Work probably means different things to different people. For me, I don’t wake up and dread heading into work (most days anyway), in fact most days the idea of hitting the offices excites me a little.
I love my job, my career path, my company and my colleagues. But when things get scary and stressful, leaving all that stuff in the office can be difficult, especially when things go wrong.
Eric Murphy: Ari, I’m getting killed here. Vince isn’t happy. Ari Gold: Of course he’s not happy. Nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers. Look at me, I’m miserable… that’s why I’m rich.
Now I’m not rich… not yet anyway… but I am successful. And I do know that a certain level of stress, or let’s call it urgency, is totally necessary to be good at what you do. Especially if you love your work and care about the job that you do.
So right now, after working 11.5 hours, I am going to leave Work Mitch at work and go have a beer with my best mate Matt. And I am going to enjoy it and relax.
Food - you have more essential food groups stashed in your work fridge than your fridge at home. Home fridge: beer, sports drinks and toasties. Work fridge: almost everything except the beer (until Friday that is).
E-mail - you are so bad at checking your personal e-mail that your friends actually have to call and ask if you got their letter. Meanwhile, you have a blackberry and web portals to check your work e-mail from anywhere.
Sundays - they’re kind of like Mondays and you’ve completely given up on having them, why not get just a few hours in the office before you get another 60+ hours of work in.
Sleep - almost completely optional and never allowed to get in the road of getting in to work an hour or two earlier than you should be. Nothing feels better than hitting the office before everyone else.
Colleagues vs Friends - suddenly you notice you have plenty of friends, but 400% more colleagues, ex-colleagues and business partners. But you don’t care, friends don’t make you money.
Networking - you can’t even walk the dog without giving your business card to someone or thinking about who you should be speaking to.
Clothes - you don’t have a single t-shirt at home to wear to the bar, but you have 6 suits and 20+ shirts all pressed in the work closet.
Sunlight - you leave so early for work you only catch first glimpses, you leave so late that it’s beyond dusk. You pretty much have no idea what sunlight is and your Vitamin D comes from artificial sources.
Caffeine - your blood/caffeine levels have been replaced with caffeine blood levels. It’s no longer a pick me up, it’s now your sole lifesource.
Relationships - yes, finally the big one. You know loads of people, but maintain contact through Facebook and MSN. You send more cybercoffees and buy more virtual gifts than real ones and your idea of a date is lifting back the lid on your girlfriend/boyfriends microwave meal.
If you relate to more than just a few of these, your life is potentially as sad as mine.
Note: It has been bought to my attention by my lovely girlfriend Claire that this might seem to paint a picture that perhaps I am a boring bastard who never pays for a meal. Just on the record, I definitely make time in my week to make sure she is adequately spoiled. :-)
Finding your apartment in Sydney (and probably other places) in today’s rental market is a nightmare. People are literally lining up for property viewings, applying by the dozens, and in a lot of instances doing literally whatever it takes to get properties.
I viewed a property on Saturday with two friends, applied on Saturday and had the property secured by Tuesday. The reasons I was able to secure the property so quickly are two fold. And both of the attributes you have complete control over.
The two things that are absolutely vital to a good and quick rental application are a solid rental history and an excellent application. The rental history should already be taken care of if you’re a good tenant, but I will share some tips for an excellent application that were given to me by a 20-year veteran property manager.
Be prepared - download applications from the real estate agents website or go to their premises and retrieve them, and have them filled out well before you even go to the property. Don’t be sitting outside trying to think of referees or rental histories, it’s not going to work.
Be really prepared - have everything ready; your bond, your first month of rent and photo copies of relevant paperwork (drivers license, birth certificate, etc. etc.)
Cover letter - they’re not just for job hunting; write the property manager a letter telling him about yourself and your situation. In our case there were 3 guys applying and we wrote a letter to make it very clear that we weren’t looking for a “party house” and that we are three professional guys.
Introduce yourself - the property manager is potentially showing the house to dozens and dozens of potential tenants - in our case it was apparently over 200 people. Introduce yourself, hand in your application and cover letter while you’re there. This makes you front of mind right from the start.
Follow up - don’t hand in an application and forget about it. Call the property manage and ask how the applications are going, ask if he needs any more information and remind him that you have all the relevant documents and the money ready to go. E-mails are a great follow up too as it prompts a response always
Hedge your bets - you’ve maximised your chances of getting the property, now maximise your chances of getting any property that you’re interested in. You will like more than one property, so apply to more than one property. It’s like cheating; it’s okay if she’s doing it, right?
Be polite - common sense, but I’ve heard of guys getting really upset over the property, this just won’t do anyone any favours.
Have support - make sure all your references are prepared and your housemates (if any) are ready to go. Also, it helps if you’re a little younger your parents are on your side (thanks mum)!
I hope this helps anyone looking for a property and explains perhaps where you’ve been going wrong in your applications. It’s a tough market and you have to treat every application very seriously and maximise your chances of finding that dream apartment.
Everyone who knows me knows one thing for sure: I am a geek. I love gadgets, computers, software, websites, Mac-good, iPods and everything that goes with. So when Apple declared that Australia, as per usual of US companies, would have to wait a whole year until we see the iPhone I was naturally disappointed.
Yesterday while browsing I found an interesting website of a guy who managed to hack the iPhone. Pretty impressive stuff with some over complicated instructions, but I still think this is pretty incredible.
I’ve previously seen a couple of interesting fixes also on hackint0sh.com that look a lot less risky, perhaps I will try one of these at some point.
So, for the next question; will I be buying one at some point? You bet your sweet ass I will!
My baby has turned twenty-one and we’ve now been together for, oh…. 1 year, 1 month, 2 weeks and 3 days. Not that I am counting! So I have been so busy that I haven’t really be able to write here about it, but I also didn’t think Claire would want me to, but now she does!
Happy 21st Birthday my beautiful girl, I am glad we’ve spent another birthday together and I hope we spend many more together! I hope everything you plan for the next year comes true and I hope that I can find a really good birthday present for you between now next year!
Sounds like a spam e-mail, but this is nothing of the sort. Previously I have mentioned a Star Wars Fan Film made with a relatively low budget called Star Wars: Revelations. Just now while browsing through my normal geek sites I have found two new awesome links. Normally I would just throw these into the A-sides on the right, but I figured this deserved a bit of a mention.
Firstly, a program called Blender. From the site: “Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.” I’ve just downloaded it and I’ll probably give it a look-see, but it’s interesting to note since it was used to create the movie in the second link.
Elephants Dream is a movie created entirely with free software, Blender. Right now their site is in a minimal state, providing only download links and not much else, however the idea alone has me really enthralled. Download it and have a watch, it can’t hurt.
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bananas on toast is the almost daily rantings, links, and twitter updates of Mitch Malone.
