not a windsurfer

Thursday, 7 July 2022

When I finished grade 12 I told myself the first thing I would buy when I got a full time job would be a windsurfer.  It was peak windsurfer era back then - the river was chock full of them.

It wasn't long before a series of aptitude tests and interviews did actually land me my first job - working for the enticingly named 'Department of Public Administration' writing code to maintain & enhance payroll and leave systems for the rest of the state government departments.  It was highly unsupervised yet high stakes stuff  - me and my other 2 cohorts could have easily manipulated and/or accidentally deleted every government employees payroll and leave details - it certainly was cowboy times back in IT in those days (1987).    Anyway - as a 17 year old doing what was called a 'traineeship' I was only entitled to 75% of the minimum wage of a non-trainee 17 year old which was in turn 75% of the wage of a 21year old doing the lowest paid job in government.  We were so poorly paid I was extremely envious of the 1st year apprentice hairdresser who played on my basketball team who got paid significantly more than me.

Come to think of it's kind of been my whole career since then really - I seem to end up doing jobs that in similar yet slightly different circumstances would have paid three times as much. 

Anyway - needless to say, a windsurfer was completely out of the question for 17 year old me, so the first thing I actually bought when I could finally afford something, was a popcorn maker.

So it is with a heavy heart that I must report that my beloved and 35 year old popcorn maker has finally died.

Whilst it finally failed during a routine popcorn making operation, it did at least stand on enough ceremony to go out loudly, and very very smokily.