I was sent to Melbourne to meet my colleagues there whom I instant chat with on a daily basis, and to also get a feel of the mothership now that we are a part of a bigger company. The flight there was good - I watched Danny Bhoy’s Sydney Opera House show, read a graphic novel from start to finish, and had a beer with my meal and an ice cream after. The 3 hours went by very quickly. Even managed to nap a little.

I arrived Melbourne around 8pm Wednesday night. It was cold. The taxi ride to the hotel way out east of the city took nearly 45 minutes and cost about $80. Luckily I wasn’t paying for that.

The hotel corridor looked like a scene from a scary movie.

But the room was not too shabby.

The next day I caught a ride into the office with my boss who wasn’t to be - he had sold the company a few days before I started. No guesses who now owns us, and who that mothership is.

The tech park that the building is located at is very pretty, with a lake in the middle.

I was given a tour of the building and met my team mates there. As big corporate buildings go, it was pretty sweet. I especially like the canteen/cafeteria - you didn’t have to go far to buy munchies, lunch or coffee.

This was at around 10:30am, hence the empty tables and chairs. A few people were spread around having morning coffee breaks, and there’s a covered seating area outside.

This was the area that my team’s cubicles are situated - that’s one of my team mates waving, and the Chinese guy sitting behind him is the other team mate. We were smack bang in amongst MYOB’s product support and sales teams. If this photo is one block, imagine a rectangle of 5 x 2 blocks and that’s about the size of the entire open-plan floor. It was a big hive of activity with a lot of people. I got lost the first few times when I wandered to the toilet and back.

My two days there were spent coaching my team mates on processes and sharing my technical knowledge. Just like how my team mates in Perth coached me, so was I doing the same here. My Melbourne team mates were supporting MYOB products previously and they’d just moved into the role identical to mine in Perth.

On the first day, my immediate boss took us to Chadstone Shopping Centre for lunch. It is supposed to be the biggest shopping centre in the southern hemisphere and it definitely looked and felt like it.

It was v. pretty.

I’m glad to have been given this opportunity to meet up with the team in Melbourne, and to soak in the culture and working atmosphere at the big head office. And as you’ll see in my next blog post, this trip has also allowed me to explore a little of Melbourne’s night life which I loved.

At the office before I flew back to Perth, I was asked if I’d changed my mind about moving and my answer was, “If there were more females on the team, I’d be half-way here already.” Hahah!