Diary for The Wacky Adventures of Levi


Workin at the Bank

2006-03-06

Well, for the first time since arriving in Australia, I finally feel like a "foreigner"... a refugee, if you will. Now don`t get me wrong, in no way am I professing that the hardships I am currently enduring rival those of the tortured souls that came to be your neighbours and mine by stowing away in the wheel-well of a boeing 747, drifting to our shores floating on a door, or spending countless weeks toiling deep in the bowels of a delapidated cargo ship. I realize their stories will no doubt elicit more tears than mine, I just really think the world needs to know my tale.

The curiosity consumes you, I know. You`re wondering, "what could possibly be happening to Levi in a society so similar to his own, that should cause him to feel as if he doesn`t belong?"

Dry your eyes my friends, for this story has a happy ending. The cause of my forlorn demeanour is actually a good thing. I GOT A GREAT JOB! It`s paying very well, so I`ll be staying in Perth until the first week of April to save up enough cash to get my foreign ass over to New Zealand.

Now you`re all wondering, "ok, ok, so what`s all this talk about feeling like a foreigner then?" Well shut up for a second and I`ll get to that. Much in the tradition of my good friend Toby, when he first planted his feet in the soil of our great land, my job entails duties that are... shall we say... below my skill set. I`m in the photocopy room... Some of you are probably thinking that`s not so bad. Allow me to present my case.

I generally saunter in at about 7:45 am (7:30 if I made it to the bus on time), grab a box full of mortgage papers that are stapled together, spend 3 hours ripping the staples out, spend the next 3 hours photocopying the pieces of paper, then another 2 hours re-stapling them all back together. I was trained by a 17 year old boy who looks like a 14 year old boy (a-la Sean) a week and a half ago, and he still watches over me to make sure I don`t miss a fuckin staple or something. Excuse the cussing.

The thing that really get`s my goat about being in the photocopy room is that the lady who asked the teacher of our training class "why are you spelling Mortgage with a T, is it a special type of Mortgage?", has her own desk......... that`s when it first hit me. I`m the Foreigner.

Anyways, truth of the matter is, I absolutely LOVE THIS JOB!!! ahahah, you know that feeling when you`re soooooo tired that just everything is so damn funny? Oh man, i`m so tired and bored at work, that me and the Chinese guy i work with (who`s actually a really funny guy) just spend the hours throwing things at each other and looking for new things to do to distract us from work. For instance, last week we put 500 sheets in each photocopier and raced em for a $5 bet. We laughed our asses of for about 20 minutes......... That`s not funny. Why were we laughing. God I love my job.

I`m the L-factor.