Goodbye Wellington

I have had a great last couple of weeks in Wellington.  I mentioned a while ago that I felt like everybody had forgotten I was leaving, but that definitely changed!!  I was totally spoilt with people wanting to spend time with me and shower me with gifts and booze.  Thanks everybody!  I had dinner, drinks and pool with Karl, Graeme, Jay and Hugh; party with the entire staff at the 10-pin bowling hall; dinner with 13 of my friends from various quarters; Heather's goodbye lunch; brunch with Christine; lunch with Karl and Hugh; breakfast with Kitt; lunch with Vicky; drinks with Kitt; and dinner with my closest Wgtn friends.

Clearly, it's also been a very busy couple of weeks.  Around all that, I finished at work on Friday, went rowing on Sunday morning, and I had to pack all my stuff up.  There was a lot more stuff than I realised.  Even after I gave heaps of it away and sold piles of stuff.  Sorry Dad!

Finishing work was a bit of a weird one.  I technically finished at 4pm, the end of my shift at Courtenay Place.  There were lots of people saying goodbye to me, and I had big knots in my stomach, but then 4pm came and nothing really happened or changed.  Nothing fell out of the sky.  I didn't feel any different.  And then I went home to get ready for dinner with my friends.

I'm going to start mucking around with my formatting from now on.  Lots more photos.

All the work events were a lot of fun.

  

 John the Gelato Maker was the most avid bowler of the bunch.

Thursday, 28 July 2011



We think he may have been the Dutch National 10-Pin Bowling Champion - "in 1945, just before the war", according to Karl.  Although in the end it was Hugh who thrashed everybody, and scored something unheard of, like 130 points.

When the five of us went out for dinner and pool, all the boys just took it in turns to beat me.  (At pool I mean, not beat me up.)  I'm a little unclear on who the winner was in the end, but let's go with Karl, it's usually him. 

Thanks to everybody who wrote me a reference, or shouted me a meal or a drink or a night out (or all of the above!).  Especially Karl, who's been incredibly generous.

Heather and me, on the day she flew out of Wellington.

Saturday, 30 July 2011

I spent a lot of time with my friends in the last four or five days I was in Wellington.  Heather has been living in Taranaki, but she's taking the big plunge and going to Japan to teach English.  She flew out of Wellington, so she stayed with some of our friends and we went out for a big goodbye lunch for her on Saturday, at Heaven Pizza.  They sell excellent gelato...  ;-)

 Zane; and Jess, Roxy, Heather, Sarah, me, and the top of Kim's head which is hidden just below Roxy.

Saturday, 30 July 2011

Kim looks quite a lot like Sarah, them being indentical twins and all, so you can just look at Sarah twice and you'll be right.

Friday night was my "official" goodbye thing with my friends.  We had planned to go to a new restaurant, Voodoo, who serve New Orleans style food.  I called on Wednesday and booked for 10 people, but by Friday I knew we were expecting at least 12.  The person who I spoke to at the restaurant on Wednesday was clearly not paying attention, so I forced my friends to call for me.  Sarah rang and spoke to the manager, who said that they actually had a private function on that night which had booked out the entire restaurant, and that my booking should never have been accepted.  They hadn't been able to call me because the clever man I spoke to on Wednesday had not written down the last three digits of my phone number.  So they'd made us a booking at Public for that night, and they had a $100 voucher for me to use at Voodoo another time. 

Public was pretty good.  It ended up being such an awesome night.  There were friends there that I made in the hostel I lived in during my 1st year at uni, current and past flatmates, and rowing friends.  Everybody made friends and started chattering away amongst themselves.



Me and Vicky on the cable car.

Tuesday, 2 August 2011



This was meant to be my awkward look.  Vicky clearly does a much better awkward look than me.

Thanks so much Dad, for driving to Wellington on Tuesday and back on Wednesday, just to bring me and all my stuff home to Rotorua.  He's also spent most of today helping me organise the pile of my stuff that was out at his work, and running round town this afternoon taking boxes to the charity shop and getting my car deregistered.

My ex-flat in Tinakori Rd.

D-Day Minus 18

I feel like it's been a while since I wrote anything so I thought I'd better get onto it.  What better way to spend my Saturday night?!  It's been a pretty up and down week, and every time I came to write this I found myself in a bad mood.  But now, I'm in a good mood and I have time to spare!

Since last time I wrote - my Canadian visa came through!  Very pleased.  I was really relaxed about it anyway, I had never heard of anyone having a problem getting one for Canada.  But I'm glad it came through before I left NZ.  Another weight off my mind.  Now I'm relatively confident I don't need to worry about any more visas.  (I am going to check all the other countries one more time though, you never can be too sure.)

I also managed to finally get my car to the wrecker, thanks to Hugh, the guy who's taking over my job.  When I had a proper look at the map to see where this particular wrecker was, it turned out to be right at the side of the motorway, and there was no way I could've walked back into town - close as it was.  I was trying to think of any friend I might have who had a car and time to drive out there with me during the working week, and Hugh turned around and offered, which was incredibly nice of him.  So we drove out there on Wednesday afternoon.  As soon as they'd weighed it, while I was still standing there, they literally drove it into a pile of metal.  Which they then had to climb over to tear the licence plates off it, so I can get it deregistered.  (Daaaaad....  might need your help there, since it's in your name!  I have the form at home already.)  So I got $178 for it.  Which, to be fair, is more than I would've got selling it to anyone else.

Hey, if anyone wants to buy a queen sized bed, a fan heater, or a stereo, or if anyone wants free clothes, blankets, shoes, electric blanket, or digital alarm clock, I'm your man!  Still got a lot of stuff to get rid of and I'm not having any luck with trademe.  My bed in particular is really good and quite new, and it'd be such a shame to have to take it to the Sallies and get nothing back for it.  I'm going to put a sign up at work as well, and offer it all to my existing and new flatmates.

I've also had the first of the Leaving Do's this week...  Thank you so much to Karl for taking me, Hugh, Jay (our newly appointed Training Manager) and Graeme (the awesome guy who oversees the factory side of things) out on Wednesday night.  It was a great night.  Far too much alcohol consumed by all of us, an excellent meal at Monsoon Poon, 10 or 15min spent winding up the staff who were working at our shop that evening, and then they all took turns to beat me at pool.  Next up, staff drinks on Thursday night, and dinner and (MORE) drinks with my friends on Friday.  There will be texts and facebook invites to everyone in Wellington who doesn't already know the plan or hasn't already been invited.  It was going to be Saturday with my friends, but apparently there's some rugby game that some people want to go to....  You know who you are....!  I actually have to be at work in the shop at 8am on Friday (or I chose to, whatever) so by Saturday I'm going to be totally exhausted.

Family - if you can, it would be great to see you either in Rotorua (3 - 7 Aug) or in Auckland (7 - 10 Aug) before I go.

Aside from having trouble getting shot of the rest of my stuff, I'm finally feeling like I've got everything under control and I'm ready to go.  I'm much calmer, and I seem to have got past that feeling of still having a lot to do.  Most of the time.  I did have a pretty bad case of the butterflies yesterday, for no apparent reason.  And I'm just not thinking about flying into Russia because that really does scare the shit out of me.  I'm telling myself that it's good to scare the shit out of myself occasionally.  Feel the fear and do it anyway, right?

No, I'm Not Excited, I'm Nervous

Everyone keeps asking me how I'm feeling, now that it's all getting really close, but only one person has hit on how I do feel.  Stew, my stepdad, asked me if I was nervous.  YES, I'm nervous.  So many people have asked if I'm excited, but I'm actually not.  There's so much else to tidy up before I can even think about getting excited, and things like leaving my job are strangely stressful.  You kind of imagine that finishing up in a job will be a really nice feeling and that everything's going to be easy and rosy and everyone's going to be hugging you and crying, but that's certainly not the way it's going for me.  Hugh and I are both working really long hours - him more so than me, to be fair - and because we're doing everything together at the moment and I'm getting him to figure things out for himself, it all (quite naturally) takes a bit longer.  He is doing a good job though, he has a very naturally fair and honest and nice way with people, and he'll be absolutely fine without me.  Also, I think most people at work have kind of forgotten that I'm going, or not realised just how soon it is or SOMETHING because there sure don't seem to be many people who are particularly bothered!  It's only just over two weeks until I finish at work now, it feels very soon.

So I went back to the Russian Embassy on Monday morning.  It was howling a freaking gale up in the hills in Karori, and I just about got blown away with the door, trying to get it shut behind me.  There were a group of people already there, and this little old lady started talking to me in Russian.  I kind of smiled and shrugged, as you do when you don't know that you share any language with someone, and so she carried on talking to me in Russian.  I was feeling pretty awkward by this stage cos she was obviously going to expect a slightly more verbal response at some stage, but luckily one of the other people there cut in and said something to her in Russian, and she turned around and said something else to me in Russian, which I HAD STUDIED ENOUGH to understand!!!!!!!!  She was asking if I was not Russian.  So I said "no" in Russian, which I also remembered, and she asked again, more disbelievingly, and I said no again, and she asked again, and I said no again, and then she asked something else and everyone in the room just about died laughing, except me cos I didn't understand that bit.  Then her friend told me she'd asked why I wasn't Russian.  Which kind of set the tone for the next hour and a half.  The old Russian lady was hilarious, and the people she was with all spoke really good English and so they'd all translate for me.  She was talking about things like going to get her passport photos done in Australia cos it's too expensive in New Zealand.  Anyway, long story short, I spent an hour and a half sitting around at the Russian Embassy, talking to the other people who were waiting, to find out that my visa is perfectly fine.  At the very bottom of it, like on your passport photo page, they have lots of arrows and letters and numbers.  What I thought was probably meant to be my name read "JEQMS LAURA MARJORI".  But they assure me that so long as everything else on the visa is right, then it won't be a problem.

I went to the doctor too.  There's nothing wrong with my eyesight, and he suggested that next time I get my license renewed I go to a different place to do it.  He was surprised that they checked my eyesight in the first place because he didn't think they did that until you were a senior citizen.

Haven't managed to get the car wrecked yet though.  I went to the place in the central city, and they only take cars at their outlet in Ngauranga Gorge.  I can probably walk to my house from there, in well under 45 minutes, so it's nowhere near as far out of town as any of the other scrap metal yards.  This is important for two reasons:  1. Last time I tried to drive to Petone (10min up the motorway) my car overheated before I got there and I had to sit on the side of the road for an hour waiting for it to cool down.  2. I don't have to try to find an alternative means of transport back into town once I have Done The Deed.  And, bonus, they seem to buy cars for a pretty good price - $220 per tonne, and the guy I was talking to guessed my car would be about 700kg.  Most of the places I looked at pay $100 for any car.

By the way, I promise that when I get overseas I will start putting photos on this page, instead of just massively long stream-of-consciousness posts!

CHARLEY TIME!

Less than a month until I finish at work.  And only 39 days until I fly out.  This shit just got real.

I got my Russian visa!  Woohooooo!!!  I picked it up on Thursday morning, and it was a much less intimidating experience than when I dropped it off.  Now I can stop worrying that I'm going to have to change my entire itinerary and all my flights because of that visa, and start worrying about the ash cloud.  What a relief! 

I thought about posting a photo of my brand new Russian Tourist Visa in my brand new passport, but I wasn't sure that either country would've been too happy about that.  So you'll just have to believe me that it's bright and shiny and red and mostly indecipherable.  Must start learning some Russian.  At least enough to get me through the airport on the small chance that they don't have at least a few staff who speak English.

Hugh is doing well, learning the ropes to take over from me when I leave.   He now has roster writing down to about a 5 hour mission, including the two of us looking at it together for an hour and a half.  I remember those days...  such frustration! 

So much still to do before I go overseas.  Every time I cross one thing off the list, I add something else to it!  I had a really big think and chose one of my staff who I know loves me to bits (she's the only one I've kept in touch with since she's left Kaffee Eis), and who's now studying management at Waikato, and asked her to write me a reference.  That was another one of those learning curves, figuring out how to explain to her how to write a reference without telling her what to say!  I know you usually get references from your superiors, and I'll do that as well, but if I was hiring a manager I'd be just as interested to know the thoughts of the staff who had reported to that person in the past.  And I've written my formal resignation letter to Karl, which is currently a page and a half long.  Might edit that a little before I give it to him!  When I thought back over the almost six years I've worked for him, I suddenly had plenty to say.  And I've drafted one for Christine, but I haven't got anywhere near finishing it yet.  I also got all the forms filled in to get my driver's licence renewed (it's due to expire in April of next year and I have to be in the country to do it); started the process to get a Visa card and now just have to collect ten tonne of paperwork to prove that I do currently earn money and have some idea of how to manage it; signed the letter from MasterCard offering me an extention on the limit on that card but am still deciding whether to return it; booked a flight to Greece from Istanbul to meet Charley for a week at the end of my tour!! (Charley is from the UK and came to NZ for six months on a work exchangey thing over summer, and rowed with my crew for the time she was here); photographed my stereo with the intention of listing it on TradeMe to sell it; and went to the travel agent to book accommodation in Hong Kong and a flight from Greece to Canada - but she wasn't in so I'll have to go back.

For those who don't know, my plans (dates are very vague at this stage) -

29 July - Finish at Kaffee Eis
30 July - Some kind of leaving do (will make details known when I figure out what I want to do!)
3 Aug - Goodbye Wellington   :-(
10 Aug - Goodbye NZ!!  Hello Hong Kong!
13 Aug - Midnight Flight Delight from Hong Kong to Moscow...  And TOUR DAY!!  You can see my tour itinerary on the company's website:  http://www.tucantravel.com/tour/overview/eastern-europe-discovery/eeed
8 Oct - My birthday!  Tour ends, fly to Greece, YAY CHARLEY TIME!
16 Oct - Fly to my new home in Caaaaanada.... 

I'm really excited!  And now I have to go and try to get to sleep.  I don't really see this working out for me.

Ruminations on Role Reassignment and Russian Visa Requests

Another 10 days closer to leaving.  It's starting to feel a little more real now.  Not a lot, but a little.

The staff meeting was definitely strange.  It all ended up being less dramatic than what I felt, of course, probably because for everyone else it's just the next order of business - although Karl did suddenly have more attention when he started talking about it!  For me it's more like the end of an era.  Karl announced it almost in one breath:  "As most of you will know by now the lovely Laura is leaving us, and the person who will be taking on her role is Hugh".  And then it was done.

So three or four days later, on Monday, Hugh was in the office with me, learning how to do the pay and the roster and how to find his way around the computer.  He's also been helping me to have individual meetings with all the staff, just to find out where they're all up to and to make sure they know how we feel about their work.  That's been a learning curve for everybody involved - me included.  Which is a good thing.  I've been supervising Hugh while helping him to run the meetings, and doing it without undermining him could be interesting if he happens to say something that I don't think is appropriate.  The staff need to see him as my equal right from now, so I don't want to correct him in front of them if I can avoid it.  I've also suddenly found myself working in the shops four or five days a week.  It's been a while since I worked in the shops, let alone had to be at work at 730am, so that was a bit of a shock to the system all round. 

When I received my insurance information on Saturday (thanks Dad!) I finally had everything I needed to apply for my Russian Tourist Visa.  They are tricky visas to obtain.  You have to show where you are going to be each day, where you're going to stay each night, and who's going to be hosting you while you're in the country, and you have to show that you have a confirmed medical insurance policy which is valid in Russia.  I paid the tour company to organise the pieces of paper I needed from inside Russia, because otherwise it would've meant chasing the Russian host tour company and hotels myself, which I was not keen on. 

Tuesday wound up being my day off, so having checked everything in the application pile umpteen times, I set off to the Russian Embassy.  I knew it was in Karori, and I had imagined some grandiose building with huge gates and scary looking guards, most likely with bullet- and stab-proof vests and machine guns, on a main street.  But when I Google mapped it, it was on a really suburban street.  I found my way there, and drove all the way up and all the way back down the road.  I saw a relatively grandiose building with big gates, so I naturally assumed that was it.  It was a retirement village.  I had by that stage parked and started walking, so I kept walking like that was what I planned all along.  I happened to see a totally non-descript place with a big white wall that had a small plaque on it, which turned out to be The Embassy of the Russian Confederation in New Zealand.  Not exactly what I was expecting.  The only security was a gate at street level that you had to be buzzed through.  I walked up the stairs and opened the door.  There was a swelteringly hot room with a window at the far end that looked through to the next room, a lot of signs in Russian on the walls, about six people sitting around, and one or two spare chairs.  Everybody in the room turned around and stared at me as I walked in.  I had no idea whether there was some kind of obscure queuing system going on, but one of the women behind the window immediately called me over.  Another woman was being served next to me at the window, and she was speaking rather loudly on her mobile in Russian.  The woman who was serving me was clearly Russian.  While she was looking over my application, the door opened and someone else came in.  They said something in Russian which everyone else in the room repeated (note to self:  Start Studying) and I finally worked out why everyone stared at me silently when I'd walked in.  I was the only person there who wasn't Russian.

The woman who was serving me spent a good few minutes reading over everything, comparing things on the various pieces of paper, and then reading things again while running her finger along underneath them.  Me being me, I was by that stage absolutely certain that I was going to be told I couldn't have a visa for some reason that they'd then refuse to tell me, and that I was going to have to rearrange all my flights and accommodation and tour dates.  But, total anticlimax, she just asked for payment, and said that everything looked fine and I should come back next Thursday to pick it up. 

So in the next 45 days, I only have to:  sell my car (which has now decided to grow a leak in the head gasket and render itself completely unsalvageable and unsaleable); sell my bed and stereo; decide what I'm going to keep and what I'm going to throw out, both at my flat and the pile of junk Dad's been storing for the past few years; pack a bag to travel with and maybe a box to have sent over to Canada when I get there; buy a flight from Athens to Vancouver and one out of Canada; organise accommodation in Hong Kong, Greece, and Vancouver; start learning Russian; and organise the written references I want.

Oh CRAP.

Staff Meeting and Postal Tag

In an hour or so, we're having a staff meeting. The main purpose of this meeting is to announce who's taking over my job when I finish in 6 weeks time.

It's another one of those situations that makes me really unsure of how I feel. Right now, I'm apprehensive and a little bit sad. It's not a moment I've been looking forward to. That's My Job, and it's been My Job for a long time now. I was there from almost the start of the company, I was the first and only Staff Manager (til now), and I even helped to figure out what exactly the job was going to encompass. I've written all the paperwork. I've hired most of the staff, and at the absolute minimum I played a role in training each of them. It's been a huge part of my life for nearly four years. So no, handing over the reigns is not going to be easy.

But it's time.

On a different note, I finally received my Criminal Record document from the Police. I do not understand how that took an entire month. The whole thing was two lines long, it only needed to say "this person has no criminal record in our system, love from the Police". Grr... Anyway. So I put the letter with everything else I'd already organised to send away for my Canadian working holiday visa, checked it all off against the list, took it all to the post office, and put it in the post with much relief and lightness of heart.

Two days ago I got the whole lot sent back. I hadn't signed one of the pages. It was signed and back in the post that afternoon. At this rate I'll be inviting the Thorndon post office staff to my leaving do!