It has been a stressful few weeks for me. Enough for me to decide to to go to the farewell work dinner on Friday night at The Royal Oak out at Balmain.
It started off over a week ago with a missed phone call from the AEC to schedule a day to attend a face to face training day for DVIOs working on polling day at The Federal Election. I had just completed the online training and assessment. I returned the call and was advised that I would receive a training manual in the mail and details of where to attend the training session by email. I was asked when I could attend and where. I advised the AEC that I was not given any details at all therefore had to just select a date and time when I returned their call. I selected Saturday 11th May 2019 at 11.30 am as all the other training times and days were on when I was working. I was only advised that it was out at Mascot at Burrows Rd. Very vague and was not even given directions or closest station or cross street therefore had no idea how to get there.
I checked my po box mid week and my emails everyday as I was suppose to receive both later during the week coming before the training session. When I did not receive either by mid week I chased it by phoning after emailing and being advised to phone the AEC. I chased at least 3 times. Still nothing by Friday so I emailed the AEC again and advised them I would just have to guess where the training location was.
I finally received an email on Saturday morning but it was too late I had already left to go to the training course. I got to Mascot Station but had no idea where to go from there and was running late already due to trackwork yet again on the Northshore line towards Central. I flagged down the first taxi I saw pass by Mascot and the driver was so nice and we found what I thought was the AEC warehouse where the training was taking place. I asked the driver to wait outside whilst I enquired and yes it was the correct address. I signed in about 20 minutes late. The course was just 1 hour long and I had missed almost half of it. I could not even read any of the projections from the back of the training area as it was so faint. The lady next to me had just arrived 2 minutes earlier so she was just as clueless as I was. We caught up in the end. What a total waste of time hardly worth the effort but if you don't attend you don't get paid for it. There was no improvement from the previous Federal Elections face to face training session- it was worse with fewer people in each session. I don't need this kind of stress at the moment particularly with what has been going on at work.
OK let's now talk about work. Firstly I am almost now unemployed with my shifts cut initially from Balmain , my shifts have now been cut from St Ives . How I am going to survive working only 2 days a week I am unsure. So if anyone knows of anyone needing a retired bookkeeper payroll or admin person who has exceptional customer service skills is very creative like to use a computer now and then and knows about kitchenware homewares food and likes to blog about stuff ( obviously) let me know.
Raising rents and the changing way people shop are the 2 main reasons the company I work for has closed 2 of their stores. I escaped being made redundant from Bondi and Balmain but it is only a matter of time before I lose my job completely. If the company I work for continues to refuse to have an online presence it will definitely not survive!
I decided not to go to the farewell dinner on Friday night and was planning to say farewell to one of my fellow work collegues in person on Saturday after my training session at Balmain however was told by text that she wasn't well and that they ran out of stock and decided not to trade on Saturday. I had sent a text and tried to call my work collegue but have not received a response.
I did walk past the Balmain on Saturday and yes the Balmain store was closed. There were people walking past the store and surprised it had closed . As I was taking a few photos of the store with a hand written sign on its door, a few regular customers stopped by and I told them that the store has closed down but the 2 remaining stores are still open. I said I worked there and they recognised me. What do you say to your customers? - I said "Thank you for your support over the years"
Photos below - there is as hand written sign on the door advising that the store has closed, the doors are permanently shut, the lights are out, the shelves are almost empty, the shop fittings dismantled and the pigeons have started to make the top of the store's sign their home - permanently. Meanwhile Tara Dennis is getting ready to open her brand new homewares store a few doors down where the Matt Blatt store used to be.
Ironically the "Home Sweet Home" sign came from the Bondi store that closed down quite a few years ago.
Onto some other news - it's almost that time of the year again. Besides the Federal Election there is the annual VIVID festival in about 2 weeks time. The signs and banners are already up around Chatswood!
Photos below
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