Contingency plans

I am not accustomed to failure, at least not to failing at things I put my mind to (lord knows how many unfinished schemes I have going on, and how many ideas I've let slip over the years). I guess that must sound arrogant, but it is the way things go for me - if I want something enough I am used to finding some way of getting it.

This is making it very hard for me to accept that my plans for this year might well not work out. My big idea was that having in-demand skills and flexibility about where to work meant I could get to New Zealand and find a contract within weeks. I didn't really think it through properly.

First of all, saying I'm willing to work anywhere is all very well, but really employment agencies only notice me when I am in their region and reminding them of my existence, so I can only practically look for work in one city at a time. Then there's the issue of logistics - if while I'm in Auckland something came up in Wellington I would definitely want to come back and interview for it, but that may not be practical because of the expense of flying at short notice, and the time taken by travelling overland (a whole day by road or rail).

Then there's the work permit issue. Had I got around to getting British citizenship over the last couple of years, as I promised myself I would (there's one I let slip because I didn't appreciate how important it would become), I could have applied for a working holiday visa, which would let me take rubbish short term jobs to have some income while I wait for the good one, and when the good one turned up would give me 3 months from starting work to sort out my longer-term paperwork. Instead I am dependent on getting a confirmed job offer in something that I have specialised experience with, and then going to Immigration to get a work permit, for that specific job. Immigration say it will be easy enough, but I am getting the impression that employers and agencies don't really want to deal with it, because until I have the work permit there is a theoretical risk I could be turned down. Catch-22: I can't get a permit without a job offer, and not having a permit seems to hinder my getting a job offer. It definitely knocked me off the shortlist for a very short term (1 or 2 weeks) contract that came up this week and I was able to do, which at least would have bought me time.

Of course there is the option of illegal work. I haven't actually looked into it here, but certainly in the UK it is very easy for people who are a little bit resourceful to get cash-in-hand work that takes no notice of whether they are legally entitled to it or not. In a parallel world this would be worth me doing, because the risk of getting caught is small, and the worst that could happen is deportation; I will have to leave NZ soon anyway if I can't get an income, so what would I be losing? The trouble is that I want to study in the USA, and friendly countries share information about immigration matters. If I get caught working illegally here, I would stand almost no chance of getting a student visa for the States, and that means that no matter how small the risk of getting caught may be, I just can't afford to take it.

So I'm pretty much trying my last trick by going to Auckland. I've registered with agencies there this week, and had nothing positive, but I'm not going to give up hope until I've spoken to a few in person. I know that does help. But the signs are not very encouraging, so I have to be realistic here, and consider what to do if I decide I'm not likely to get a job, and how soon I have to make that decision.

To some extent, this depends on feedback next week. If I don't get a job within a week, there is still a range of possible outcomes, from no leads whatsoever (in which case I should probably cut my losses after a week), to the scenario of getting a few interviews and just not finding a job that quite fits, in which case I should definitely keep trying. Probably the week will be somewhere between those extremes.

In a sense I feel like I am willing to give up too early, because I still have some savings, and running a tight ship I could definitely survive for another 2 months or so in Wellington (probably a shorter time in Auckland), in which time a lot could happen. But that ignores the purpose of my being on this side of the world - I'm not here chasing a career, but I'm here to enjoy being in New Zealand and travel around this beautiful country as much as I can. Playing the waiting game makes sense if there is a good chance of a return, but I run the risk of waiting for nothing, and then when I do decide to give up finding that I just don't have the money to do any travelling and have to head straight back to the UK. On the other hand, if I decide now to bring my flight home forward, I could at least relax my spending controls a bit, have a few weeks of travelling around this country, and take advantage of my stopovers on the way home (Brisbane & Bangkok) to dive the Great Barrier Reef and visit Angkor Wat, which would leave me feeling more like there was a point to me travelling out here. Plus I have several free changes on that air ticket, so the day I decide to start travelling around NZ doesn't have to be the day I tell agencies I'm not available for work any more, because if anything comes up before I leave this country I can still fly myself back to wherever the job is and change my plans again.

So I think unless next week is more encouraging than I am expecting it to be, I will probably revert to tourist mode again after that. It's a big decision for me, because it would mean accepting failure, but at least if I do that I can snatch something from the jaws of defeat, rather than finding myself flying home in April, having spent several months here and seen nothing.

posted @ 7:37 PM -

Cricket God

Try telling this chap that cricket is a frivolous subject:

....His seven-minute long pooja includes special archana mantras like "Om boundary adippavare namaha, Om sixer adippavare namaha, Om hatrick eduppavare namaha, Om wicketaii eduppavare namaha ...

From The Hindu

posted @ 6:42 PM -

Shock news: England to play "cricket" in World Cup

posted @ 10:42 PM -

oh dear

posted @ 10:14 PM -

Unix geek question: what switch makes the ls command output in columns?

Apologies for a post that will be of interest to almost nobody, but if anyone can tell me it would make uploading the rest of my photos a damn sight quicker....

posted @ 9:27 PM -

Caption competition

Greenwich Village, NYC, USA



January 26^th 2003

posted @ 9:13 PM -

New Zealand has some very strange parliamentary standing orders. I can't make head nor tail of this latest controversy over whether a disgraced MP's votes count or not.

posted @ 5:39 PM -

More photos - Bangkok

posted @ 2:04 AM -

Road Trip

Dear Ndugu,

Yesterday I saw a poster from Maui Rentals, advertising that because they needed to get some stock up from Wellington to Auckland, they were renting out vehicles for $1/day under certain conditions. It seemed too good to be true, but seeing as I needed to do that journey soon I thought I'd check it out. There are some restrictions, but nothing that caused me a problem, so I now have a camper van booked from Saturday to Monday. I only have to pay for petrol, which even if I travel alone should make it a pretty cheap way to get to Auckland. I'm advertising for someone to come along for the ride, but I'm not too worried about whether anyone replies or not.

It's nice to have something to look forward to again, especially as a reminder of what I'm doing here - the point was never to sit and stew in a city (even if the funkiness of Wellington has been a pleasant surprise), but to take as many opportunities as possible to get out and enjoy God's own country.

posted @ 1:09 AM -

The America's Cup

Of course there is one good thing about my impending trip to Auckland: The America's Cup starts there this Saturday. Come to think of it, this might even be a reason to leave here on Friday, earlier than I had planned (though it does also mean I'd better make up my mind today and book a place to stay).

posted @ 10:26 PM -

I've seen this happen before

A year or two ago I was talking to a Canadian, who had worked as a ski guide in New Zealand for a season or two. His description of the place was like Britain, only 10-20 years behind (which was meant as a compliment). Well here we go: New Zealand is in the midst of a moral panic about dangerous dogs.

posted @ 10:21 PM -

My days are unoriginal

The other reason the flow of content here has diminished is that my life is not really very exciting at the moment. The problem is that I'm trying to spend as little money as possible while I have no income, but at the same time I can't really put down any roots here, because the employment market is so awful that I may well have to leave soon. The trouble is I really like Wellington, and there's actually quite a lot to do for no money, as long as I don't mind going to things alone. This week there's a songwriters' showcase, with 3 local singer/songwriters performing in the Civic Square every lunchtime; one of today's acts was outstanding. When that finishes, the Fringe NZ festival will start.

Meanwhile there are ways I can go out and meet people. Now that my health is coming back under control it's about time I joined a martial arts club, plus there are sailing and kayaking courses in the area, and I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find a photography club too. Trouble is this is all a bit pointless if I don't know whether I'm going to be able to afford to stay here for long or not.

So it's with some regret that I've decided I have to leave Wellington and head for Auckland, a place which no Kiwi has a good word to say about. The trouble is I can't just sit here and watch my money run through my fingers; I need at least short term work. I've reached the point that all I can do about that in Wellington is scour the papers (having already written to all the companies who advertise regularly) and keep in touch with employment agencies in the hope that one day they'll give me better news than so far. It's depressing. I don't even know if Auckland will be any better, but I can't just sit here in this rut, I have to try something else out.

I've started sending my CV up to agencies there, but I don't really expect anything to happen until I turn up in person - there really is no substitute for being there. So far I think I'll probably go up there this weekend, and spend a week there, but all really depends on response. If Auckland is no more promising than Wellington then I should probably come back here, at least for the duration of the festival. On the other hand if I get some interest there, even if it doesn't immediately lead to a job, I should probably stick at it in Auckland, because even if the place is as bad as everyone says at least if I had a job I could afford to go somewhere interesting every weekend (and there are definitely plenty of places worth seeing within a couple of hours' journey of the city).

posted @ 9:30 PM -

Photos, at last

One of the reasons I've had very little to say over the last few days is that actually I've been quite absorbed with tinkering with this website. The point is partly to de-rust my own technical skills, but mainly to finally do something about the photos section that has been out of action for a year or so. Finally I have something I'm reasonably happy with, and now that the basic structure is there it shouldn't take me too long to fill it.

So far there aren't many pictures online, but you can take a look at Hong Kong. I'll mention when there's more there.

Because I don't have my own computer online (I'm going through the slightly laborious process of designing on a laptop, then burning a CD, then uploading in an internet cafe from the CD), I haven't been able to test this out properly on different browsers and different connections and so on. Feedback is therefore particularly welcome - tell me how it looks on your machine, tell me how long the pages take to download fully, and so on. If it's slow please tell me what kind of internet connection you have, and if it looks rubbish please tell me which browser you're using.

posted @ 5:52 PM -