Posts by Jason Dykes
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November 1988. After 14 months of cleaning operating theatres in Christchurch, I had enough cash to fund a working holiday in London. On the day of my last history exam I boarded a plane and arrived with enough money to last me ten days. I figured that would be plenty of time to find a job and a place to live! The first agency I called wasn't interested in my brand new B.A. The recruiter encouraged me to instead talk up my accounts experience (i.e. high school maths).
Whether my optimism was well-placed or I was just lucky, I found a job on day three and a bed soon after. I hadn't calculated on the gap between starting work and getting my first pay however, so I did have a three-day stretch where all I had to eat was a loaf of white bread. Fortunately I met up with some friends of a friend willing to share all they had in the kitchen, which at the time was a stack of ten dozen cans of cheap beer and something unrecognisable in the fridge's vegetable tray. No-one drank the tap water. The guys comprised most of a local band called, "The Logs", which had created their own genre of Mexican meets punk, played at high speed and with as many guitars as possible. They had persuaded someone they knew to write a review in a music magazine as having played Wembley, but in fact their only gigs besides friends' parties had been busking outside the stadium. I played them my tapes of NZ music and of that they had a preference for the Headless Chickens.
As it turned out, the theme of excess alcohol was to continue in my day-time work. My job was in the accounts section of a marketing company located in the city, near the Thames. The accounts unit was managed by a round, ruddy-faced Irishman in his 40s. The rest of the unit was made up of foreigners except for two English people - a woman from the North and a young black guy who ran a pirate radio station in the evenings. One of our regular trials was dealing with the company's sales people wanting their commissions ahead of time - they were Oxbridge grads with the exception of one girl who had been to Reading. They didn't understand "no". But back to the alcohol. Our manager was a great guy, but I soon learned he wasn't around much. On my first day he took me and some others to the pub for a couple of drinks - and refused to let me pay. The next day I still hadn't been told what I was meant to do, and he didn't turn up until 10am. The DJ took pity and taught me how to use some accounting software. On the Wednesday our manager gave me some work to do and then went to the pub for lunch - and didn't come back until the next Monday. Generally his weekly schedule was - Monday: 10am - 4pm; Tuesday: 10am - 3.30pm; Wednesday: 9.30am start and off to the pub for lunch at 12pm (no return); Thursday: AWOL; Friday: AWOL; followed by something similar the next week. I was mystified at how this could go on, but it had and it did. I learned the office was held together (managed) by a very underpaid and somewhat bitter Nigerian woman in our team.
Then there was the gauntlet of the office Christmas party. Everything was laid on and everyone got very trolleyed. Of course the toffs didn't show at all. Someone said they were induldging in champagne cocktails at the inner city flat someone's Daddy had given them as a graduation present - and might come later. A South African woman came up and asked me if there was anyone in the office I fancied. Pressured to surrender a name I did so and was introduced to the girl. Our conversation involved something along the lines of how she liked to party with the American soldiers at a base near where she lived. With my last remaining wits I headed for a tube station, boarding the first train that came along. By a stroke of sheer luck it happened to be the last northern line train for the night/morning and got me home.
After ten weeks I couldn't bear to pretend to have no work to do any more and I decided to leave. I also needed a chance to let my liver recover. By then, our team manager had finally left also. One day he was just gone and nothing was said. The Nigerian missed out on the job which was filled by a contractor. On my last day the managing director said he was sorry to see me go and took me and a couple of others out to lunch, and a couple of drinks - at the pub.
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For 14 months I had an evening job cleaning operating theatres at Christchurch Hospital. In many ways it was ideal for a student. The work was bloody, but the pay was good. I got free sandwiches for dinner. The location also made it easy to do stuff in town afterwards. Above all, it was memorable.
Some days we were busier than others and my co-worker (Steve) and I would literally wait in the wings, ready to quickly turnover a theatre for the next op. We saw some things. Sometimes we would walk into an abandoned room and find a large, unidentifiable organ or growth left in a stainless steel bowl for us to dispose of. I remember being surprised at how wide and high spurts of blood could travel during an operation. To this day, peanut butter reminds me of the smell of someone's skull being cut open by a high-speed saw. I still prefer honey on my toast.
But one evening was more memorable than the others. It was a busy night and I think a couple of nurses or orderlies were away sick. Steve and I got called down to help lift a heavy biker off his trolley on to an operating table. From the stairs we saw a bunch of leather jacketed guys with motorcyle helmets pacing up and down in the hallway outside the theatres. Some had patches. A couple of guys were demanding to be allowed in to see their mate. They were told no, they had to stay out and anyways, back in A&E the patient had insisted they be kept away from him.
Back in the theatre it took all of us to do the lift. The medical staff cut off the guy's jeans. What we saw was typical in that it was clear he'd come off his bike over the handlebars - a common accident. His testicals were swollen to the size of softballs. What was not typical for such an outwardly staunch bloke was that he wore particularly lurid and frilly women's underwear. To this day, when I see a motorcycle gang member I wonder if he doesn't have a more sensitive side to his personality.
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Vancouver, 1986 - I had no money and no ticket home. I needed a job desperately. Unemployment was high, particularly for 19 year-olds, but the pre-Christmas period provided some opportunities. After landscaping for a while, I got a mall job - for a clothing store called, Randy River. It was minimum wage but also paid commission. At company training I learned I was now part of the massive Kinney Corporation of retail chain stores. My 38-year old store manager said if I worked really hard I could be like him. After ten years manging our store he'd been promised the job of managing the chain's biggest store in a brand new mall in Guildford. In anticipation of promotion he'd bought himself and his wife matching sports cars.
Christmas Day came and with the manager on leave my co-workers and I were flat out - mainly processing returned gifts. Our manager had the day off. As I was refunding an angry mother for the drycleanable-only trousers we'd sold her school-aged son, I heard a crash at the front of the store. Our manager had entered and apparently fallen into two mobile racks of sweaters, now in pieces on the floor. Some customers had scattered, others watched, jaws hanging. I went to help him up - he reeked of Jim Beam and was swearing at a coathanger stuck in his sleeve. His speech was hard to follow but it seemed he'd not got the promised promotion after all. I steered him in a weaving pattern toward the stock room - he was heavy. I tried to call his wife on the phone, but couldn't keep him still long enough. He was intent on getting out and demolishing the rest of the store. After some wrestling I pushed him out the back door into the parking lot and slammed it shut. It was a 3/4 mile walk back around to the mall entrance and then to our store, so I figured he'd stay put while I called for help. After making the call I opened the door again. He was gone. About 20 minutes later there was another commotion out front - he was back! But this time we were ready for him. Eventually the assistant manager drove him home.
It was an unusual atmosphere at my next performance review. After a good start my sales had slid and my manager said he'd be putting me on probation. He felt I didn't really have a future in the corporation. I didn't care, I had my airfare and I was out of there.
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Tom: it's phrases like "a core part of what it is to be a New Zealander of whatever heritage" (from your comment, of course, not the full essay, so it may be a straw man) that rankle with me and make me feel excluded.
Yeah, but the label could be a lot worse. Reading Grant's quote from the DomPost, I would hate someone to identify me as being part of something called, "middle New Zealand"!
In terms of the speech, aren't we simply expressing distrust about the use of good old nationalism for political purposes? The "trick" for politicians is to make us identify with a common cause, group or "nation" and then have us identify with them as the leaders of that 'apple pie' cause. Nationalism has positive as well as negative characteristics, such as getting us to pull together to make things better in a social, cultural or economic sense. But the characteristic we fear is a negative one - that nationalism will eventually be used to exclude or persecute some group that doesn't fit the identity. This is where Brash's term, "mainstream New Zealander" seemed divisive and unsatisfactory from the start. Key's "Kiwi way" is softer, but the fear's still there. If you try to define "underclass" you will find certain groups are over-represented in it (besides those with no money). What are the preconditions for them to belong to the true way?
In reality there are many "ways" or nations in New Zealand, some more populous or powerful than others. I'm not a great fan of the 8 tribes thing but I wouldn't say we have as many perspectives as Che's four million in a meaningful sense. So I'd go for a number somewhere between 8 and 4,000,000!
More so than in the past, we do live in a multicultural society and the challenge for politicians now is how to convince different groups that their needs are going to be represented in decision making. In a world with blogs and video cameras, they can no longer get away with saying one thing to one group and something contradictory to a second group. This is where Brash really got it wrong again with his refusal to accept there might be Maori perspectives on issues such as health, legitimising spending money in a different way. Govt policies need to be flexible and sophisticated enough to incorporate the differences. As everyone's saying, we'll have no idea what National's new leader really means until we see the policies.