The Good and Bad of working in the City
After a break of more than a few months, I’m working again and back in Melbourne again. So I guess that means this Blog may go a bit quiet again as – as some of you may know – I write for a living. Actually I’m a Technical Writer; merging my 25 years of Technical IT stuff with my freelance writing.
The point being I write all day at work, so am less likely to write Blog entries when I get home. The phrase bus-mans holiday springs to mind. Look it up …
Anyway it’s great to be in town again. We are in a very central location, so there’s lots of cafes and food places nearby. But then again, this is Melbourne so there’s heaps of those anywhere, I’d suggest. Plus the shopping; within 3 minutes walk I have a bushwalking/camping store, JB HiFi (for DVDs and HD TVs etc) and Allans Music (where I can drool over $5000 pianos)
The slight down side is trying to find healthy food. I’m not that fussy, but it is actually not that easy to find a simple wholemeal sandwich. Guess I could always make my own. Heaven forbid…
The real downer is our Trains. Overcrowded and late would be the best term I’d use. As if that’s not bad enough the information they provide us is appalling. Yesterday I got on a home-bound train clearly labelled as the correct one for me. Yet at the very next stop I looked up: both the platform’s display and the one inside my train were saying it was a different line (not mine!). Both were in agreement with each other and totally at odds with the train I thought I was on. And it wasn’t just me confused; people at the station were getting on and asking where this train actually went. It seems as though some ‘believed’ the incorrect display and stood back as we left. Someone next to me said such people would be very annoyed; apparently the next ‘correct’ train on our line – after ours – had just been cancelled. So at least a 40 minute wait for them..plus the time they had spent waiting for the ‘wrongly labelled’ train. At the next stop the driver used his P.A. and reassured us we were on the correct train.
He needed it again today! Same train, similar problem. At North Melbourne station the driver announced that we should “ignore the displays, we are NOT going to Ballarat” As some of you may know that’s a fair way away, particularly when the electric train line only runs about 1/5 of the way there. The driver finished up by adding “and we don’t have an extension lead that long…” (true!)
