No Harm Done

Last weekend, my brother and his wife sent me some flowers to congratulate me on my new job at the call centre. They were from Tynte Flowers, their go-to florist. It was a nice gesture, and it really surprised me, to be honest. You can see them below.

Like I said, it was a nice gesture, but I’m not sure it makes up for how unbelievably nasty and cruel my brother has been to my mother and me over the past year or so. He would argue that he looks after us by letting us stay in his house, but he charges rent and doesn’t contribute to any maintenance. I don’t want this blog to turn into a space to complain about my younger brother, but as I start to come to terms with my true values and what I want from life, I’m struggling to see where he fits into it anymore.

Last week I completed a stack of onboarding forms for my new job, which starts on 11 May. One of them was for a police check. If you’ve read any of my earlier posts, you might have seen that back in 2013 I was caught texting while driving. I contested it and was issued a notice to attend court, but I didn’t go—I didn’t want to front up to a judge. As a result, the magistrate recorded a criminal conviction against me.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand how serious that was. I had no real sense of the long-term implications or how something like that can follow you. The one relief was that after ten years the conviction becomes “spent” for the purposes of a basic police check. I did learn, though, that it can still show up in more detailed checks, like those for working with vulnerable people.

So, when I filled out the form, I felt completely confident nothing would come up—it was just a standard police check for an office role. But the day after I submitted it, I received a notice from the police saying my check had been flagged for manual review.

My heart sank. I knew the conviction was spent, but I also suspected that might mean extra scrutiny.

The next day, a woman from HR called about something unrelated—rostering—and asked how I’d gone with the onboarding forms. I told her everything was fine, but that my police check had been flagged for review. She said it was probably just a name match with someone else, then asked if I expected anything to come up.

I told her about the spent conviction. It was a difficult conversation to have. She didn’t sound impressed and mentioned she’d never had anyone go through a police check with something come back. She did say that a conviction wouldn’t automatically exclude me from working at the call centre but by that point the tone had shifted.

I explained that the conviction was spent and that I was only raising it because I thought it might explain the delay. Still, I came away from the call feeling awful—anxious, exposed, and, if I’m honest, a bit diminished, like I wasn't worthy like everyone else who’d been offered the role.

The next day I sent a short clarification email, reiterating that the conviction was spent, and she called me. I told her I was feeling really concerned, but she wasn’t especially reassuring. She is a nice woman—we actually share the same surname— but in that moment she made me feel like I was somehow less than the other candidates.

She said she hadn’t told the hiring manager yet, in case the check came back clear, but kept adding things like, “if multiple convictions come up,” and “if you’re telling the truth, it shouldn’t be a problem.” It was unsettling to hear, especially given how minor and long ago it all was.

At the end of the day, it is what it is. I can’t change it. But while she was talking, I found myself thinking about how this must feel for anyone with a conviction—how even a small mistake can follow you, and how hard it must be to move forward, especially for people with more serious records. I’m not excusing serious offenders, but if someone has done their time and is genuinely trying to rebuild their life, the path must be incredibly steep.

My own conviction reads something like “use of mobile phone while driving – $25 fine.” The fine alone makes it clear that I didn't cause an accident and there was no harm done. And yet, if something that minor can cast a shadow, it’s hard not to wonder what it must be like for other offenders.

I felt sorry for myself for a day or so, but then I pulled myself together and thought, I’m not going to let this defeat me. Nelson Mandela had a criminal conviction—albeit under a morally corrupt rule of law—but a conviction all the same. Donald Trump has a criminal conviction, and he probably deserves a million more, and he’s the President of the United States.

I’m still waiting to hear back about my police check, and I think the problem is the system. It isn’t really set up to easily produce a clear result once a conviction has been there. It’s not the end of the world to go to review, but it does raise eyebrows.

I don’t know how this will turn out. If it doesn’t work out for me, I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll take the attitude that everything happens for a reason—and hopefully the rejection will lead me to something bigger and better.

But for all intents and purposes I’m working on the principle that I start on 11 May. The job itself is two days in the office and three days at home during the training period, and then once that’s over it shifts to four days at home and one day in the office. Working from home is ideal for me—Mum and I really look after each other, so I’ll be here for her.

I wasn’t working during COVID, so I never really settled into the whole work-from-home culture, but I make volunteer calls from home—the system is all online—and I like it. I’m going to set up a proper home office. I do have a desk in the big TV room where I usually sit, but the internet isn’t great in there, so I’ve contacted my friend Muhammad, who’s a computer man by trade, to see if he can sort it out.

There are a few logistical things to think about before starting work again. The main one is my sleep. It’s been really bad lately, but I’m confident it will even itself out once I’m working. The best routine I had was when I was in Cambodia for a few weeks—I had to be up in the mornings for Tim and Thy, who were picking me up, and then I’d stay awake right through until about 11:00pm.

I’m planning to do a bit of a harsh reset. At the moment I’m up all night and only getting to sleep around 9:00am. I just need to push that forward—first to midday, then 3:00pm and so on—and I’ve got enough time to do that. If it doesn’t work, I won’t be able to drive into the office because I’ll be too sleep-deprived, but I’ll still be able to perform at work—I’ve done it before.

I’ve been binging Married at First Sight. The latest season has already aired on TV, but I’m watching it on 9Now. I love that show. It’s so trashy, but it’s exactly what I need.

Most of the couples are in their 20s and 30s, but there’s always a token older one. This time they had this beautiful 50-year-old woman, and she was matched with an absolute arsehole. All the couples have been pretty mean to each other, and I’m completely invested in how all their fights play out.

It is a bit sad watching it though, because one of the experts, Mel Schilling, recently died at 54 from cancer. I liked Mel—she was feisty and always stuck up for the underdog.

I’ve been studying journalism and keeping up with the news, but I take a different approach to it these days. I used to want to be part of it—to write letters, physical ones and letters to the editor—but I’ve ditched that now. I don’t want that. I want a quiet, peaceful life, not worrying about things I can do absolutely nothing about.

I will say I’m following the Ben Roberts-Smith case with interest. He has a lot of supporters—on my Facebook I’ve seen people “standing with him.” They’re mostly conservative types. I do believe in innocent until proven guilty and I don’t like trial by media, but I can’t help thinking that if he really did those things, they should lock the bastard up and throw away the key.

With all my interest in the legal system, I still can’t say I understand it. But I want to know this—if he is being tried for war crimes, why aren’t they trying him in The Hague?

It's now 12:20am and my night has just begun. I'm going to finish up in a minute because I want to get back to Married at First Sight, I think the next episode is a dinner party which are always thrilling. But before I go, I want to share something with you.

It has been over a month since I wrote letters to all the politicians in the Federal Parliament about Aboriginal deaths in custody. I wrote to all the house of reps and all the senators. Until today I had only received two responses. Today I received a further two.

The first letter was from the office of Senator the Honourable Kay Gallagher who is also the Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Minister for the Public Service and Minister for Government Services. I was advised by her office that as the issues raised in my letter fall within the responsibilities of the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Senator the Honourable Malarndirri McCarthy and the letter was forwarded to the National Indigenous Australian Agency for consideration.

The other letter was from the office of the Honourable Anthony Albanese, MP, The Prime Minister. I was advised that all correspondence to him is read and carefully considered, however not all items receive a response. They then said they had forwarded my letter to the South Australian Premier’s Office.

I know I just wrote in this post about not wanting to care about current affairs the way I used to, but I do still care—about Aboriginal deaths in custody, and about the fact that I sent out close to 300 letters to our elected representatives. One of them, who happens to be my least favourite politician in the whole world, Senator The Honourable Michaelia Cash, is the only one who had the decency to send a personal response. The other three letters were simply passed around.

I asked for that particular politician’s personal opinion. I asked them directly. I spent $1.70 per stamp and took the time to write to each of them. I’m in disbelief. I’m angry. And I feel compelled to do something, because what this lack of response has shown me is a level of indifference in the Parliament of Australia that I find hard to accept.

These are elected officials, paid with public money, and I asked respectful, topical, and vitally important questions. I wasn’t asking for the Government’s position. I was asking for their position, as individuals.

My goal in life has been to fly under the radar. I have an anonymous blog. I live an anonymous life. But this doesn’t feel good enough to ignore.

Mum told me tonight that I was being arrogant expecting responses from every member of parliament. I bit my tongue, but I couldn’t help thinking—were you like that? Was my dad like that? Not responding to people who reached out?

Does my letter not matter? Do Aboriginal deaths in custody not matter?

I’m not going to kick and scream about this from the rooftops. I am going to wait a few months and write again—this time making it clear how unacceptable it is for a member of parliament, whether in the Senate or the House of Representatives, to ignore an honest request for information from a member of the public. They are accountable to me, and to everyone else who takes the time to ask questions, write letters, and make phone calls.

I won’t sound hysterical or unreasonable. But I will write a letter that their offices have no real option but to respond to.

All Their Gluttonous Glory

It’s been so long since I last posted. In many ways, I felt like my blog was dying — like I wanted to stop writing. But that’s not the case at all. I’ve been absent because it’s been a transitional period in my life, and I’m trying to adjust to a new normal. I don’t want to write about it, and I’m not really dwelling on it. I’m just taking each day as it comes.

But life hasn’t completely stopped. Other things have been happening, so let me fill you in on what I’ve been up to. The first thing I’ll tell you about is a major life event that took place a couple of weeks ago: I sold my car.

It’s the first time since I started driving that I’ve been without my own car, but I had to sell it because we needed the money. Also, Mum doesn’t drive anymore. I generally drive her around in her car and use it for myself as well, so it didn’t really make sense to have two cars when one wasn’t being used. 

Below you can see the last two photos I took of my old Toyota Corolla. It was a good car. My dad bought it for me before he got dementia. He asked me what kind of car I would like, and I told him I wanted an “adult” car — not a hatchback. It had to be a sedan. He went to great lengths to find it for me, and it served me well for however many years I had it.

Since I last wrote, I seriously considered studying at Le Cordon Bleu to become a pastry chef. The idea came to me when I thought about how much I would love to do a commercial cookery qualification at TAFE SA but cooking and tasting meat would be a huge barrier to success. So, I thought pastry would be a way to learn the art of cooking in a more specialised area.

I love cake art, chocolate, and confectionery, so the full plan was to study SFX at the Media Make Up Academy for two years, learn moulding and sculpting and all of those sorts of skills, and then do the pastry chef qualification and apply the SFX skills to that. I could seriously make some epic cakes and chocolates in all their gluttonous glory.

I was absolutely certain this was the path I should take. I even had to deal with Le Cordon Bleu, who are not only incredibly expensive but also, in my view, incredibly snobby and dismissive of prospective students.

But sure enough, just as the idea came to me, it passed.

I was talking to my friend Maiki, and I said that I can’t live like this. I have literally wanted to be everything, and ended up nothing. But there is one thing that I am, and that is a writer. It’s why I came back to this blog. It’s my safe place.

I actually started a Bachelor of Journalism through Adelaide Uni online this week. I’m going to be doing it in the background. I haven’t even told anyone I’m doing it. I’m just going to plod away at the degree until I finish it.

I’m also going to start up another blog which will focus on opinion pieces and articles about current events. I will build up a journalistic portfolio from there. I don’t actually want to work as a journalist in a newsroom for television or print, but I would like to write freelance pieces and write books. I think this degree will help me with that.

A little while back, I did a massive mailout. I wrote to all the members of the federal House of Representatives and all the senators. I wrote to the ministers twice, once at their electorate office and once at their ministerial office, to ensure they got my letter.

The letter asked them a few simple questions, like whether they think the government is doing enough about Aboriginal deaths in custody, and it drew attention to the 600+ Aboriginal deaths in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991.

Below you can see the letters being sent off at my local post office. My old friend Jimmy, who used to own the post office, has moved on, and there is a new younger guy who has taken it over. He kind of annoys me a bit because he doesn’t seem to have the passion or interest in the postal service that Jimmy had, but he was interested in my letters, which made me warm to him a little bit.

I was initially going to hold an exhibition about Aboriginal deaths in custody at this year’s SALA (South Australian Living Artists) Festival. I was going to exhibit some letters like this and use 600+ miniature coffins I had manufactured in China, each with a number printed on it. But I have decided an exhibition like that could be in poor taste, because this is not my lived experience. I am not an Aboriginal woman; I am a privileged white woman making observations which could be culturally offensive.

I emailed Aboriginal Legal Rights about the potential exhibition and they didn’t even respond. But I have another idea about how I would like to exhibit the material I am putting together, and it will hopefully be powerful, respectful, and culturally appropriate.

I must have sent close to 300 letters, and this was a couple of weeks ago now. I have only just had two responses come in.

I found it serendipitous that the first letter I got back was from my least favourite politician in the entire world, Senator Michaelia Cash. Her first line thanked me for my letter, and then she said, “Any death in custody is a tragedy.” It then went on to talk about the measures the Coalition had taken to improve outcomes when they were in government.

I know that her office would have written the letter, but that line about any death in custody being a tragedy is something I can imagine her saying and thinking. That completely deflects from the topic of my letter. It diminishes the significance of Aboriginal deaths in custody. There wasn’t a royal commission into deaths in custody in general; it was about Aboriginal deaths in custody. There is so much I would love to say about that letter I received from Michaelia Cash, and I know this is a nothing blog hidden within the vast crevices of the world wide web, but it would be just my luck that someone reads it and I get sued. So I’ll leave it at that.

The second letter I got was from the Director of the First Nations Justice Branch, First Nations and Justice Policy Division. The office of the Attorney-General, the Hon Michelle Rowland MP, had passed it on to that department to respond. It was an interesting, informative two-page letter which touched on topics like reducing First Nations incarceration rates as the most effective way to reduce deaths in custody.

I’m surprised I’ve only had the two letters back. I’m hoping they will come in a wave. I was waiting for the state election to be over before I write to the state politicians. I think all the seats have been declared now, so I will send those letters out in the next week or so.

I almost forgot — as well as pastry cheffing, I entered the world of filmmaking. I didn’t, and don’t, actually want to be a filmmaker as such, but I did a life plan and figured I had a spare seven months this year where I could do a Diploma of Film at SAE.

There is always a hurdle when it comes to me, and the hurdle here was my half-sister, who was accusing Mum of hiding Dad’s non-existent money, used to work at SAE. I wasn’t sure if she still worked there, so I had to discreetly ask. I found out she didn’t, so I went for a tour of the campus on Franklin Street. It was the old Eynesbury College, where I spent a tiny bit of my school years.

The campus was amazing, with lots of equipment, and the students all looked so cool — albeit very young. I enrolled, but just as I was certain I would finish the year making epic YouTube documentaries about parasites and bioluminescence, the idea passed.

These fantastical courses at Le Cordon Bleu and SAE haven’t really seemed real. It’s almost as if I knew I wouldn’t really be doing them. But something real has been happening in the midst of all of that: I have been looking for a job.

In total, I have had five different interview offers. The first one was at the Royal Adelaide Hospital on their switchboard. I went for the interview, and I love switchboards, so this role appealed to me, but you had to do overnight shifts, and I thought if I sign on for this, I’ll never fix my sleep issues, so I withdrew my application after the interview.

The second was an interview at the Housing Trust call centre, which I also withdrew from because it just seemed a little dark for what I am after.

I then got an interview at AHPRA, which was also a call centre role — two days in the office, three days at home. It paid really well, but it was a temp job, so I withdrew from that interview as well.

Then I got invited to an interview with the AGL call centre, which was good money for what it is, but again I withdrew from it.

The most important interview I had was with another call centre.

I first had a simple recorded audio interview online, and then I was invited to a group interview on Tuesday. There were around twenty people there, and we were seated in groups around tables. Team leaders came and sat with us and observed how we interacted.

When we went around in a circle, they asked us to introduce ourselves and tell the group something about ourselves. I said my name, and then I said I love bioluminescence. I told the group I had seen bioluminescent mushrooms and glow worms, and that it was my goal to see fireflies in real life.

I was in a group with all men — they actually drowned me out a bit. I like to think of myself as a strong woman, but somehow I kept that side of me quiet on Tuesday.

They talked about the role, which during probation is two days in the office and three at home, and then after probation, four at home and one in the office. I loved being there. It reminded me of when I worked in the Centrelink call centre. It had the same atmosphere.

When it came to my one on one interview, I was really nervous. There were two youngish women interviewing me and, when I spoke, you could almost hear my voice trembling. But I steadied myself, found my rhythm, and began to speak with more confidence. That was until they asked me to give an example of a time I hadn’t met the expectations of a previous role.

I told them about a time I was working in the Super SA call centre. I had just finished a call with a particularly rude man and, after I hung up, I muttered under my breath, “what a nark.” My team leader was listening to the call and she came over and told me she had heard what I said. She reminded me that I shouldn’t be calling members names like that. Then she added, “and he’s not a nark.” That was the moment I realised I had absolutely no idea what a “nark” actually was.

It was something I had picked up from my mother. She used to say, “don’t be a nark,” whenever I was doing something wrong. I had used the word countless times in my life, always thinking it meant something entirely different. Only then did I discover that a nark is actually a snitch. So there I was, telling this story in an interview, fully aware that I had chosen a questionable example and used the wrong word entirely. I walked out of that interview convinced I wouldn’t get the job.

But yesterday, I got the call — they offered me a job! I couldn’t believe it. I felt relief, disbelief, and a quiet sense of gratitude all at once. After ten years out of the workforce, I had been invited back in, and I accepted immediately. There are still a few things to clear — my references and police check — but if everything falls into place, I know this: I am not going to put myself in this position again.

I am going to commit to this job and give it everything I've got. I am going to stay as long as they will have me. More than anything, I feel like I am finally on the right path. I’ll also continue my journalism and I’ll continue my art projects, especially the work around Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

There is something deeply comforting about that. And perhaps the most unexpected gift of all is the work from home component. I can be here, at home with my mother, and still build a life for myself. 

Over the last little while that I’ve been absent from this blog, I’ve seen some beautiful things. The most beautiful was this little Easter display at the counter of a café at Burnside Village. It was incredibly special.

The last thing I’ll share with you in this, my resurrection post, is that the other day it was my gorgeous hairdresser Melissa’s 22nd birthday. She’s actually not my hairdresser anymore — I’ve swapped to the owner — but Melissa and I still love each other. I had an appointment with the owner, Mario, on her birthday, so I bought her these flowers below.

I picked the flowers up from a bucket on the sidewalk of The Parade, and they are my favourite kind of flowers. She turned 22 — that is 23 years ago for me — and yet it feels like just yesterday. I look at someone like Melissa, who is only 22, and she’s got her whole life sorted. She’s in a long-term relationship, she’s building a house, she’s got a trade, and she’s been at her job for seven years.

I was never that sorted at 22, and I’m still not now. But I’m on my way, and the timing might be different, but I think everyone’s got their own kind of normal.