Mo' money, mo' problems

So first of all, thank you to everyone who was prompted to write to me by my rather desperate appeal a couple of posts back. It's been so good to hear from you all, and I promise I'll reply properly soon. Work has gone a bit mad because the semester starts tomorrow, so I've been low on time and haven't had the chance to get back to everyone the way I'd like to, but I will.

In other news, it *looks* (fingers crossed) like I'll be getting my super back. For those who don't know (i.e., the non-Australians), your superannuation is your mandatory Australian retirement fund. If you're a foreigner who has been working legally and leaves Australia permanently, you are allowed to reclaim this money... but it's not quite as straightforward as that sounds. I want to put this down because I know a lot of you know people from overseas who are living and working in Australia, and for many of them their super will be a significant amount of money by the time they leave. So:

1. If you don't reclaim your super within six months of your permanent departure, it will be given to the Tax Office and you will have no chance of getting it back, ever. I cannot stress this enough: if you fall outside that six months, you've lost it, full stop.
   
2. Furthermore, this means that you must have COMPLETED the application process within six months. Nowhere I've seen makes that clear, nor do they lay out that it can take up to four months for all of the paperwork to be completed by all of the relevant agencies (the ATO, the Department of Immigration, and your super fund). Again, it doesn't matter where you are in the process when the six months ticks over, or whose fault the delay is: once that timeframe is up, it's up, and you've lost your money. I nearly lost out on mine because of this, and ended up on the phone pleading with a lovely woman in Hobart named Sue to queue-jump some of my paperwork. (Sue, if you're out there: you're my girl.) I got lucky in that she was sympathetic, but you can't expect that.
   
3. You can't apply for a super refund until after you've left Australia permanently. Don't even try, because there aren't even any initial steps you can take. You have to be gone for good first.
4. I take that back, there is one thing you can and should do before you leave: If you have multiple super accounts (e.g., if you've had different jobs and some/all made you use their preferred super fund rather than allowing you to nominate your own), roll them all over into one. You have to lodge separate applications for each account, and there's no good reason for maintaining multiple ones anyway.
   
5. Start on the process as absolutely soon as you are able after your departure. (See point 2.) Both the ATO and the Immigration websites have the information you need (I won't give links because those websites get tinkered with a lot); you can also contact your super fund or check their website for help, but understand that your super fund can't do anything until you've sorted the paperwork from Immigration and the ATO.
   
6. The process will be streamlined if you have an Australian bank account they can pay into. They will do international transfers or bank cheques, but there are fees associated and they make it very clear that if anything goes missing, they don't give a rat's. Personally, I reckon that even if you don't have any other reason to keep an account open in Aus, this alone is worth the few months of extra fees.
   
7. Be aware that the government takes a cut of 35-45%. This is only to be expected and shouldn't put you off too much; apart from that, there's only one $55 fee associated with the paperwork, and whatever's left is better in your pocket than the government's. They'll only spend it on Tony Abbott's skin polish anyway. (Seriously, why is that guy so fucking shiny all the time? It's not natural.)
8. See point 2. Again. Really. I almost lost a LOT of money - the money that's going to clear my very substantial moving-related credit card debts and allow me to start looking to move out of my parents' house, thank Christ - simply because I didn't understand a) how long the process would take, and b) that they would be such hardasses about the process being completed within that timeframe. Mind you, I didn't understand it because it's not made clear anywhere (hell, the basic idea of reclaiming your super isn't really advertised, let alone the details; and let's not even start on how much harder this all would be if you weren't a native English speaker), and if I were the cynical type I'd say that it's awfully convenient that the government would impose these rules that make it more likely that the super will not be claimed within the required timeframe when they themselves will be the beneficiaries of any unclaimed super... but that's just me being suspicious, I'm sure.
   

I hope this ends up being useful to someone. I don't want to sound like too much of a humbug because as I said, it does look like I'll be okay; but the simple fact is that the process is obviously designed to make it less likely for departing workers to be able to access this money that they worked for and that came out of their paycheques, and that's pretty shit. Feel free to hit me with questions, if any arise.

XOXO

Enter the Confessional 1: Peccadillos

I am endlessly susceptible to café staff.

I've tried to give them up, I really have. I've tried stopping in too often in an attempt to inure myself to their charms. I've tried avoiding cafés altogether, thinking that cold turkey might be the only cure. I've even tried dating a couple, and while there's nothing more likely to take the shine off one's perception of any group than an extended close relationship with one of its representatives, I remain undauntedly smitten. (See also: musicians, sporty types, and barely-legals wearing 'Dyke in Shining Armor' t-shirts.)

I try to tell myself that I will not be ruled by my obsessions. Like any addict, I make excuses, bargains with myself: I'm just passing; it's harmless; one more pot of tea won't hurt. After all, I can give it up whenever I like. But like any addict, I know the truth. I can't say no, I can't turn away. It's a sickness. My name is Elena, and I'm a baristaholic.

It's hard to quantify the attraction. I'm not a coffee drinker, so it's not the Stockholm Syndrome relationship of a caffeine dependent and her supplier. And while I have a notoriously well-defined type (looks like a 15-year-old boy, fucks like a trucker), my usual requirements can go right out the window in a good café. Which is not to say that my eyes won't be automatically drawn to the one who most fits the profile; I just seem more willing to expand that profile in a café than anywhere else. In fact, the effect is so powerful that it can extend even to other patrons: my most atypical target of recent years was someone I wouldn't have looked at twice in the street - her hair was longer than mine, you see - but we happened to be sitting opposite each other at brunch and over the course of the meal I found myself admiring her striking eyes and shoulders for miles. But what had first made me sit up and take notice was the way in which she placed her order: she barely glanced at the menu before firmly stating her requirements (eggs Benedict and a latte, if you're wondering). No havering, no hesitation. As someone who routinely hems and haws for hours, narrowing the list to two choices before inevitably ordering something entirely else, this seemed to me the picture of self-possession. It's not too much to say that I swooned a bit in my chair.

I think that's a large part of what attracts me to café staff in general and baristas in particular: they - the good ones, anyway - convey a sense of dominance over chaos that most of us could only dream of. Watch her at the coffee machine: her hands fly; she tamps like she's punishing the grounds for some imagined transgression; she harnesses scorching hot steam without batting an eye. She's covered in that dark brown dust that gets everywhere and manages to make it look as sexy as engine grease. She is calm. She is unconcerned. She is Together.

And I bite my lip and get flustered and forget how to talk. I botch the order I've been making for years (you'd be amazed how many ways there are to fuck up 'large peppermint tea, please'). I fumble for money and blatantly overtip because basic math is way too hard for me in that moment. If I'm lucky I'll get a cocky, indulgent smile in return, but most of the time I'm far too busy praying for the ground to swallow me whole to be able to properly register it, let alone return it. All I want is to get out of there without spilling something on myself or babbling incoherently. Their singlets, their tattoos, their arms that are always stronger than they look... in the face of these I am as helpless as a kitten. Take pity on me, café dykes of the world. I'm only an addict after all.

For fuck's sake, Australia.

God help you. The next three years will take a lifetime to recover from.

You're a bit of a bastard aren't you, Nicholas?

Crap politicians yield excellent humour.

(Tip of the hat to the Ginja Ninja for the pic. And big ups to anyone who can pick the source of the post title.)

A short play about American mobile phone service.

Me: Did you just send me a test text?

Caitlin: Yes. My phone has stopped receiving texts again. So infuriating. They promised me this would not happen again. Did you reply?

Me: No, because I'm on the phone with Verizon because I have stopped receiving texts as well.

Caitlin: Awesome. Although it seems you got mine?

Me: Yes, but I missed several from Colleen all day. And I still can't work out if Liz can send to/receive from me. $60/month! Oh, I replied, by the way.

Caitlin: Yeah, I didn't get it. Fuck.

Me: I find it more than a little ridiculous that they thanked me for joining Verizon at the end of a call consisting almost entirely of my ranting about how I should never have joined Verizon.

Caitlin: Good stuff.

File under 'things that shouldn't be this complicated but have decided to be anyway'

I've finally broken down and signed up to a two-year mobile contract. I had been on a pre-paid thing with Virgin, who are very much a third-party carrier here (Caitlin: 'Ohhh, you're the one.'), but the phone was dodgy as fuck and the service was spotty, so when I learned that my work has a deal with Verizon, a major carrier, that meant that I could get a two-year contract and a great phone for only $15 more a month than what I'd been paying with Virgin AND keep my phone number, I was in.

Oh, silly girl. As if it could be that easy.

Something's gone wrong somewhere along the way that means that my new phone is screening my texts and phone calls without my consent. Not consistently, mind: I'll get one text from someone and then not hear from them again for 24 hours, in which time I have of course decided that I have mortally offended them and they now hate me, but I don't want to get in touch because I don't want to be pushy. And then my brain goes in circles for the next several hours until it explodes into a million fleshy pieces and I'm weeping into a bag of Nutter Butters. (Bad enough when it's real people; you should see what happens when Wil Anderson's Twitter feed mysteriously disappears.)

Why yes, I *am* looking for a therapist! Funny you should ask.

[sigh] Yes, I really am. Things have been increasingly rough the last few weeks. I think what's happened is that now that I don't have the worry of job-searching, everything else has come banging to the front of my head. And not to sound self-pitying, but there's a fair bit of everything else to process. I'd suspected that I was dealing a bit too well with the move, and that there might be a crash coming eventually; the small mercy here is that the crash waited until my health insurance kicked in and I could afford to see someone. So now I'm in the process of trying to find that someone, which is a bit tricky because the only recommendations I've been able to get so far have been for people who don't accept my health insurance. But I found a few on my own who look promising, so cross fingers one of them will work out.

In other news, I have just re-read all of Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree series (collections of his book reviews for The Believer, McSweeney Press' monthly magazine), which has inspired me to start doing my own monthly book reviews. I like his format, wherein he lists the books he's bought and the books he's read in that month, so I'm stealing that. Unlike him, however, I am not restrained by The Believer's policy of not permitting negative criticism, so if I read something I don't like, I will absolutely tell you about it. I expect to have the first of these up by the end of the month.

Finally, a last note on my mobile: My old Virgin phone wasn't great with international texts because my receipt (or not) of them would depend on how much random cash was floating around in my account. I've learned that some people did text me and I never got them; if at some point you did text me and didn't hear back, that's what happened. This should be different now because those texts will be added to my bill rather than debited from my account, but given the way my first three days with my new phone have gone I'm not overly confident. So I guess what I'm saying is that e-mails are still and always the best way to reach me, and also there's a bunch of you I haven't heard from in ages and I miss terribly, so if you're feeling so inclined please drop me a line, or even just a comment. I don't care if it's the most boring stuff about your day, I just like to know you're out there. xoxo

Is it wrong that my hero is a redneck gobshite?

Now if only we could link him to Tony Abbott....

Is it too late to disavow my heritage entirely?

Really, Albania? Really?

Onya Dahhhhhhhlin'!

Up the workers... especially you, Erin. :)

A Short Play about Working for a University in Summer.

Elena: My entire floor was empty today except for two young eastern-European girls who didn't speak English, cruising around the halls on roller chairs.

Elena: Apparently now I work in an Ionesco play.

Caitlin: There are worse places.

Elena: At least I get a rhinoceros.

Caitlin: Make sure you use it only for good. With great power comes great rhinocerosponsibility.

Elena: That. Was. Awesome.

Caitlin: I am completely cracking myself up over here.

Elena: You earned it, lady. You earned it.