Volleyballin’

Hey peoples – long time, no speak. Things have been a happenin’ around these parts. I worked 36 hours last week, which is a new record for me here in Australia and I hope to surpass that again this week because I am scheduled to work for 40 hours. Imagine that – working for a full 40 hours in a week. Whoodathunkit?

Alright so I’ll tell you a couple stories from this past week at work. Two nights this past week were complete polar opposites. Friday at work was the day from hell and Saturday was nothing like it. So first of all… Friday. Friday I worked a double shift starting at noon and ending at midnight with a 2 ½ hour break in there… well that’s what I was scheduled to work, but it didn’t end up being that simple. I started work at noon but didn’t get a break until 4:30 and then my break only lasted just over a half an hour before I had to get back to it. And that’s where the insanity began. So I was working downstairs in the restaurant with Caroline (who has been there for 2 or 3 years and is very friendly and a great waitress) and we split the place in half. I had the front section, which included one large function and a bunch of other smaller bookings, and Caroline took the back sections, which included just a few large functions. Her night was bad, but nowhere near as ridiculous as mine.

The function that I had to look after ended up being a group of some of the rowdiest, rudest, most inconsiderate people I have ever met. There were 18 to 20 people, all of whom were eating and drinking for free, but still found a reason to complain about everything they got. They forgot what they ordered and as a result ate the wrong thing so we had to return a dish and make them two extra ones. Also every person in the group was hell-bent on getting as drunk as possibly in the most demanding way. Anyway, in the end they had spent upwards of $1500 and they didn’t tip me at all. Besides those drunkards, three of the tables I looked after were wonderfully friendly (if not ridiculously needy) and seemed to like me quite a bit, but between the three of them I could only muster $1.10 worth of tips. Oh well, shake it off. We finished quite late and had to clean everything up, which took so long. Long story short – I worked for 12 hours almost straight.

Fast-forward… next day. Saturday, boom. Way different. Not very busy at all, we got finished early, I looked after a function of 15 people that were so nice and friendly and appreciative and spent way less money on everything, and gave me a monster tip. It was a great night.

Ok, today me and Linder went to Tamarama Beach to play volleyball because we’ve heard that’s the place to be. Other than it being quite windy, the day was fantastic. We found the courts (there were two set up at the time) and we headed on over to start getting warmed up. Once we started playing, well, let me just say, it was embarrassing. As rusty as I was in Italy, me and Brian were infinitely worse on the beach today when we first started. It was awful. Ball control… out the window, setting… non-existent, hitting the ball in-bounds… yeah right, serving… well we got it over the net. It was a joker broma. Anyway, after two games (and the guys we were playing asking us if we wanted to switch up the teams so we’d have a chance – we said no!) we finally figured out how to play. I think we scored a total of 15-20 points in the first two games and the third we won 21-16 (all against the same team). Then the fourth game was a marathon, it ended 26-24 or thereabouts.

It was so much fun. We both had a great time and were happy to know we still had it. Besides the volleyball… the beach was fantastic. Such a nice little secluded beach. The water is great (kind of an aggressive rip tide) and the sun was shining today. We both got a good amount of sun and Lindy made it back in time for work. I made it back in time to eat food.

That’s the past week for me… sort of. We also did a ton of other things, like going out to fun places and finding a load of fun pubs to go to. Great week. Love you all.

- Jesse “back in the game” Meredith