The "meeting"

Looks like I've been M.I.A. again.

Not to worry, I will fill you in.

I'll start with the story of how I met Kris. I'd briefly summarised the story in my last post already, but the meeting had significantly changed my life and thus warrants its own blog entry.

It all started when my ex-boyfriend's sister, Leilani, called me on a Friday afternoon and asked me to hang out with her. I'd had a particularly bad day, with a crazy boss and all, so I didn't hesitate to accept Leilani's offer.

Leilani had just finished Jujitsu training and was keen to "wind down". She'd been doing Jujitsu for several years now, and had won several gold medals in various state and national competitions.

Leilani and I met up for dinner, and eventually ended up going to a south-side suburban night club to (as the young 'uns would say) "part-ay". We bought a few drinks and decided to start a game of pool.

Half-way through the game, a guy came up to us and asked us if we wanted to play pool with him and his two friends. His friends were nowhere to be seen, but he seemed friendly enough so Leilani and I agreed.

As the guy picked up a pool cue to start playing, he casually introduced himself as "Trevor". He took a shot (a bad one at that), and then his two friends magically appeared out of nowhere. Trevor's friends introduced themselves as "Phil" and "Kris".

It was obvious that all three of them were a bit on the drunk side, but they were quite funny and took it lightly when they lost the pool game (we trashed them, actually). They kept offering to buy us drinks and paying for extra pool games (all to no avail, of course, since Leilani and I possessed awesome pool skills).

Next door to the night club was another night club, which the boys wanted to go to. Initially, Leilani and I refused to go with them because, well, we didn't want to pay the entry fee.

If you must know, it's a stance Leilani and I had taken not too long ago - we believed that night clubs already obtained much revenue from the overpriced drinks they sold over the bar, and thus we refused to pay any sort of entry fee to get into a night club. That, and we were loathe to waste money on entry fees when we could be using that money on alcohol.

For some reason, Kris was really adamant that we come with them to the night club, and offered to pay for our entry fee. We refused, of course. But he was so damn insistent that we caved in after 2 minutes.

We walked over to the new night club and, as promised, Kris paid for our entry fee.

Once inside the night club, Trevor and Phil disappeared for a few minutes to "scope out" the place. Kris stayed back with Leilani and I, and we started talking.

Kris asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a lawyer. He had a blank look on his face for a few seconds, then he said, "What? A liar?".

I laughed. He genuinely didn't hear my response properly, I could tell. I repeated my response and luckily, it registered the second time around.

"Well, I wasn't far off the mark the first time, was I?" he laughed.

I then asked Kris what kind of work he did.

Kris told me he was a printer machinist.

Now it was my turn to have a blank expression.

"Huh? What kind of work does a 'printer machinist' do?" I asked. In my head, I imagined Kris in front of a giant computer pressing the "print" button and him walking over to a gigantic Canon printer to collect his print-out.

He explained that he ran a printing press that could print anything from letterheads to business cards to cheque books. He said that he'd undertaken a four-year apprenticeship to obtain his tradesman qualification as a printer machinist.

I asked, "So you can print newspapers and magazines as well?"

He replied, "Yes, but only if I were using the right machine. Usually, to print a newspaper or magazine you would need a bigger printing press". It made sense, of course. But up until that point, I had never really thought about how newspapers, magazines or cheque books were even printed.

Kris seemed like a really great guy, and he wasn't sleazy or "overtly friendly", so I quickly warmed to him.

He said that he had moved from the country about 2 years ago, and that he was a "country boy" at heart. It wasn't long before we discovered that we'd both lived in the same country town (that I'd just moved from), and not only that, but he completed his apprenticeship a few doors down from my old work!

What a small world! I thought.

We somehow got to talking about great parties, and I mentioned that I'd never been to a party at a prominent night club in the city fringe called "The Wiki". The Wiki was famous for throwing legendary parties every quarter. However, with such a great reputation, only invited guests were allowed to attend the parties at The Wiki. Needless to say, I'd never been invited to a party there.

At this, Kris' voice perked up and he said, "My friend has a lot of contacts at The Wiki. She's invited me to attend the next party, but I wasn't really keen to go because I didn't think I would enjoy myself. Maybe if you came with me, it might be a different story?"

Was he asking me out?!

No wait, was he asking me out to go to a party at The Wiki?!?!?!?!

Playing coy, I replied, "Sure. Why not?".

I gave him my phone number and he promised to text me details about the next Wiki party.

By 3.00am, Leilani and I were getting tired, so we decided to bid the boys farewell.

I had sobered up quite nicely whilst talking with Kris inside the night club, so I was prepared to drive home. As I started the engine, the boys appeared next to my car. Without asking me, Leilani offered the boys a ride home. They all eagerly accepted.

I figured, What the hell? They say they just live down the road anyway. If try anything funny, Leilani can whoop their butts.

So Trevor, Phil and Kris all hopped into the backseat of my mini four-wheel drive, and I drove them home. They really did only live down the road.

When Kris got out of my car, he stopped by my window and leaned inside. He said, "Can I have your cell number?"

"Ummmm. I gave it to you already", I replied.

"But I can't remember where I put your cell number in my phone!" he wailed. At that, he whipped out his cell and started going through his contact list, to see which one was my cell number.

Sighing, I gave him my cell number again.

"You better take good care of that phone number, because I'm not giving it to you again!" I warned.

When I got home an hour later, Kris texted me to say that he was glad we met, and that he had taken good care of my cell number. I was too tired to text back.

When I woke up a few hours later, I checked my phone to find another text message from Kris.

It read:

I know we've just met, but I was wondering if you'd like to come out on a date with me sometime? I really like you and I really enjoyed meeting you last night.

Awwww how cute, I thought.

I texted him back, saying:

Of course! Aren't we going to the Wiki party? We could catch up then?

Kris messaged back a few minutes later, saying he was keen to catch up before the Wiki party.

Hmmmm. Should I? I contemplated this question for hours.

In the end I decided, Why the hell not? It wouldn't hurt to go on one date, right?

I texted Kris back and said, "Yeah, sure. When and where? I'll leave it up to you".

An update

It's been a long time since I'd written my last post.

A lot has changed since then. So I'll start from where I left off.

I started work with Delia within two days of me moving from the country. On my first day at work, Delia asked me to stay back and finish some work on one of her files. Wanting to make a good impression, I (half-heartedly) said "yes". Had I known I would stay back until 8.30pm that night, I might have thrown the file at Delia and screamed, "hell no!".

My first day at work was a good indication of how the rest of my working life with Delia eventually panned out. I should have known that working with Delia would be extremely painful. Not only was I overworked on my first day at the job, but, as I found out shortly thereafter, Delia was:

1. a control freak;

2. a control freak; and

3. bossy.

After working with Delia for two months, I began to feel like I was morphing into a useless lump. She constantly degraded my work - not only in private, but also in front of other staff. In one particular instance, she started shouting at me in front of the other junior solicitors about the state of my files.

Annoyed and embarrassed by her display, I replied, "whatever". I then told Delia that the main office was not the place to discuss this issue, and said that I wanted to talk to her in her office.

So we both marched off to her office and started a shouting match.

So loud was our verbal exchange, that one of the senior associates closed Delia's office room door with us barely noticing.

Despite our shouting match, I left Delia's office feeling misunderstood and doubting myself.

Was it OK for Delia to shout at me in front of other staff?

Is this how other junior lawyers were treated at this firm?

After that incident, my working relationship with Delia deteriorated. I loathed her with a passion, as she relished in her "superiority" over me. If I gave Delia anything to sign off for, it would always come back with some sort of "correction". Nothing that I did was ever good enough for her.

I desperately wanted to resign, but I felt that I was morally obliged to Rai (for referring me to this job) to carry on. I felt like if I resigned, I would be disloyal to Rai and give Rai a bad name. That was the last thing I wanted to do, since Rai was such a good friend to me.

So I swallowed my distaste for the job and kept working with Delia.

It was a terrible time in my life, and the worst part was I didn't (no, couldn't) let Rai know how I was feeling.

It was not uncommon for me to work 14-hour days.

When one of our biggest clients purchased a commercial high-rise in another city, I was put to work to complete the transaction. One night during this period, I was forced to order pizza into the office at 10.00pm, just so I could eat my dinner.

As you can imagine, I quickly became depressed and moody, and my confidence plummeted to an all-time low.

It didn't help that, at the same time this was all happening, my ex-boyfriend (who I started to become friends with after moving back to the city) was acting like an insensitive brat.

It felt like my whole world was swiftly falling apart and I was too slow to pick up the pieces.

After a particularly busy and stressful Friday afternoon, my friend Leilani (who also happens to be my ex-boyfriend's sister - how's that for weird?) called me and asked me to come out with her. I didn't hesitate. After all, I figured I could use a drink (or ten!) after such a hard day.

I met up with Leilani for dinner, and then we headed out to a south-side suburban bar for drinks. We drank, danced and met new people. It was a great distraction for me. I even met a cute guy, Kris.

Around about my first year anniversary after starting work with Delia, Rai called me for a quick chat. He prattled on for a while, telling me about his next big business venture, and I dutifully listened to his grand plans whilst I imagined myself crawling into a big cave and weeping until there were no more tears left to cry.

As if sensing my despair, Rai asked me how I was going at work.

I don't know what made me do it, but I soon found myself confessing to him that I disliked working with Delia (amongst other expletives).

After a short pause, Rai replied, "Then why are you still working there?"

Relief flooded over me. Rai's not mad at me!

I told Rai everything. From being overworked on my first day at the job, to being constantly humiliated in front of other staff. Rai was sympathetic to it all and even confessed that he didn't like Delia much either.

In retrospect, I don't know why I didn't talk to Rai sooner about my hatred for the job (or, more specifically, Delia).

Within a few weeks of my chat with Rai, I resigned. Interestingly enough, Delia asked me to withdraw my resignation twice. Confused by her reaction (I thought she would be happy to get rid of me!), I said I would think about it. But after speaking with my parents, Rai and Kris (my newfound boyfriend - more about this later), I decided to proceed with my resignation.

It didn't matter that I didn't have another job to go to, or a plan on what I would do with my time until I found another job. All I knew was that I didn't want to work with Delia anymore.

My last day working with Delia was absolute bliss. I knew that once I walked out the office doors, I would never have to put up with Delia's crap anymore.

Whilst I was packing away my things, Delia came into my office to give me a small parcel. Surprised, I opened the parcel and found an Oroton purse. I looked up at Delia, who looked sheepish as she said, "I know that you can never go wrong with Oroton". At that, she walked away.

I didn't actually leave the office until about 7.00pm on my last day. I wasn't expecting any different anyway.

However, walking out the office doors for the last time, I knew that my life would change.

Since then, I've never looked back.

Over the next couple of weeks, I half-heartedly applied for jobs. It didn't particularly bother me that I had no work because I had a comfortable amount of savings in my bank account - partly because I had no time to spend my money whilst I was working with Delia.

I refused to apply to private law firms, but I knew if my job-drought kept on long enough, I might be forced to do otherwise. But for the meantime, I was happy to apply for government jobs and in-house counsel jobs.

One of the jobs I applied for was at a community legal centre ("CLC") in the outer fringe of the city. The job advertisement specified that the CLC aimed to assist the disadvantaged members in the community.

How good would it be to work for an organisation like that? I thought, as I carefully answered the selection criteria and "tidied up" my CV. I submitted my application shortly thereafter.

It didn't take long for me to get a call-back and before I knew it, I was sitting on a big red couch in the CLC building, waiting to be interviewed.

Looking around the reception area, I took a mental note of the different atmosphere in the office, compared to the office where I previously worked. For starters, the CLC reception area had a big comfortable red couch to sit on, brightly coloured walls, and plenty of colourful pamphlets and fact sheets that screamed, "Read me!". It was completely different to my previous work, where everything was clinical white and almost museum-like.

The interview went well, I thought. I was interviewed by a panel of three - the co-ordinator of the CLC, a board member of the CLC and a well-respected CLC solicitor (who, as it turned out, didn't work for the particular CLC that I had applied for, but had been in the CLC industry for a while).

Walking out of the CLC building after the interview, I felt great. The organisation sounded like they treated their staff well, and everyone I saw in the CLC building seemed really friendly and happy.

Even though I was comfortable not working for another few weeks, I thought it would be great to bag this job, or work in a similar place.

Not long after the interview, the CLC co-ordinator called me on my cell and offered me the role as Principal Solicitor of the CLC. I was absolutely rapt and completely surprised.

Clearing my throat, I used my most "professional-acceptance-of-job-(OMG-did-I-just-get-the-job?!)" voice, and did a little victory dance on the spot.

I started work a week later.

It was completely mind-blowing how different the CLC environment was, compared to the two private law firms I'd previously worked for. I found that everyone was so laid-back but hard-working at the same time.

For one thing, there were only 15 people who worked at the CLC. There was only one other solicitor who worked there, and her name was Jane. She was in her mid-40's and had been practising law since 1998. However, she gave birth to her daughter not long after she started to practise, and had been working on and off ever since. As a result of her sporadic work history, Jane had yet to obtain an "unrestricted" practising certificate until she remains in continuous practice for two years.

I had only recently obtained my "unrestricted" practising certificate, but, as it turned out, I was more "senior" than Jane because I had been practising full-time for the last three years.

On my first day at work, Poppy, the CLC co-ordinator, explained that I had to "supervise" Jane's work until she obtained her "unrestricted" practising certificate. The first thing that came to my head was, "Me? Supervise?? REALLY??".

As if sensing my thoughts, Poppy said, "Don't worry, Tia. You'll be fine".

The rest of the day went by smoothly and, to my amazement, I left work at 5.00pm.

A stark contrast to my first day at work with Delia.

Leaving the CLC building that day, I knew I was going to love working there.