It seems anyone with any skills leaves the land of the long white cloud as soon as they are old enough to get a passport. When I tell people I'm moving here they struggle with the concept and after I tell them I have some skills so getting a job should not be hard they assume I am insane. I am starting to wonder why I am here when everyone else is leaving. It feels like I missed a boat and now I'm a drowning rat on a sinking ship. I'm mixing analogies and seem to be on a boat having missed one - but Auckland is all about boats.
After just one week of looking around and going to quite a few interviews I get myself some employment at www.shift.co.nz - the premier web design company of NZ. It's a perfect set up for me and I start on monday. They are an interesting bunch of people. An international crowd with people from Israel, the UK, the US, France, Spain,China, Korea and of course NZ. It seems like they cherry pick the biggest geeks from around the world and then put them in an open plan ofice just to see how awkward it is. There are a lot of headphones and Burger king wrappers lying around and I don't mind it at all. I can walk to work in about ten minutes and my walk takes me through Albert park - a particularly beautiful public space that makes me feel a whole heap better about being here and knowing no one.
I get thrown in at the deepend at work since they are so busy. But the work is pretty easy given that it's all about two years out of date. That's the thing about New Zealand web design - since no one can get decent broadband there is no need to produce super-flash websites.
On wednesday evening I go to the Auckland web meetup with some of my new colleagues. It's basically a meeting for all of Aucklands web designers where they can talk about emerging technologies and showcase work. Auckland is a small town and their web industry, I assume, is small too, but about 150 people turn up and a bigger concentration of nerds you will not find. I actually forget for a few hours how super cool I am and laugh along at the jokes about the cool things flash 4 could do.
Friday night is drinks at work. Something I need to stay away from in future. And then the weekend turns up again for another 48 hours of alone time.
Plan for next week: Join gym, make friends. Or make friends first then join gym - don't want gym buddies.
Plan for following week: Cancel gym membership. Write book.
1 comment:
Thanks for the compliment -- I thought our stuff was, like, three years out of date.
Plenty of kiwis fly the coop, but a goodly many return; it's about the lifestyle mate. Let me take you out to Piha beach one weekend, and you'll see what I mean...
Che
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