Please note this all happened on the 21st of April, not the day that I posted it - I’m lazy…
Well, as you may have assumed from the title, today I got my new Canadian Job! And where else would I do such a thing than Canadian Tire!? I am now officially a cashier again - whoot!
Went for my job interview today (at 2pm - Jennifer, the manager, called the night before asking to get out of our 11am appointment and change it to 2pm… It was already 2pm anyway…) and I was pretty much immediately given the choice of three available positions:
- Full-time shipping and recieving associate
Approximately 40 to 50 hours a week
- Part-time cashier
Approximately 15 to 25 hours a week
- Part-time floor associate
Approximately 15 to 20 hours a week
So NATURALLY I went for the cashier job (HATED working on the floor at Big W and everyone knoews it!). At this stage, I’ve come here to do the touristy thing and not primarily to work, so I aint gonna work 40+ hours a week, now, am I? Especially as a back-dock-bitch, partly due to the fact that my back is already bad (family trait, go the Mason’s!) and then I would have to be at work by 6am, finishing around 2-4pm and then coming home to die each night! Not so much fun… So that was turned down. So all in all - IT’S CASHIER DAVE TO THE RESCUE! (Apparently Philip, the only other male cashier, will be very happy…)
^^ A Canadian Tire Store ^^
So now for the nitty-gritty details of the HORID interview process in which my entire life was dragged across hot coals while having bricks of clay thrown at it by mormon midgets in too-too’s (a little much maybe?)… I went in to the customer service desk as instructed at precisely 2pm (almost late…), nervous as hell as usual - partly due to the fact that I have never been to a one-on-one interview before, only ONE group interview - and asked for Jennifer (no idea what her last name was, coulda been embarassing if they asked, “Jennifer Who?”, but apparently she’s the store manager so everyone knows EXACTLY who she is) and little did I know that she was standing right behind the person I was asking… And for the cherry on top, the cashier introduced me as Davien Manson (my name is NOT Manson people, get it right!! (Or Nathan!)) After 5 minutes wait while Jennifer went running throughout the store we were off kicking people out of offices that we needed!!
Unfortunately the WHOLE thing started with that dreaded question, “So tell me about yourself…?” I absolutely hate this question mainly because I have absolutely no self-confidence so I think I’m sounding like a complete moron… But I managed to babble on about why I’m in Canada and such until she took over the conversation again!
Another manager wandered in (I think she’s teh backdock manager) and w discussed the full-time position. When I turned it down (or rather positioned myself to make it seem as if I were unsuitable for the job) she looked disappointed and said goodbye - ah well, woulda hated the job anyway!
Throughout the whole thing Jennifer was actually really nice. From the phone conversations I’ve had with her it seemed like she was a grumpy such-and-such… And so we chit-chatted about random crap during the whole interview and mainly the differences and similarities between Canadian Tire and Big W… Several interesting points (well, to me at least):
- They have an online training program! It’s really wierd but after my induction I get given a website to go to and then I have 90 days to complete the training program which is expected to take up to 30 hours. Apparently (according to Carrie) it is PAINFULLY easy and wont take nearly that long - but they’re giving me a shift to purely do that! Strange…
- I will eventually be transferred into the auto-service department and be taught how to do service and cashier work in there! This will involve doing service work orders, general sales and all sorts of crap! Other than that I’ll eventually be moved into refunds (if I want) and probably to garden cashier (apparently because I’m an Australian I can take the heat that everyone else complains about…)
- Canadian Tire is a franchise - how random…
- Her (Jennifer’s) son will be extatic that she hired me… Because he loves the Wiggles! And as such he loves everything Australian apparently.
And that’s about it! It all seemed like I’d be walking out of the building with a job no matter what happened (as pointed out by them offering me three positions to CHOOSE from at the very start of the interview (within the first 3 sentences people!)) and I have my 4 hour orientation on Thursday (opposed to Big W’s 6 hour induction!!)
Why am I happy to be working? I think I’m going insane…
Oh, and I decided the old blog look was boring so I got a new one - that’s all for now!
This is part two of a continuous story about my trip to FLORIDA! If you would like to see part one purely because this makes no sense, then stop being lazy and scroll down.
Ok, so after the whole customs thing it was mainly smooth sailing until we hit our destination, and naturally I was sleeping for a lot of this point. I didn’t really wake up until we pulled into our first stop for this particular part of the journey for breakfast.
At around 7am we stopped at what looked like a quiet little country store called the Cracker Barrell for breakfast. A quaint little wood-cabin-like place with a massive wooden porch and a nice big garden out the front. We walked over to the door and the porch was lined with rocking chair after rocking chair. Various designs for various ages from toddler to old person - all for sale for $129 - and Vince is planning to buy some for when Leeann retires as well and they live down in Florida for around about 6 months a year! As we walked in we were surrounded by small-town merchandise. Little tins of homemade cookies, clothes made from American flags, pin-board games (the game where you have 14 pins in 15 holes and you have to jump pins and try to get as little left as possible). The cash register was surrounded in a treated wooden box to blend in with the counter, the walls, and the little town feel and the wall was absolutely coated with the crappy nick-nacks you see in restaurants that are desperate to create an atmosphere or theme - this was no different. There were farming tools, old cake tins, flags, guns, animal heads - all over the wall around the whole place.
The building was separated in two: the store and the restaurant (although naturally you had to go through the store to get to the restaurant). So we headed over to the restaurant (led my a grumpy waitress of course) and we sat down to the menu. Same little-town feel in the restaurant too, by the way. So we looked at our paper menus filled with pictures of old washing apparatuses and crap like that, the waitress filled Vince’s coffee cup (spilling half of it on me) and shuffled off to get me an orange juice. After that we had a new waitress - a nice young woman with an amazingly thick West Virginian accent (similar to tennasee accents, you know what I mean) and we ordered. There were MILLIONS of dishes on the menu but I felt like crap so the good old scrambled eggs and bacon for me! (That was the smallest meal on the menu by the look of it and it was still huge - order a meal here and you get about four on the one plate) So we ate quietly (both tired so we didn’t TALK a lot) and I played the peg-board game with the 14 pegs and 15 holes - I got down to three… (According to the game that makes me smart, but not amaingly smart…) and we were done! So it was back out (buying some peanuts on the way out of course) and back into the car for another god knows how many hours!!
So as we headed through West Virginia and into North Carolina, there wasn’t a whole lot too look at, all the same really with one exception - the further South we headed the greener everything got. From being absolutely dead stick trees in Canada and Virginia, to being trees with a few blossoms on them, to full blown summer trees covered in leaves - quite amazing to watch the transition. All the way down the highways there were massive forests on either side (by the looks of it) all the way to Orlando - except in Georgia they fenced off the highway… But ah well! Other than that we headed through a series of mountain ranges through the Virginia’s and saw a reasonably good view - of trees mainly - and through a few tunnels and that’s about it!
Other than that we stopped at a rest stop in North Carolina - we ate sandwhiches. Whoot! Well actually it was really nice there. Naturally I went into the US with the common perception that rest areas were a seedy den of filth and depravity in which the bathrooms are NEVER cleaned. I was very wrong. The place was unbelievably clean, they had vending machines… with all proceeds going to the BLIND. Outside it was immaculate with picnic tables, public BBQ’s, recycling facilities, the softest grass known to man… These people are crazy! I mean, just chuck a porta-potty there and be done with it! So yeah, the place was nice - lunch was fairly average… Joking! We sat around and watched some woman take pictures of the trees new buds of life and all as she wrestled to hold her dog and that was about all!
The rest of the trip I don’t remember much, because I watched movies. During the trip from lunch I watched Blood Diamond and Wild Hogs and I was happy!
BUT finally at around 9pm we arrived in Orlando, Florida! We started heading through the city just as Wild Hogs ended (perfect timing) so I sat there looking around randomly thinking, maybe I should take a photo? But then realising that my camera battery charger doesn’t work in this country (even with an adapter) so I have to buy NEW batteries!! By this point I was sitting there desperately waiting to get to the house, mainly because I was feeling like crap! Generally with long travel (such as from Whitby, Ontario, CA to Kissimmee, Florida, US for example) I start feeling sick (as in stomach churning, etc) and I just want to go to sleep (always feel better after sleep)! But little did I remember that we had to go to the Supermarket to get essentials AND we were going to get pizza for tea - PIZZA, in MY STATE!? Gotta be joking!
But, from this point on TWO things (yes, TWO) of notice happened:
- When we were at the supermarket (getting eggs, milk, etc) the cashier was the nicest person on the face of the planet. Even there at 9.30pm in the middle of this crappy supermarket she said a lot like, “Bless you and have a wonderful night” and “thank you for shopping with us!” I realise this could just be a ploy to get me to come back (it worked by the way - got my batteries the next day) but this woman was so amazingly nice it was just wierd!
- We went into Ceasers Pizza (a place where they have a whole lotta premade pizzas - similar to McDonald’s philosophy - so you just take one as soon as you walk in) I was sitting by the door feeling sorry for myself (on account of the sick thing) and the cashier kept looking at me. I thought this was strange and looked up at her to be met with, “I’m sorry but you know you are just too cute!” Naturally I was shocked and, most of all, sceptical… But she said again, “You know most guys are just like egh *drawn out face - I understood* but you are just unbelievably cute.” LIAR! Immediately I thought this was a ploy of Candid Camera on location in Florida or something - but I feebly said thanks and wandered out the door, wandering what had just happened.
After that off to the house and TIME TO SLEEP - not quite. Vince and I sat down to pizza, I had about 3/4 of one piece (to Vince’s utter shock - no matter, there is always cold pizza tomorrow) and Vince’s friend Richie came over for a slice and to say hi. Now I have had many people describe this Richie too me - he was a limo driver, a mobster, a NY resident and more - but he looked nothing like I pictured. Naturally I pictured the big Italian mafia stereotype, but he was a much older looking man - balding and thick glasses… But who am I to describe people!?
Anyway, moral of the story - I ate nothing and went to bed to sleep until 11am the next morning - a happy ending.
Now that I have finished writing that I have a confession to make - I am now actually back in Canada. Yes, I know I skipped all that, but I was just trying to get this DONE! And Jess, to answer your question - Famon hit part two, the famon of me not having time to finish… SORRY!!
To be perfectly honest I absolutely suck at the whole blogging thing - mainly due to the fact that I am a lazy bastard. So time to get back on the horse, and what better place to start than my trip to Florida!?
Well it was a long-ass day going from around about midnight, Tuesday night, until the ripe old time of 11pm Wednesday night! Good fun!
Just before midight we pulled away from the house in Whitby, Ontario and drove off for the sunny state of Florida - but naturally we had to stop at Tim Horton’s for coffee before we went anywhere. After that it was 2 hours to the border and then another 19 hours to our destination, Kissimmee Florida! (approximately…)
Now I’m just saying this now - I COULD write about this for around about three months, but there is absolutely no way that I’m going to do this or we’re all going to be in trouble… So this’ll be a very choppy representation of the whole thing - just so you know.
Well for the majoriy of the drive through Canada it was more of the same-old same-old. Basically 16-lane highways the whole way, surrounded by buildings either side - exactly like every other highway in Canada. All until we arrived somewhere around the Southern end of Ontario, then there were some bridges! The whole state is surrounded by massive Great Lakes, so naturally we had to cross one of them. Sure, a bridge - not all that interesting. However, when you looked out over the water (it’s pitch black, just for reference) there was an oil refinery or something on the other side and out through its massive chimney billiowed massive flames that lit up the entire area. To be perfectly honest it looked amazing, just to watch the massive flames against the pitch black sky. But no photo unfortunately - at this point I haven’t taken a single photo (not since I took a photo of my Big W Mr Potato Head, but that was back in Australia so it doesn’t count. Other end of the bridge - another bridge - but this one was over to the U S of A…
Naturally, to cross into the US you had to cross - you guessed it - another great lake… But first, the Duty Free shop! Take down the licence plate number and off we go (had to give them the number to buy anything - to make sure you ACTUALLY leave the country)! Same old duty free shop though. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all - nothing special. Wandering through, naturally straight to the Tim Horton’s in the back for more coffee and then a wander through. A few interesting things: Harry Potter Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, a massive amount of Canada merchandise, cheap watches, booze… But all I needed was some form of currency to spend in the new country, so I just headed to the currency exchange desk.
Seeing as it was 1:45am in the duty free shop (around 9pm outside, of course) every person in the store (all 3 of them) were standing around chatting (as any person would at such an outrageous time of the morning) all except for the person at the Tim Horton’s counter - all alone in the back. Ah well, they took the job! ANYWAY, I hung around the desk until someone EVENTUALLY came over (I don’t call out to people - no way) and my $110 Canadian got turned into $102.36 American and we were off to the land of OZ!! (With my FIRST ever $1 bills - the people in this country are nuts) So it was out of the duty free shop and off to the United States - after customs of course.
And customs was great fun!
Well we pulled up to the little traffic booth at around 2am (good time for all) and said hi to the grumpy-ass customs officer! Although they all are in my opinion, from what I’ve experienced so far. Part of their job I guess. So I took my passport out of the little pouchy thing they come in (the woman at my new Canadian bank - ScotiaBank - seemed very impressed with it) and handed it to Vince to give to the officer. However, Vince was convinced that I had given him HIS passport so he handed the officer my passport pouch. This, naturally, confused the hell out of the woman in the booth - didn’t look suspicious at ll! I eventually pointed this out and we were off and running - free to go into the country!! WRONG… A few simple questions for the Australian - “Where are you from, David?” “Australia (duh!)” - “How long are you in Canada for?” “10 months, until February” - “Are you studying there?” “No, working permit (duh - it’s with my passport!!)” - *walkie talkie* “I have a silver van to 1″ *end walkie* - and just like that we were off to the luxurious customs office!
We headed on through door 1 and immediately I could see, the comfort of America’s visitors is clearly their PRIME concern. Massive hole in the ground, this place. We head off into a tiny room with cracked and battered plastic benches in the middle of the room as well as around the edges. To the left was a massive glass double-door which read “KEEP CLEAR AT ALL TIMES”, so naturally I imagine hundreds of security guards rushing through to tackle down anyone who gets shitty when they are refused entry into the country! On the left of the door - a trashed and graffitti’d payphone with a ripped and trashed phone book. On the right of the door in the top corner was a TV mounted on the wall to keep everyone entertained! On the right side of the entrance was another glass door with a big red X brandished on a screen above it. The door politely read, “IF YOUR IDENTIFICATION HAS BEEN TAKEN WAIT FOR YOUR NAME TO BE CALLED, OTHERWISE PRESS BELL,” (concerning since there was a poster on the wall warning that having your ID taken is the first sign of identity theft - had a hotline and everything) and since the booth officer took our passports it was time to wait! There were two other people in the office waitin - one man pacing back and forth, red jumper (sweater) and white thinning hair - the other sitting fiddling in the back.
About ten minutes later we suddenly heard, “MASON DAVID,” over the intercom so we headed off to the door. As I headed through Vince was hovering behind me, obviously asking the same question as me in his head, was he supposed to come too?? Ah well, he came and all was well. Again, same old questions, “Where are you headed?” “Birth date?” “How long are you going for?”, and Vince was my proof that I’d eventally leave the country… I was given a green Visa Waiver for $6US which gave me a 90-day pass into the country. So I filled it out, then filled out the back which I didn’t notice (classic terrorist questions) and all was well! They took my mugshot and fingerprints (damn, now I can’t rob a convenience store) and the whole time Vince was asking questions to confuse the officer about what he can and cannot take into the country for his house down here. I got my change and we were permitted to leave!!
From there it was 19-hours to go through New York, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida!!
Anyway, I’m getting lazy again so I will call this PART ONE! Part two will be coming soon!!
Headed on up to the North of Toronto into the outskirts of farmin’ country!
All I knew was that it was a Saturday morning and V&L were taking me on down (or should I say up) to Alleston to visit some of their friends. On the way up it seemed like your usual drive up the highwayA through the city, but soon enough we completely bypassed Toronto and headed out north - to barn country.
Soon enough every house we drove past had a barn and a tattered, falling apart wooden fences. It slowly seemed to become your typical, average, little farming area. All the cars were suddenly transformed from city-driving SUV’s and sedans, into rusty pickups and semi-trailers barrelling down the highway. All seeming pretty country normal - just what I’d seen on the American and Canadian movies. But this wasn’t all farms and barns! There was a far more ‘risque’ element to this drive.
A Barn1
Naturally this came as a surprise, being a prudish Australian, as we all are. The very idea of a so-called ‘nudist’ is merely shocking and disturbing to the most paramount of levels. Naturally, I personally don’t care WHO wants to be a nudist and therefore what I have just said is a complete and utter lie. If you want to wander around completely naked with others, sure, why not. Make your own communities out in the middle of no where and go absolutely nuts! (Within reasonable limits of course - not advocating any wild, crazy, adult-channel escapades here) But the idea of a ‘FAMILY’B nudist park just seemed a little peverse.
The idea of ‘family’ conjurs images of the classics, two parents with two young children running along behind them with a dog somewhere in the picture. Now, picturing this is no offence to anyone (except dead-beat father’s maybe) but if anyone were to picture this scene, everyone nude, especially while using the internet, this could be considered highly illegal. So now comes my question - does the ‘family’ aspect of this mean that children are included in this community?? I personally doubt it as this couldn’t be legal - but then why use the term ‘family’?
It’s just strange, ok!
Other than that, once we past this veritable gold-mine of social awkwardness, we got to Alleston and had a lovely, yet awkward lunch (mainly due to the fact that I’m not very good meeting new people and having instant conversation - especially older people). And they absolutely, “loved,” my accent apparently - which I clearly don’t have, they’re the ones with accents, not me - and we were off home!
Although we did go to another house with people who I don’t actually know how they’re related to anyone on the face of the planet (I’m not saying I don’t approve of them or that they’re inhuman of anykind (thats how that sentence came across to me, don’t know about you) I just honestly have no idea who they are) but L seemed a little awkward there and such.
Ah well! That’s for another day… Time to abandon this post before I get even more shifty looks! (Yes, all the way from another country - looks can travel amazing distances you know)
Notes:
A - This highway (the 401) is also known as the highway of heroes, because when the soldiers from Toronto come in and out of the city, this is the highway they travel along.
B - Dictonary.com defines the term family as, “parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not.” (No mention of nudists there!)External Links:
1 - Google Images
Write in your blog
( that is all …. )