I'm a resident!

This is just a quick post to say "I'm a NZ Resident" now. The paperwork was gathered, the documents reviewed, the hoops jumped, the fees paid, the passport stamped, so now it's official.

A friend at work says getting residency, rather than just my work permit, is the difference between "I work here" and "I live here."

I'm glad to say that I live here now. Here's a photo of where:

Lovely Greymouth, New Zealand
with the Grey River spilling out into the Tasman Sea

An unwanted gift… Calling all cat lovers

Help! There’s this cat, a likeable enough critter, who is trying to win me over. It’s an uphill battle, as I’m allergic. So I tend to avoid cats. Therefore, they love me. Even the most anti-social cats find their way to me, to seductively slink around my legs, letting their tails casually curl around my calves. Sometimes I can be won over. I’ll scratch them a bit, always mindful to wash my hands before scratching my eyes.

But this one, my neighbor’s cat, wants into my house as well as my heart. That just can’t happen. I call it Spook – and I guess he’s a he. Apparently he adopted Mr. Lalor and his brother, who lived in my flat before I did. Mr. Lalor fell to his charms, but never went so far as to name him (or determine if he’s a boy or not.) When I was checking out my flat, before moving in, Spook was in the bedroom, on the bed frame that had been left here. So I know he’s used to coming in. But I just won’t go that far.

At first, he was just curling up on my front door mat, outside my sliding glass door each night. Surely I would notice his persistence and give in, right? No. He warmed my heart a bit, but my line is drawn. I’m standing firm. So then he started to bring me gifts, trying to persuade me. But this was his mistake. See, his gifts are dead birds.

Spook delivering one of his gifts.

The first time I heard a constant meowing outside the door. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I looked outside. He was sitting there patiently waiting for me to ooze praise and welcome him into my home. I stared at him, and then went back inside. Huh. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do. I didn’t want to encourage him – and have him kill more birds. But I wanted to let him know I appreciated his effort. I left some leftover salmon paté (don’t ask – it was a mistake) which was gone in the morning. But that didn’t work. It only encouraged him. There’ve been at least half a dozen ‘gifts’ now. Spook is single handedly disrupting the local breeding season.

And such nice birds too. The Silvereye, a cute little green and peach thing, with a ring around its eye.

So I’m asking your help. What do I do? How do I get Spook to stop bringing me gifts?

_________________________________________

For the birders in the crowd, here’s a link to the Silvereye’s bio, and it’s song.

Smoko – not just a tea break

Each day at 10 am and again at 3 pm is smoko (rhymes with loco in Spanish). Originally a smoke break, it has become the universal term for tea (or coffee) break. Now this is not just a time to run across the street to Starbucks, grab a coffee and head back to the desk. First of all, the nearest Starbucks is 3 hours away. (Do I hear weeping out there?) It’s more about the break than the tea. And it’s mandatory in a way. It’s considered odd to stay at your desk and skip smoko.

I’m not sure if every work place in NZ is so consistent, but DOC certainly is. When I spent time touring around looking at other DOC sites, I found the crew at Franz Josef Glacier Visitor Centre all heading back to work as I pulled in just after smoko. At Nelson Lakes I joined the gang for smoko under the eaves of their staff building for a cuppa – all of us lined up on benches looking at the rolling hills surrounding Lake Rotoiti. This is where the Southern Alps lose their elevation, coming down to join the rest of us here on Earth.

View of Lake Rotoiti - this is a duck's perspective -
not quite the view from the Nelson Lakes smoko room. But close.

In my office, we aren’t blessed with such a view. The smoko room is nothing flash – just a kitchen with a conference table and some windows looking out on the street. This is fine, as smoko, for me, is more about the chance to learn and share stories. It has the feel and noise of a big family holiday gathering crossed with the workaday discussions of small town diner. This is where I’m learning to speak, and understand kiwi English, and Maori place names.

Our smoko room in Greymouth.

Twice a day we head down to the smoko room, cordless phone in hand to respond if the outside world intrudes, to read, snack, talk and drink. The drink of choice is tea, though I prefer coffee. My choices are two variations of instant. (They had a French press up at Nelson Lakes – I’m planning to introduce one to my office soon.) Tea, coffee, milk and sugar are all provided by DOC, as the employment contract negotiated by the unions for all DOC employees requires that it be provided. In fact, we can get reimbursed for the lost opportunity on days we are out working in the field. Not because we don’t take smoko break, mind you, but because we have to bring our in a flask (think Thermos, not vodka).

Smoko outdoors on the shores of Lake Brunner.

The conversation during smoko ranges from local politics to national, most often based on whatever is in the local paper, which lives on the smoko table. I’ve learned about the recent scandal in Parliament, as the National party leader was outed for having an affair. (Seventy percent of kiwis apparently think this is no cause for resignation.) News at the local level is equally interesting. There’s the coal company’s plan to reroute their truck traffic through a small town, rather than down the more distant and appropriate state highway. Then there’s the activist dressed up as a giant snail to protest the treatment of endangered snails being rescued off a mountain top and stored in ice cream containers inside large refrigerators in the regional DOC office about a half hour south of here. I’m not kidding – click here to check it out. (I’m pretty sure these are different than the fridges in their smoko room…)

Smoko is the time for the guys in the biodiversity team to unwind and share stories from the front lines of enforcing the rules during the craziness that comes with whitebait fishing season. It’s when we’ve discussed the unseen arrival of Safety First signs all around the office, as well as retirement schemes, and reimbursement for ‘wet time’, which is working in the field when you get soaked through. Smoko is also when I’ve heard some scary stories about tractor roll-overs, ATV mishaps, and chainsaw hazards.

When the week comes to a close, smoko turns into the Social Club. At the end of the day on Friday is ‘beer o’clock’. In the fridge, just awaiting our arrival, is a variety of beers for members of the social club. Membership is easy – just drop money for your beer in the container provided. Or scribble your name on the IOU sheet in there. That’s fine too. Several folks stick around to swap more stories, plan for the week ahead, or the weekend. Happy hour comes to us. I have to join in. It’s all part of my education as a kiwi.

NZ Costs!

I’m about to go on a bit of a rant. You see – I feel like I’m being nickel and dimed to death. Though really I can only be dimed to death here in NZ. See, they’ve done away with the nickel. Who knows how long ago they did away with the penny, but when I arrived a few short months ago NZ was in the process of changing its change. For the better – they say. This may be true – as the new coins are a bit more logical in their size/weight vs. value. There are $1 and $2 coins as well as 50, 20 and 10 cent pieces now. Prices are rounded up or down at the cash drawer, to the nearest 10 cents. Being new, I’m able to make the shift rather easily. That’s not what has me fired up.

It’s the fees and pricing of things that has me rather peeved. The ones that gets me the most are the bank fees. For example, there are fees every time one uses a debit card (called EFTPOS here. Really. People say “Is that EFTPOS or credit?” when you pull out a card to pay for something. EFTPOS stands for Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale). That fee depends on the type of bank account (or credit union account) one has. With the bank I chose it’s 30 cents per EFTPOS transaction. ATM withdrawal = 50 cents. Withdrawals in person at bank = $1. Discussing issues on the phone with a bank representative = $1. Text banking (balance request via cell phone – 5 free, then 50 cents each after that/month). The list goes on and on… And I chose the bank that seemed to have the lowest fees, and was actually a NZ owned bank – as most of the ones here are owned by Australian based banks. Supporting the local economy, you know…

The internet is the same. For high speed broadband (what I called DSL via the phone lines in the US) costs based on the volume of upload/download usage. If you go over your predicted amount, the service slows down to dial-up speeds for the duration of the month – unless of course you upgrade to the next increment of service.

200MB per month = $29.95

1GB per month = $39.95

5GB per month = $49.95

10GB per month = $59.95

Who knows how much one is going to use?

I suppose, on the good side, these crazy fees have lead to some rather funny commercials. One of my favorites has an elementary school teacher calling her kids together in the school yard. Each has a hoola hoop. “Now what I want you to do,” she instructs her students “is to tell me how many minutes you are going to use your hoola hoops each month for the next two years.” The looks of confusion on their faces are precious – especially as they try to do the math. “If you guess over, you will be charged. If you guess under, well then that’s just a waste, isn’t it.” This one is for a new flexibly priced mobile phone service.

Another ad that I particularly like is for a new fixed-fee bank account. It shows people at random shops buying things, with others coming by while they are still at the cash drawer to take their small cut of the purchase. A person buys a coffee, then someone comes over and takes a sip. “Hmm, that’s quite good,” comments the intruder. Someone buys a new book, only to have someone come rip a few pages out of the book, before it gets put in the bag. A guy buys flowers, but not without someone coming to snag a few from his bouquet, before he leaves the florist… It’s quite funny, and really gets at the point of how one feels paying a bit here and there. Getting dimed to death.

Lastly, just because I find it so amusing, I wanted to share one of my favorite commercials with you. (Click here) The brand apparently has a history of really creative and funny ads, many of which you can find on the internet, if you are so inclined…

Meanwhile, you owe me 32 cents for taking the time to read this.

More another day...

Bryan

Small town expectations meet suspicious Americans attitudes

I generally think of myself as a trusting guy. Sure I lock the car all the time. But that’s an old habit from my Park Service days – never leave a car unlocked in a visitor center parking lot, or rest stop… There are folks who prey on such trusting souls. But in general, I think I have faith in others. There was that time someone came by Rosenstock, the house I lived in at the Marin Headlands, who was hungry, so I invited him in for a bowl of cereal. There was my complete faith that the Peace Corps, Winrock and the universe would take care of my when I went overseas. Shoot, there was my trust that moving here to NZ was going to work out nicely.

So last weekend, I sort of surprised myself with my suspicious nature. I’d heard my neighbor Mr. Lalor talking with someone for some time in the garage, which abuts my bedroom wall. He’s a sweet old man (94 – same age as my grandma) who seems to have locals buzzing around with some frequency, painting, cleaning, visiting, bringing food. I didn’t think a thing about it, until there was a knock on my door, so I went to say hello.

The guy at my door tells me that they are coming to extend the driveway sometime soon. My car, which is parked in my driveway, is in the way and needs to be moved. ‘Do I have a spare that I can give to him?’

To explain a bit, I share a driveway with Mr. Lalor, as it runs the length of the property past his house and garage, to my front door. Our homes and the garage in the middle are basically all one long structure. There’s a tall fence that runs along the property line next to the driveway. Where I park, at the end of the driveway is the same place that Mr. Lalor used to use when he backed out of his garage to turn around and head out the driveway facing forward. This is no small feat as the space is quite narrow. The fence has dents and scrapes, both fresh and old, to illustrate the challenge turning around here poses.

So the property management folks, and my landlord, Mr. Lalor’s daughter, planned to extend the driveway to set my car free from imminent danger. I’d seen him back out the driveway into the mailboxes one of my first days here, so I expected my rear bumper to be dinged sometime or another if we didn’t stretch the drive a bit.

Now that the time had come, I didn’t quite expect it to come with a request for my keys. While the guy at the door and I had introduced ourselves and shaken hands I wasn’t quite ready to hand him a key to my car. He said the company doing the work was a local road contractor which would send some guys over in between jobs sometime in the next few weeks. My car being parked in the driveway was a problem. ‘So did I have a spare key he could give to them to move the car when they showed up to do the work?’

I came inside to get the key, before thinking about it. When I got to the door, I fibbed a bit, feeling the need to think this one through. I told him I’d have to make a copy, but that I was uncomfortable with giving these road contractor guys a key – (not him, as we were old chums now, after all of 15 seconds of conversation at my front door).

He seemed genuinely put out that I didn’t see the wisdom and simplicity of his solution. I said I didn’t know who or how many guys were at this firm, or what they’d do with my keys. But my biggest concern was that the Subaru Legacy is the most stolen car in the country – which every insurance company told me, when I first got the car. So this wasn’t entirely my suspicious distrusting American attitude. It was based on fact and genuine risk. My increased insurance rates prove it.

I offered to leave a key with Mr. Lalor, but we both realized he’s not around often. He’s a busy guy for his age. Off to church each morning, then to visit his wife each afternoon, who recently made the move to a retirement home, here in town. So odds were he might not be home when they came by…

He said they were good fellas, it’s an old company, been around forever, nothing to worry about. There would probably be more risk leaving the car on the street… Still, I chose to park on the street and hoped I would beat the national odds for Legacy theft.

Now, a week later, the driveway is finished, and my car is still with me. But I’m sure I’ve spread the notion that American’s are distrusting souls. I can live with that.

What do you think? Would you have given the guy a key? Does small town trust have its limits?