Maroochydore!

I suppose it's time for an update.

A couple of days ago we left Bundaberg and set our sights for a town called Maroochydore. We figured since it's close to Brisbane we could go there for a few days until we figured out the whole job thing. We got on Google and literally just picked the cheapest one and showed up. This town is much better and there seems to be more job opportunities. The boys were put on the waiting list to fruit pick, which seems to be moving along pretty quickly, so I think in the next few days they will get hired.

I was put in a girls dorm and ended up meeting a really nice English girl who was also looking for a job. We decided to go to the library and print off a bunch of resumes then go walk around town to hand them out. There is a plaza with tons of shops about 20 minutes away so we decided to head there first. We handed out a bunch and finally got to this Kebab restaurant/bar right off the river who said they were hiring. She agreed to let us have a trial day and for Megan to go in the next day and me to do mine the day after her. We were so excited to finally get a yes, well more of a maybe, but nonetheless it was exciting.

Megan did her trial yesterday and called me immediately after to tell me that she got the job, which was very exciting. She came back and told me all the ins and outs, how it was all set up and what I should expect. Pretty much as long as you are efficient and friendly it should be fine. Sweet! She said it was super slow and that she only had to talk to two tables and they were like an hour apart from each other so it was pretty easy.

I woke up this morning getting ready to do my trial and arrived 15 minutes ahead of time. When I got there I informed someone behind the counter that I was there for the trial and he told me that none of the managers were there yet so to come back in 30 minutes. Ooookay?? I guess I'll just walk around the mall and kill some time then. When I got back the owner was there and put me with another girl to shadow. She told me she had never trained before and that she hadn't been there that long. I asked how long she had been there and she said since November. "So you've been here four months then?" "Yea about that." ---hmm sounds like plenty of time to me!

She did a pretty crap job of explaining anything so I pretty much had to figure it out on my own as I went along. At first it was going pretty smoothly and I helped greet tables and set everything up then she let me do a few on my own with her there for when the guests asked questions about the menu, as I had only blarely even glanced at it. Then the kitchen made a large platter of samples, so one of the girls went out to the walkway to entice people in with the samples. After this happend the restaurant got slammed. There weren't enough waitresses to get everything done in a timely manner so they told me to just go on my own and if I had any questions to just ask. "Uhhh, are you sure? okay?" Within 15 minutes I was taking care about about seven tables on my own and doing a pretty good job considering I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Then a couple from one of my tables went up to pay their bill and it was higher than they had expected. What happend was, there is a specials board with a few items that you can get for $12 if you buy a drink with it, and I thought they had asked me just in general what some of the popular items on the menu were. So I named off a few, which one of the trainers had told me earlier, and they ordered both. One of them happend to be on the specials board for $12 but the other one was $20. But hell if I knew what was on the board and what wasn't because I had only glanced at it when the trainer pointed at it.

Anyway, so after the manager sorted out what happend she pulled me aside and explained it. Obviously I was apologetic and it was an honest mistake, but what did they expect? They threw me out there on my first day with absolutely no menu knowledge and expect me to not slip up at all? Besides, they only lost a few dollars out of it. But she was not happy with this and pretty much told me I could go home now and that they would get back to me if they were interested and still have a few more trials throughout the week. Which I knew was bull because they hired my friend the day before right after her shift. So I guess I'll take that as a no. While I was disappointed, I knew that working at a restaurant that disorganized would just stress me out and I probably wouldn't have lasted long anyway. It's back to square one and I'm going to walk around town tomorrow and hand out some more resumes. On my walk home I stopped at Subway and treated myself to a cheer-me-up smoothie and picked up an application :).

Today the hostel is having a BBQ down by the lake and pretty much everyone is going, so that should be fun. Other than that, Maroochydore has been a pretty good time! There is a nice beach right around the corner where I have been soaking up some rays lately. That's all I've got for now!

Cheers