Sydney Royal Easter Show

 I have found myself working at the 6th largest event of any kind in the world, the Sydney Royal Easter Show. It’s just about the same as a state fair back home, minus the country music and demolition derby. There is a arcade of rides, livestock judging, domestic animal judging, a rodeo, daily laser light stadium show, and of course heaps of food and fireworks.

I am working for a stand owned by taste.com.au. We actually have a few stands, which make life difficult for the stockpersons like me. We have to constantly run stock to the stand in the crowded isles of the hall. Inside the stand, we assemble "showbags." A showbag is a bag that included many items such as stir fry sauce, curry paste, cake mix and instant coffees. We sell each bag for $10 each. I recently learned that each item in the bag in within one month of expiring so the manufactures were just going to throw the stock away anyway, so I guess they are making a little money by selling all the stuff in a showbag. When we pack a showbag behind the stand, we are constantly busy trying to keep up with demand. It gets especially busy during the afternoon hours, leaving little time for breaks. I have been working 14 hour days all week. My self and a few other stock persons have been arriving at 7am to unload trucks for cold items, and then we spend the rest of the morning organizing the stand before the show starts. We then have been staying past 9 pm re-stocking the stand with showbag stock to be ready for the next day.  Tomorrow the Royal family of William, Kate, and baby George will be visiting the show, so I'm expecting absolute pandemonium. 

Sitting on the platform, watching the Trams pass all day

Today is the final day of what has been quite possibly the easiest job I have ever had. One of Emily's companies, Quickstrike was looking for extra staff to promote Sydney's light rail line. The light rail is very similar to Melbourne's tram's, however, Sydney only has one line. The line travles between Sydney Central Station and Dulwitch Hill. Half of the tram stops are new, nine new stations opened last Thursday. The New South Wales Government decided that they wanted two people to assist customers at each station, and this task fell to Quickstrike, who did not have enough staff. Last week I was doing landscaping work in western Sydney at a government housing project. I would have to wake up at 4:30 am to make to work by 6:30am. We usually ended work around 4pm, so it took me another 2 hours to get home during peak hour. Saturday two weeks ago I waited for one hour to get a bus to connect to a train to get home, a three hour commute. I was definitely keen for another job. Luckily for me Quickstriek let me on shifts without doing any training. they has a too small t-shirt for me, and a bunch of leaflets to pass out and I was ready to go. My first shift I ended up riding the rails for an hour before I found a shop with only one person, and thankfully my next shifts were properly assigned so I could go directly to the stop.

The job has been extremely easy. Emily and I go to our assigned stop at 7-9am and 4-7pm, but we are paid for six hours. most of the patrons are regular customers and have no questions, just complaints. Most of the time we just stand at the station watching trams pass as customers get on.

Thankfully I will be starting work tomorrow at the Sydney Royal Easter show at the Sydney Olympic park. It appears that I will be working every single day until April 24th.