Affordable Rentals: Learning DIY

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

Yola.com

http://rentalsbrisbane.net

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Earning and saving money

WELCOME TO BRISBANE AFFORDABLE RENTALS, IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS THEREIN TO GET IN TOUCH WITH US.
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Welcome to our blog, affordable rentals
and this post, earning and saving money
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Earning and saving money

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This is just a typical set of profiles. Profiles are erected on the construction sites, in order to give the building workers, the right size and the position of the various elements of whatever is being built, one can extend this to even give the levels required and other things.
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This is a typical small house floor plan, of course this is only one simple floor plan, but there are several plans even to build a house, starting from a foundation plan and specifications.

Earning and saving money

Dear readers, these days in this blog we seem to be jumping from one thing to another, we place ads for renting accommodations and building them and other things as well. So, I have asked myself this question, everything we do we need money; therefore, whatever you do in life you need money, perhaps the most important thing to learn in life is how to earn money and how to save money; you see for instance, if you don’t want to pay rent you have to buy your own place, that is the only way open to you; for this reason, let us talk about earning and saving money

I believe that not everybody is able to work out how to do that, so they might need just a bit of help to understand how the others do it. In my case it was easy to learn, because I and many other people like myself, because there was uncertainty of not having a permanent job in the building industry, one soon learn that whatever money you earn from your job you have to save some, otherwise you could have problems soon or later; so, this disadvantage that we had in this job pushed most of us building workers to become good at saving money, because we wanted to feel safe and independent.

Now let me just talk about money, since I have mentioned it just now. In Australia because the economy is based on capitalism the more money you are able to earn and save the better off you are, of course this is also true to most other part of the world, but in Australia seems to be more so, because it is a new country, and people rely more on what they are able to earn than in anywhere else in the world. This is because there are not many existing reach families that live on the earnings of the properties that have been passed down from generation to generations, so almost everybody here has made their own way up if they have any money. Therefore, in Australia is mostly up to yourself if you want to get better you have to try harder and also work harder, you see most people here are self-made so most of the people have earned their own way. Once you know that, this question comes to your mind and you ask yourself, if other people can do it, I am sure that I can do it too?

By knowing what we have just said above, one can understand that in Australia, not only you have to try to earn money, but it is very important that you save it too, and at the same time you have to try to improve your working position, so that you can be more independent and not rely completely on others; this would help if it happens that you lose your temporary job and also by saving money you can start one day to buy your own house, or open you own business, which are the most important things that people should do, if they want to live a good life. I know now that most of you are saying that these are hard things to do, but you see, they can be done because I have done it myself.

Anyhow I believe that I have said enough about this money business for the time being, so let me go back to tell you about what I did with this job in the building industry and became a tradesman, and also how I ended up buying our house. But first let me tell you how and what we did and my progress in this building job, so that one can compare what was available then and what opportunities are available now, while I was working with this Italian small builder.

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Working for this builder

Working and learning with this small Italian builder

Dear readers, in these writing while I am telling you the story about myself working in the Australian building industry, I am also going to try to give you details of how building things were done in dose days; therefore, if you are one of those people that have in mind to do your own building renovations one day, you can somehow guess what you can find, in those building that we built then, because you already know how we built them.

Now let me go back to when I started work with this Italian builder, who was a bricklayer and concreter, we were working on houses and because there was not enough bricklaying work on these houses, as they were mostly built with timber, we were building only the foundations, the concrete stumps and some brickwork as the base of the house. Of course we did also some jobs under the existing houses and this has given me an opportunity to learn many things about those old houses in Brisbane.

Just for comparison sake, so that you can see the difference between those times and today, let me describe to you what we did to prepare a new base for a new timber house, which would be setting on concrete stumps and some brick walls.

First of all, we went to set up the site, if it was not already set up from the builder or carpenter that would build the timber house. This setting up required that we should fix some timber frame to the ground with pegs and according to the measurement in the plan, then mark them accurately, so that we had the right measurement to go by, in order to start digging the foundations for the stumps and brick walls and also for building the whole house.

Then we had to dig the foundations and this was mostly my job as I was the labour and I was pretty good at digging when I was young and strong, this may seem hard to believe but even digging one has to be an expert to do a good job, as the shape and depth of the foundations is important to do a job properly. Just to show you what I mean to dig a hole for a new concrete stump, 20x20 centimetres as most stumps were supposed to be; the hole for this stump should be in exactly the right place, it should be sixty centimetres deep in natural ground and at the bottom should have a circumference with a diameter of at least 40 centimetres or more. These were the average specifications then, unless it was stated otherwise. I know this because I have dug several hundreds of them if not thousands.

All the tools that I needed to do this job were a pick a post hole shovel and a crowbar, it usually would take me a couple of days to dig the entire house holes, which could usually be between twenty and thirty holes. You see I was able to dig a hole in less than half an hour, but it was hard work. Sometimes when there was some brickwork to do we had also to dig these foundations by hand; the foundations were usually dug according to specification, which usually would be 60-centimetre-deep in the natural ground, this means that if the grounds had been filled up that filling should not be counted as depth, of course this was the same as the holes we dug for the concrete stumps.

Anyhow, before I finish writing this article I want to say that those houses that we were helping to build in the sixties with this builder contractor that I was working for were average affordable house that the average family could afford to buy, and therefore they were sold easily.

Now, I believe that I have said enough in this post and although there could be a lot more that could be said, that part we are going to tell you in our next post, which is going to be about how we made those concrete stumps on site and other stuff, while we were working on these affordable houses.

See you soon.

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Affordable Rentals
Earning and saving money

IS TO BE CONTINUED;

Next time with, these affordable houses

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Some helpful links here under

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

Yola.com

http://rentalsbrisbane.net

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Building work in Australia

WELCOME TO BRISBANE AFFORDABLE RENTALS, IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS THEREIN TO GET IN TOUCH WITH US.
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Welcome to our blog, affordable rentals
and this post, building work in Australia
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Building work in Australia
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This is a typical timber workers cottage. A worker's cottage is a smaller version of the large Queens-lander; they were built smaller so that a worker could afford to buy it.

This is a brick base being built. on a narrow block of land, again here the builders were trying to make it cheap, so that people could afford them.

In Australia a lot of houses are built with a timber frame, so people coming in from Europe, like myself in the sixties, we though this is strange; so we were asking ourselves why they don't build in masonry.

Building work in Australia

Dear readers, with this post we are going back to write some of our own old articles. In these articles we have said that we would write some posts about DIY brickwork and other building things, well this article here explains how I started to work in the building industry, and later on as a bricklayer tradesman.

So, let me start from the beginning; when I came to Australia in the sixties I ended up working in the building industry, because those were the jobs that were available to do then; we were mainly working on fixing old houses, or building new house from scratch and also units and warehouses, so I ended up learning how lots of building things were done, in the end I specialized in becoming a bricklayer, and have worked most of my life as a bricklayer.

Now, let us talk about what we are going to write in this article; the Australian housing industry in the sixties, we will also be talking about, working in the Australian housing and building industry; Earning and saving money if you can; and Working with this Italian builder.

The Australian housing and building industry was and is one of the major employment industries in Australia, you might say that this is so also in other countries; but in other countries building new houses is not as important as it is in Australia. One of the reasons for this is that Australia was taking in many emigrant, in the sixties Australia was taking emigrants in a regulated way, now because the population grows steadily also accommodation need to grow, therefore a lot of new houses need to be built, this building of new housing accommodations gives many opportunities for the new comers to be employed, since there is a lot of manual work involved, and therefore a healthy cycle is thus created; but even with these opportunities the building industry has its ups and down, as we all know.

The housing building industry and real estate are more or less linked together and both have their ups and downs; you see, it could have been helpful if one could foretell what is going to happen next year, but it is not always possible to guess what is going to happen in the future. If people could know this, then they could be able to save money, or get rich quickly, especially if they are going to buy or build a house. It would be also helpful for the investors, as they would be able to invest their money at the right opportunity; about buying a house and saving to buy a house, we are going to write later on, because now I would like to continue my own story about house building, since that is what I was going to do in the first place; anyhow it is worth to keep informed in these money matters.

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Working in the building industry

As I have said in one of my last articles or posts called: Is Australia the land of opportunities; when I came to Australia from my native town; Genzano di Lucania Italy I ended up working in the building industry. Working on building in Australia is usually a temporary job, because even the employer is subject to the same opportunities of work, therefore one is never sure what is going to happen next when one job is finished, and therefore there were always concerns about our employment status, so, sometimes we could not help to continually ask ourselves, whether our employer would be able to get another job to do in time, before we finished the one we were doing, but even though we were thinking that we still worked hard to finish the job on hand as soon as possible, because to find work you had to be competitive.

Well I have to say here that although this small Italian builder did lots of small jobs, it did work out all right most times and we were able to move from one job to another all-around Brisbane town and also to some other close by town/s. Of course this would cause some worries if you had no transport of your own and you had to rely on some friends or the employer to take you on the work site, where the building was going to be built, but we managed somehow.

I remember that there were times when I had to get up early and catch the first tram to the city, and then I had to catch the second tram to another suburb, where usually the builder would pick me up and drive me to the onsite job, in the evening after eight hours or more of hard work, I had to go back home, which took again a long time, but anyhow we managed all right, after all we were here in Australia to earn money and as long as we had a job to go to and earn that money we were happy to do that. You see, on building sites workers can earn a bit above other people wages, but there was this uncertainty because there was no guaranty that the work would last and it also was hard work all day long.

Anyhow I think that it was a good job with good opportunities to learn and improve your knowledge of building something yourself. You see in those times one could improve their working and earning position more easily than today, as a lot of people did, it was possible then because a lot of things were simple, and therefore they could be done just by using your common sense. Of course there were always inspections from local authorities to follow, but once you knew what it was required they were easy to follow, if you used your brains diligently, therefore in a way we have to say that we had more opportunities then compared to today opportunities.

I think I have said enough in this post; so, see you in our next post about earning and saving money.

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Affordable Rentals Building work in Australia

IS TO BE CONTINUED;

Next time with, earning and saving money

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Some helpful links here under

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

Yola.com

http://rentalsbrisbane.net

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Property for rent

WELCOME TO BRISBANE AFFORDABLE RENTALS, IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS THEREIN TO GET IN TOUCH WITH US.
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Welcome to our blog, affordable rentals
and this post, property for rent
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Property for rent
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A two bedrooms in this property is for rent and we are thinking of renting it ourselves.
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Property for rent

Dear readers, in this post we are going to discuss about rental properties and also some hiring equipment, just to show you that people don't have to own everything they use, well at least it is so in Australia.

So, let us talk about it, as we all know the rental market is formed by two groups of people, one group of people have no properties or not enough properties for their own use, and because of this shortage they want to rent properties from those that are willing to rent their property for an agreed price, so they are on the market looking to find the right property to rent.

On the other hand, there are people that own a property or several properties that they have bought, or they have built these properties for renting to other people, because they know that there is a market of supply and demand on these properties for rent. Anyhow this is how the rental market works.

In today markets, not only you can rent a unit a house or some other commercial or industrial properties, but you can also hire many things, you can rent furniture and white goods, even the builder while he is building hires many things, let us mention a couple of things that are usually hired; scaffolding are usually hired, there are firms that will also build it up for you, cranes are usually hired, and other heavy equipment are usually hired, and many other things can be hired for a price, as long as there is a market for supply and demand.

But now, let us go back to our properties for rent; as we all know every one of us have our own ways of doing things, because everyone of us might be in a different position; so to write about this rental property article we have to write it our own way, therefore let us see what we have been writing lately and let us tell our story our own way, the best way we can, as we have done in our section D.I.Y brickwork etc.

D.I.Y property for rent

Lately in this DIY section we have mainly talked about how to build houses units and other accommodation and perhaps even some industrial property. Okay we have done that or at least part of it anyhow, but at this point of time one may start asking about the use of these properties that have been built, renovated or repaired, because it would be obvious that we could not keep all of them for our own use, so the properties that we have talked about, if they have not an owner that uses them already, they have to be sold or rented, so, we have to decide how we will do that, it is a fact of life.

So let us say at this point of time that we have been lucky enough and today we happen to own some properties and we rent them, at the moment a unit has become vacant, so, we need to rent this unit; because we have this extra property that we are not going to use for ourselves, so, we should consider renting; but who is going to do the renting we have to decide, of course we could go to the local real estate agents and ask them to let our property and they would be glad to do it for a price, but in this case we have decided not to use the real estate agents, because we would like to have a go at renting this property ourselves, at least we would like to try, because we could save some money and also learn something from doing it our own way.

We have some experience about renting and we know that sometimes it is not easy to rent yourself, but we are willing to have a go, because we believe that by renting ourselves, we don’t have to pay the real estate agent first of all, and then we believe that we would have more control on the rental property, just because we are the owners and would try harder to see anything that needs to be done.

However we are not as knowledgeable as the real estate agent, since he is an expert on these sort of things, and also sometimes it is not easy to discuss things directly with the tenants; you see the real estate agent has some advantage in this field, not only because it is his job, but because he is a third person, so when he does not want to clarify some inquiries to the new tenant, he can always say that he would like to talk to the owner first; there is also something else that the agents have but the owners do not, you see they can look at the pool of rental records, and see whether the new tenant has a record as being on a black list.

Anyhow we know all this and we still would like to rent our property ourselves, so let us discuss how we are going to do it and the reasons for doing it, because we have this property for rent and that is a fact of life.

Anyhow this post is becoming too long and what we have to say about renting is going to take another page or two, so we will continue with our next post; unit available for rent. See you soon.

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Affordable Rentals
Property for rent

IS TO BE CONTINUED;

Next time with, unit available for rent

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Some helpful links here under

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

Yola.com

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Australia building industry

When I came to Australia I ended up working in the building industry building houses and other buildings, working on building sites is hard work and usually is not a permanent job, because when one building is finished you don't know if your employer has been able to find another job to do, so your job is never secure, but if you want to work usually you will be able to find another job pretty soon. anyhow that is the way it was then and perhaps even know, if you are working in the building industry.

Australia building industry

Working in the Australian building industry

As I have said in our previous post, Australia the land of opportunity, when I came to Australia my first job in Australia was in the building industry, because I ended up to work as a bricklayer’s labour, but I lost that first job for a couple of reasons. I believe that I lost the first job, because I didn’t know much English and at the same time I had no much experience in the sort of work we were doing, and for that reason I could not guess what they wanted me to do next. After that I had another job which ended very much the same way; but then one day suddenly a small Italian builder needed a labour and he knew that I could be available, so he came to fetch me and asked if I would be interested to work for him, and this is how I ended up to work in the building industry, I worked for this builder for about two years, but then he went on holiday to Italy for a long time, therefore he temporary closed down the business, but by then the Italian building community new about me, so, in a few days I had another job to go to, always in the building industry with another builder or contractors working as a bricklayer labour.

You see in those times there was a lot more work for people wanting to work, but at the same time we knew that we had to work hard because there was a lot of competition going on even in those days, so what could we say if we work hard for it, we would always find somebody that would give us work, because we earned our wage plus a bit more for the employer. This is how I understood about the ways of earning your living in this capitalist society, which is based on competition and you are paid with what you deliver. Now, we have to say that this capitalist way is very good, as long as the workers are not pushed beyond their physical capacity, because when they are asked to do more than what is possible for them to do, a lot of troubles and injustice are happening, so everything needs to be fine-tuned, so to speak. But let us compare those times with our times.

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Compare the old ways with the new

Here we would like to compare the opportunities that we had when we came in Australia in the sixties as legal migrant, to the opportunities of today that all these illegal migrants have, you see the difference here is that they arrive by boat and other illegal ways, for this reason they are starting the wrong way, so to speak; but anyhow, let us compare the old ways of migrating with the new ways.

So, let us compare the way that I and most other emigrants around the sixties, with what is happening today illegal emigration, so that we might be able to spot some of the reasons why things don’t seem to work as good as they used to work.

When I and the other emigrants that came to Australia wanted to come to Australia during the sixties we had to be screened before we could have a visa that would allow us to come to Australia and work here.

This screening was somehow strict, as they did not want anybody that could become sick easily, so we had to go through a medical check, and there was another even stricter check about being legally of good character, even if you had ever had trouble with the police, in fact they were so strict about this that if one had been somehow involved with the communist party, just by saying that you would vote for the communist you would not be allowed to come to Australia.

Now I hope that I have explained how strict they were then, but I believe that this was a good thing then, because as I have already said when I went to the unemployment office even though I did not speak much English they did everything possible to find us a job, and if they could not find us a job they would pay us the unemployment benefit.

Therefore I believe that just about anyone that has come to Australia and has seen Australia the same way that I have seen it, they would know that Australia is a great country to live in; and if there is somebody that does not like Australia, it must be because they have their own personal problems and they are home sick, or they are just unwilling to work hard and pay their way.

Today Australia does not seem to be as good as it was when I came to Australia, because before anyone that could see Australia the way I saw it would fall in love with the Australian ways of living; but we have to say that we are still very well off compared to other countries. So, we would like to conclude this post by saying that Australia could be still the land of opportunities, if the people that come here come with the intention of working hard as we have been working in the past, they should not come with the intention of ripping us off, just because they would like to have an easy life for themselves.

Anyhow this post is becoming too long, so see you next time with another post about building or properties; where we could be continuing telling you my life story and what I have done in Australia to earn a living. See you there.

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Affordable Rentals
Australia building industry

IS TO BE CONTINUED;

Next time with, about rentals

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Some helpful links here under

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

Yola.com

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Australia the land of opportunity

Even today a lot of people believe that Australia is still the lucky country and the land of opportunities, I believe that it is still a good country to live in, but how does it compare with the old Australian way of life of the sixties and there about, which is the time when I came to Australia.

In Australia early in the sixties there was work in the building, so, if you were strong and willing to work hard, you would easily find work on the building sites.

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Some type of brickwork we used to do in the sixties, what is shown here is a brick-base, which most likely would have a timber house on it. The Australian building industry has been slowly changing in Australia, from timber houses to part brick and part timber house, and today there are house that are mostly built with bricks and mortar.

But, is Australia still the land of opportunity?

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our previous post called, work opportunity in Australia, where we would like to compare the old opportunities that we had in the sixties or there about and the opportunities that exist today; so, in this case we would have to ask; is Australia still the land of opportunities?

Now, if I have to use my own personal experience as a standard, then I have to say that today in Australia work opportunities are not as good as they used to be. But then not everything is or might be as it seems to me, because my judgement is that of a single person and therefore I might be wrong.

Anyhow let us try to see what has changed since I came to Australia in the sixties. There are many things that have changed since then, because of the progress humanity has made and continues to make even today; therefore working opportunities have also changed a lot, so today it is a lot harder to find a manual job; this is due to the fact that today we do not need as many hands to do a job as we used to in the past, because a lot of the hard labour is being done from machines, therefore people that have no skills and rely only on their physical strength are not in high demand, for this reason there are a lot less jobs available for these people, but if people have a trade or have studied there may well be opportunities for them.

Now that we have explained how we see today working opportunities, allow me to go back to the days when I came to Australia, so that I could tell you what sort of opportunities existed then, and after that we might be able to compare with what opportunities are available today.

In order to understand what we are going to say next, it is important also to know that economies and for that matter opportunities for jobs have high and lows of their own, therefore this effects everybody around that are looking for work.

Now if you do not mind let me tell you my own experience when I came to Australia, because this is probably the only way that we might be able to compare the work opportunity situation, while at the same time, I would be telling you my life story that could also be used to compare with today ways of living.

There have been times in Australia when everybody had a job, so there was no unemployment at all, from stories that I have been told from people that were already here when I came, there have been times that the employers had not enough employees and they would go down to the wharfs when the ships arrived and select a few people that seemed good enough for them to do their jobs, therefore, in those days there were no unemployed people, but unfortunately those times are rare and did not last long, as I said working opportunities go up and down.

Now to compare those times with today’s’ opportunities, we are going to describe to you hereunder part of my own life story, and therefore, what I found easy or hard to cope with when I came here, and then how I was able to cope with the hardship of those times and the way that those things became solved, as this is the only way that I know how to measure, whether Australia is still the land of opportunities, so let us see what sorts of opportunities were available then.

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What sort of opportunities were available in Australia in the sixties

When I arrived in Australia in March 1961 my relative and friends were all working, at the same time they were telling me that there were not many job vacancies readily available, so, I had to be patient until a job would be available. But what sort of work I could do they were not sure just we had to wait and see, what I knew about working for other people was that if a job was offered to me I had to work hard, since in my country when we hired some workers to do some work in our family farm, we would aspect them to work hard so that they would earn their pay, therefore I was in my right frame of mind to go out and work hard, whatever job was offered would do me just fine. I have said this, because it is necessary to understand that whoever attempts to migrate to another country, he/she must be ready to work hard if they want to succeed, and it all boils down to this that you need to do a fair work day for fair daily pay.

Beside my willingness to work I was also young and fit enough to do any manual job that I was offered, the only problem was that I didn't speak English, I had learned perhaps a few words on the way to Australia while we were sailing, as there was an English teacher on the ship for that purpose. But as we all know English is a very hard language to learn, especially if one comes from a country that their language is phonetic and once you know some rules, one can read from a book and somehow come close to the sound that those written words are pronounced, but English is not written phonetically so to learn English one must be exposed to the English speaking people and slowly learn from them, so as you can see I and other emigrant like me had a lot to learn, before we could speak English well enough to look after ourselves and to fit in the Australian speaking community.

Anyhow, now let us tell you that although I had very little English somehow everything turned out all right in the end, perhaps this is another reason why people think that Australia is still the land of opportunities, we think it is based on the assumption that because people before us have been able to succeed, we will be able to succeed as well.

For me when I came to Australia I was still thinking the Italian ways, so, I was thinking that I was on my own and I had to find my own way around, but here I had a pleasant surprise when for the first time some relative took me to see the unemployment office.

In Italy when you go to an Italian office if you want something done quickly you need to know somebody in there, otherwise before your turn comes the office hours are over and you have to come back the day after, so I was wondering how could we succeed in these Australian offices, since I didn’t speak English and my friend was just a little bit better than me.

Anyhow we waited our turn and soon we were being interviewed from this middle aged man that seemed to have so much patience and understanding of the whole situation, he slowly worked out what we wanted by asking and repeating what we did not understand, and he noted everything down as he asked me many things to see what sort of job I would be able to do, I remember even now that one of his questions was if I were afraid of heights and I said no as I was going up some tall trees to prune them, he also asked if I knew anything about building or building maintenance, here again I said yes as we sometimes would repair some farm building. I believe that these two things gave me the first job in the building industry, as I was called one day to go to work for the first time in Australia. My first job was on a chimney stack in the brickworks where bricks are made, which somehow I managed to hold for a couple of weeks, until a bigger gang came and I became a bit confused in the middle of all those people, and I lost my first job for lack of knowledge or lack of understanding English. But anyhow I had my first work experience and I was sure that soon there was going to be another one.

Before I close this page and start another one, I really want to say that Australia is/was a great country to be in, just because people are given their opportunities as they deserve, as long as they are willing to work hard for what they deserve.

And in the unemployment offices the officers are just great people to deal with, or at least they were when I came to Australia. I am going to continue this article and talk about how I ended up working in the Australian building industry for good.

But I believe that this post is becoming too long, so I will continue this same issue in our next post, where we are going to talk about, working in the Australian building industry. See, you next time.

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Affordable Rentals
Australia the land of opportunity

IS TO BE CONTINUED;

Next time with, Australian building industry

---------------------------------------

Some helpful links here under

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

Yola.com