Decisions

My boyfriend was happy at his new workplace. The people working there were very different from him and he was still quite awkward but he was good at the job and there were a couple of people that really appreciated his work. The perks were nice, he had a pretty good pay and they even invited him on the company trip to Spain. I was excited and started planning ahead. We both got a gym memberships that we use at least twice a week – on a bad week. I wasn't worried about finances much and we went on a few weekend mini breaks just because we could. Things were going pretty well. The only downside was that he had only gotten a three month contract and we were nervous about the extension but that was something to worry about later. We were pretty relieved when after about a month and a half the manager said to my boyfriend that he thought he was doing a wonderful job and would definitely extend his contract for either another three months or even a year. This took all our worries away since his visa was dependent on his job and if he lost his job at any point he would be required to immediately leave the country.

Just when my boyfriend was settling into his job I got told that the café I was working at had to close down because the swimming pool that was next door decided they wanted a different company running the space next to them - the café was technically owned by the swimming pool even though they outsourced they still had the final call on who runs the space. I didn't mind that much because the pay was low – technically my pay was the same as a Barista but the café opened later and closed sooner so my overall pay went down. And I still couldn't stand my colleague. So when my contract ended I had prepared myself and had been applying for jobs. I managed to get a job as a management trainee at a fast food joint which was supposed to start right when my contract at the café ended. So when I didn't hear anything on the day I was supposed to start my new job I started wondering if I had just dreamt it all. I checked my emails and but there were no new messages. After a while I decided not to seem too pushy or needy and sent him an email asking about my start date details. When I didn't get any response for two days I decided to call on the second day. The restaurant owner who hired me said that he was just about to call me to schedule my contract signing. So a few days later I signed my contract but he didn't want me to actually start until the week after that. I was pretty confused about why he would say one thing and do another but I didn't want to sound whiny or desperate so I didn't ask. Then later it turned out he was about to have a baby so he was pretty stressed out.

My time between jobs had been right around when my boyfriend's family was here to visit him so I spent quite some time with them and got to know them a lot better. A Thursday in October was when I started working at my new job for the first time. It didn't go off to a great start to be honest. Nobody had told me what to do or what was expected of me as the first few steps when starting the job. I came and waited in line in order to get to speak to someone about what to do. She told me to have a seat and wait because it was busy – you know because there were about three people in line. Later it turned out that two girls just hadn't shown up for work so they were grossly understaffed. Nobody knew I was starting that day and nobody really cared. The girl who was supposedly showing me the ropes was using all her effort to work both kitchens and the drive-thru and as a result didn't have any time to really explain anything and I was expected to be able to suddenly just do everything right when I couldn't even tell the difference between the five types of frozen pieces of chicken. After a few hours the store manager arrived and she taught me how to make hamburgers and cheeseburgers. That's when I realised that all the people that had arrived one by one were about 16 years old and goofing around while working. I know it sounds cheesy – haha get it? Cheesy... but I couldn't connect to any of my colleagues and I absolutely hated this work. I knew I had to be able to work everywhere in order to become a manager but I just hated myself for what I was doing. It was like working in a factory being surrounded by kids and losing brain cells after completing every burger. I respect people who are able to make themselves work at a fast food joint because I just couldn't.

That's when it happened. The unthinkable. Something we weren't prepared for. My boyfriend lost his job that Friday. His manager said that he just didn't fit in. They were willing to give him a recommendation on his technical skills but he just wasn't right for this company. We were devastated. After all the build up and promises and the hopes we had it just broke down completely. We didn't know what to do. To us it seemed as though all hope had been lost. When we came here after my trip through Australia we knew things weren't going to be easy but we never imagined it to be this hard. I decided to quit my job. Maybe it was a mistake but I don't regret it.

As our back-up plan to gain us some time we went to Belfast for a weekend which is in the UK and therefore in a different visa-area. When we came back my boyfriend was allowed to stay for another
three months on a tourist visa. This visa ends on the 20^th of January 2014. We avoided the issue for a while but had a long and hard talk when we were ready to face the consequences. We decided to move back to Australia. We would have a place to start, some family and friends, familiar surroundings and I could get a visa – I can get a visa as long as we can prove we've been together for at least a year. Australia seemed like the best option. Our house here is only temporary and neither of us has a job. My boyfriend decided he wanted to stay here and applied for a whole bunch of jobs and even got a job interview for one of them. This was through the same recruitment agency as his previous job so they were also willing to arrange his visa for him. However we had no hope that he would get it since we had become just that pessimistic. We were getting ready for the move, we started sorting out forms for my visa and we even started packing and sorting through some things we'd had in storage for ages. We told all our friends and family about our decision to move to the other side of the planet.