“The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men”

On arriving back in Wellington I was delighted to discover that I now had a bed in a four person all female dorm in the hostel. It was small but we all got on well so we managed to work around each other and it was infinitely better than any of the 6 person dorms I had stayed in previously. It also had the added bonus or being closer to the nicer bathrooms which made getting ready for work at 5am without disturbing my roommates much easier. Yup, once I had settled in to my new room I was straight back to work to get my hours for the week. The owner was there and seemed surprised to see me. I’m not sure if she was surprised that two weeks had passed already or that I had come back at all. I know a lot of backpackers might not have but for me it was guaranteed paid work and right then I needed that. I had debt to pay off and a whole new country to see.

I got my hours and said hello to everyone then it was back to the hostel to recover from my jet lag. It was strange to return to so many familiar faces, it was like coming home in more ways than one. As well as settling straight back in to hostel life the weather was cold and wet, just like my true home on t’other side of the planet. My first day back was very quiet as everyone else was at work but as all I wanted to do was sleep the weather and lack of people didn’t bother me.

On my return to work my manager approached me and asked if I still wanted to go full time and take on more responsibilities. My response was yes but not really, I just want to learnt more stuff because just serving people is boring: apparently this translates in to “would like more responsibilities”. The upshot of the conversation was that I would be go to yet more coffee training and learn cash up and become a supervisor. During my absence the previous supervisor had left and there had been a staff shuffle which ended with the current supervisor leaving in just over a month to become manager of the new cafe opening on the other side of town. It was more money, hardly rocket science and all my objections were answered or ignored so lone behold I started training as a supervisor. All they asked was that I stay on place for the whole year I was allowed to work on my visa. I could totally do that. I could stay in one place for 12 whole months, couldn’t I? After all the longer I worked there the longer I could travel once I did leave. It sounded like a perfectly sensible plan.......Shit. Oh well I could give it a go and if it didn’t work out no harm no foul, I’m sure they could soon replace me.