Life on a Boat Continues

After a couple of weeks I thought I should put down what’s been going on in our lives.  Cathy got a job, on her own imitative, i.e. without going through a recruiter etc.  Since we moved to Bayswater, Cathy has been going around to the various cafes in the area and dropping off her resume.  She got called back to the Robert Harris café in Takapuna.  Cathy was asked to go in for “training” last Sunday so off she went for 4 hours.  She went for more “training” Friday and started full time today.  Not a career job but enough to get us of WINZ.  Needless to say, the search for a life continues.

I have accepted the position of President/CEO of MMC Software New Zealand, a grand title.  The challenge is that they need an investor for MMC in New Zealand before the company gets off the ground, so until then, I’m looking at the market here and making plans but can not do much else. 

The highlight this week has been the formation of our company.  Cathy and I officially incorporated McApples Enterprises Ltd.  Hopefully we will be able to generate some business.

The weather has turned to typical autumn here, wind, rain, sun, cloud, all in the space of about 45 minutes. The forecast is for rain through mid week but who knows.  It was supposed to rain all day yesterday but the sun came out most of the day.  Speaking of yesterday, our day started really early, around 4:00 am.  We woke up to the really loud flapping sound.  I poked my head out to see a partially unfurled headsail on a boat on C dock.  I first tried to call 24 hour security, they didn’t answer, so I got dressed, walked around to the C dock and spent 15 minutes or so unwrapping lines, and getting the sail sorted out before it beat itself to pieces.  I would hope that someone would do the same for us if the situation occurred.  Anyhow, no drama, got it sorted and back to bed.  Later in the day we decided to torture ourselves a bit and went around looking at houses in a couple of different areas.  The farther you are from the motorway, the less expensive.  A relative term as something halfway decent will still run 350,000 plus.  Prices are insane to say the least.  There is a small, 2 bedroom 1940s brick bungalow on a subdivided lot for sale near here, asking price, 495,000 dollars.  Unless the interior is fitted out with gold trim and expensive hardwoods, I can’t see a lot of people shelling out that kind of cash for a small place.  The consensus is that prices will continue to drop as we have not seen the bottom of the recession here yet.  Unemployment continues to rise with more and more companies now laying people off.  There was a mood of general optimism a couple of months ago, but that seems to have disappeared.  Interesting times ahead.  That being said, there are still jobs being advertised but the number of applicants for each job has risen dramatically.  Cathy applied to one customer service job and the email she received back stated that they had received over 300 applicants for the position.  Feedback I have received indicates that at the professional level, companies are receiving 50+ applicants for each role.  The responses I get range from you are over qualified, to “the client has put that role on hold”, to “the client only decided to interview 2 people”, to, my favourite, “ thank you for the time and effort you have put into your high quality application…. but our client had very specific requirements that were better matched by other applicants”  I am always curious what the specific requirements were, and no one seems willing to tell me.  It is odd, as I am careful to read descriptions and make sure I address ALL specific requirements in my application but apparently there are other more specific requirements somewhere else.  If the last sentence sounds confusing, it is.