Being Melburnians – Living and Working In Melbourne
- Kelly McKenna
- Feb 6, 2019
- 4 min read
As discussed previously, there is a rivalry between Sydneysiders and Melburnians about which is the better city. Arriving in Melbs, I was definitely wearing my #TeamSydney t-shirt, but I was willing to let Melbourne into my heart. The first line of my journal on Sunday 5th March reads “We are in Melbourne! We are pretty miserable so far.” So not the best start really.
Weather wise, Melbourne got off to a cracking start with some of the most beautiful days to welcome us. I think in our first two weeks, we didn’t get a day below 30 degrees. It was a shame we’d spent so much money on the East Coast as we spent most of our time job hunting!
Sunset Over The Beautiful St Kilda Beach
Life in Melbourne
Melbourne is frequently voted the worlds most liveable city. Whilst I don’t necessarily agree with that, living in Melbourne was a lot of fun. We actually moved house five times in the four months we lived there so it was a pretty busy time for us. After our first two weeks staying with two of the very best people to explore Melbourne with (seriously Naomi knows EVERYWHERE to go and EVERYTHING to do in that city), we moved into an Airbnb in a place called Essendon (which is north of the city and truly is in the arse end of nowhere). 10 days later we moved back to civilisation to a street just off Melbourne’s famous Chapel Street where we spent a month in someone else’s house whilst they were on holiday in Europe!
When we set off on our adventure we never would have dreamed of meeting someone on Gumtree and subletting their apartment for a month, but just five months in we did exactly that. Twice.
Our fourth home was literally across the street and the easiest move we have ever done in our lives. Again, we met the couple online and lived there for a month whilst the tenants went back to Canada to celebrate their recent marriage with their family. This was by far one of our favourite homes where we not only had a gym and stunning rooftop views, but also where we had the egg on the balcony that I spent many an afternoon drinking in.
For our final stop in Melbourne we were back to Airbnb and we moved a whole suburb across (still only a 10 minute walk from our previous place.) We were excited to move in there as it was the first place we’d lived since we left that actually had a separate upstairs and downstairs!
Melbs is an absolute foodies paradise, you can find every cuisine you can think of, often on the same street. Melbourne is also home to what I refer to as the “w**ky brunch”. W**ky food is generally food that looks good enough to be posted all over social media, most notably known for its “Instagramworthiness”. We had a whole tonne of w**ky brunches in Melbourne, I think that one month we were there, we went out for brunch every weekend. I honestly can’t think of a meal that we ate in a restaurant in Melbourne that was of poor quality, I just don’t think they’d survive to be honest.
Apart from indulging in beautiful breakfasts, it was in Melbourne that we really started to do a lot more cooking at home and settling into ‘normal’ life. We regularly ate spag bol (with Coles $1 dinosaur pasta) and a tonne of chilli – with rice, on jackets or nachos. It was also where we discovered the joy of Dan Murphy’s ‘Cleanskin’ range (6 bottles of wine for $23) and were frequently found walking to our apartment weighed down with another case.
Great food aside, Melbourne is by far Australia’s cultural capital. They have beautiful architecture round every corner and a fantastic theatre and arts scene. Graffiti is also legal in Melbourne and this adds to the beauty of the city as you just don’t know what you might come across when you turn into the next street. You can frequently watch graffiti artists at work in the many laneways and works are frequently commissioned for major events, such as the stunning piece we saw just before the F1 came to town.
Working in Melbourne
We weren’t even as half as cocky when we arrived in Melbourne about our ability to find work as we had been in Sydney, but we were desperate. Flashpacking on the East Coast had been amazing, but had almost completely destroyed our bank accounts and we were pretty much down to our last dollar.
Once again we went through the fandango of meeting various recruiters and reassuring them that yes, we did know how to answer a phone and count to ten. Just in time, Rich wangled a two-week contract working in accounts payable again meaning we didn’t have to phone the bank of mum and dad to bail us out. Not long afterwards, he secured a permanent six month contract (still in accounts payable) and we breathed a sigh of relief that our Australian adventure could continue.
In the meantime I was struggling to tie down any permanent roles and spent a lot of our first few weeks getting calls on the day (between 0730-0900) to go in and cover a reception/admin job as someone had called in sick. Thinking back to our lives in the UK, the option to call a recruitment agency to cover someone being sick just wouldn’t have been viable from a business point of view, but it seems to be a pretty standard way of operating in Australia.
I managed to get a four day contract doing one of the most mind numbing jobs I have ever had in my life – removing staples from documents, scanning them and then putting them into a pile for archiving. Money is money though so I shouldn’t complain too much. Finally after a month of feeling pretty rubbish about myself and my capabilities I landed an interview for a role as a Personal Assistant at a not-for-profit organisation and didn’t really look back until we departed Melbourne three months later. We both enjoyed our jobs in Melbourne, but were ready to feel a bit more challenged and ready to eat a lot less cake by the time we left.
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