VIP Loves Me

This is me saying, yeah, what's up, I'm awesome

Interesting day today. I woke up feeling a bit off, but showered and shook it off. I headed up to Chatswood via train for a follow up meeting with VIP music. The director and founder of the company, a Japanese man whose name I do not know, had a long, long chat with me. He was extremely complimentary of me, and it made me feel fantastic. Wonderful, exemplary, like maybe I’m not so bad, after all. I love self-esteem boosters!! I told that that I was prepared to move to the northern beaches to take on the role of the job. I presented him with my passport and a copy of my diploma, and explained to him the status of my visa, which expires in September 2010. He asked me why I wanted to job, and I rambled on about how much I love music and kids, blah blah. I spoke from my heart, and it apparently really paid off. He told me that he wanted to hire me, but that there were three problems standing in his way of doing so:

1. Uni schedule: I need to be 100% certain that my uni schedule will involve classes beginning at 6 pm. The afternoon classes for VIP Music end at 5 pm, and there cannot be a conflict with my uni timetable and any of the music classes I would be teaching.

a. Solution: I’m almost positive that classes begin at 6 pm, as in grad school students are 90% of the time working day jobs and need to have the option of taking night classes. All I have to do is email the program director and ask her about the schedule, as she probably know it already.

2. Insurance: As a self-employed contractor, VIP music does not provide me with income insurance. I need to obtain this before working for them, and he said it’s hard for overseas students to get it.

a. Solution: Call up an insurance company and have a chat.

3. Permanent Residency: VIP Music is looking for long-term teachers. He sees this as a commitment on both of our ends, and wants to be sure that I am in Australia for many years. 12 months is not enough; he wants a commitment from me. I explained to him that I intend to stay in Australia for as long as I can, but he is not convinced as I haven’t yet figured out how to obtain permanent residency, and also because immigration laws have been getting stricter and stricter in the past few years. They’re about to change again, apparently.

a. Solution: I don’t have one. I haven't really thought about permanent residency, and haven't considered what I'll do come September 2010. I was planning on crossing that bridge when I came to it. However, I can schedule an appointment with an immigrations officer and find out what my options are when I graduate from UNSW. This is the best I can offer VIP Music. I need to look into the different kinds of visas I can get: skilled migrant visa? Sponsorship? This dude is serious about me.

The director went on to ensure me that they really wanted to hire me but couldn’t as of now for the above reasons. He said that he was interviewing two more girls that afternoon, but doubted that they would have my “character” and “bubbly personality” and that “I can imagine kids just flocking to you.” At one point he turned to his assistant (or some lady sitting behind him and to the left), and remarked, “23. So mature, only 23 year old!” For the first time since I turned 22, I didn’t feel so bad about not being 21 anymore :) “Only 23.” Damn straight, I’m only 23. Anyway, we ended on great terms, and I promised that I would research the three issues and get back to him with some possible solutions. The school year doesn’t start until February, so I still have some time to work things out. I’m still really, really keen on the job, and so I’m going to do everything I can to get it!

When my interview finished, I had over an hour to kill before I had to be at work. Chatswood has a HUGE shopping centre, so I decided to have a look around. I ended up buying a birthday present for a one-year old, for a birthday party I’m going to on Sunday arvo. North Sydney (work) was only a 20-minute bus ride down the road, so it actually worked out pretty well.

Work was pretty good today. Melissa and I each set five appointments, and our KPI stands at 1 in 6. For cold calling, that’s pretty damn good! The boss dude was a total jackass, as usual. He’s on a major power trip and loves himself a little bit too much. He was terrible to the new girls, and gave them a “warning” for not getting the numbers he wanted. Nevermind that nobody had any training whatsoever, and that all of us are doing the very jobs that we possibly can. I found out today that he’s only twenty years old! It makes me think differently of him, and I don’t feel bad talking back to him. For instance, the other day a girl was leaving at ten to eight, when the shift ends at eight. He asked where she was going, and she said she had gotten there early and had somewhere to be that night, and had called earlier and cleared it with someone. Well, boss man wasn’t happy about this, and declared that it would never happen again, because “I don’t pay anyone until 4 pm, and you work until 8, when I stop paying you.” What a jackass. Then, at 8 pm, he tells us to wrap it up, and goes over to the whiteboard and has each of us report our numbers, one by one. Of course, by the time this is over, it’s ten past. No matter that I have a bus to catch, and that’s 8 at night, and that I have far better things to do. Nevermind that buses run far less frequently at night, so if I don’t catch the 8:07 I have to wait another thirty minutes for the next one. Let’s forget the fact that he stops paying us at 8 pm, as he made quite clear to us. So tonight, instead of waiting for this ridiculous line up, Melissa and I stopped working at 7:55, calculated our numbers, wrote them up on the board, and of course by then it was 8 pm. We waved good bye to boss man, who was on the phone, but he waved us to stay. Hmph. It was 8:06 by the time he got off, and this is when he gave the other girls the “warning” lecture. Melissa and I told him that we wouldn’t stay past 8 anymore, because we had public transport to catch. Take that, boss man! Melissa reckons she just won’t show up on Monday if he continues to treat the sales staff so poorly.

I didn’t get home until 9:40 that night. Not cool. I wasn't tired, though, and went down to the Robin Hood (local pub) for a feed and a few beers. Tomorrow=Melbourne!!