuring me that this was the path that was meant to be. The 13.5 years I spent in "an office" had set me up, set us up for the what we have today and I don't regret any of it.

I'll be trying to see what else the young Tina, the inner child has been saying.

Recycled bricks - trying to match existing bricks for our venue #5

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