I went to Australia after traveling through Asia for a bit, on a Working Holiday Visa. My road-trip from Darwin to Perth was amazing, but the dream soon turned into a nightmare when something happened, that had never happened to me before…
WORKING IN A CAR WASH, ON A WORKING HOLIDAY VISA IN PERTH
As soon as we got to Perth, we had our whole job lined up for us in a Car Wash, working with a French friend I’d met in Bali. It wasn’t a classic car wash; we were the ones bending down to brush every single rim, climbing up on the cars to wash the roof properly, scrubbing every single part of the car and drying them afterwards, by hand.
Most days, we’d wash non-stop. It was a very popular spot for expensive cars in a suburb called Claremont, Perth. The pay was great: $AUD32.00/€20.50/$USD22.00 per hour (I know, to WASH CARS!), and very well deserved, this job was very hard on our bodies and the days were very long.
After working there for a couple of weeks, one of the “managers” suggested we move in with her because she had a spare bedroom. One room: my boyfriend and me, and our French friend from Bali.
MOVING IN… PROBABLY OUR BIGGEST MISTAKE!
The rent was cheaper than anywhere else in Perth, and we were only a 5-minute walk away from the Car Wash. Besides the obvious lack of privacy, we thought we’d hit the jackpot! Our absolute goal was saving money, we didn’t want to go out and have drinks, or go out with anyone for that matter; Australia is very expensive.
To give you an idea, we’d set our weekly spending budget to $AUD100.00, including food for the both of us (without rent).
Our housemate was a very tall, blonde girl, part-time medical student, part-time karate pro, part time Car Wash advisor.
She was very unusual; while her supposed best friend was in the bathroom getting ready to go party, she would be whispering very mean things to us about her “best friend”. This was the moment I understood that we would never be friends.
She was also the most narcissistic person I’d ever met; she was very fake and her favorite hobby was… lying.
To keep the relations calm and cordial, the minimum had to be done: chit-chatting a bit about how her days went, what happened with the guy she was dating… Elio and I even made a huge Thanksgiving dinner for us 4 housemates to enjoy, and all she did was bring every single conversation back… to her.
CALLING OUR HOUSEMATE A NARCISSIST – DO NOT RECOMMEND.
It was tiring, but the rent was cheap, so we learned not to care anymore. Well, not Elio. One day, at the carwash, he got fed up with her butting in every single one of our conversations to express how amazing she was, and blurted out “you’re the most narcissistic person I’ve ever met.”
Ouch, I know. It was harsh and I think it hurt her feelings, but it really was the truth. Afterwards, he went and apologised to her, seeing how she’d been moping around all day, to which she answered, “Oh no worries, I know you meant arrogant, anyway, which I have to be, because I’m an athlete”. He played dumb and said “yeah yeah, that is definitely what I meant…”
Now, let’s get back to the carwash. From day one, our boss had told us there was a “bonus system” for busy days put in place, which meant that every time we’d average doing a minimum of 25 cars each, we’d get a $20.00 bonus. A rule that he wouldn’t always respect; it was pretty much up to his mood, or he’d lie and say we’d done less.
After a while, it started to feel very unfair because we were hurrying to wash as many cars as possible and get that bonus! He’d also send us home as soon as it was a little quiet, would only give us 3 to 4 days of work instead of the 5 to 6 we’d agreed on at the beginning…
It started getting obvious that we were getting irritated. He’d try and buy us with coffees in the morning, which we would later refuse. We didn’t want for him to feel like he was a “good boss”, only for buying us coffee.
We’d also picked up on a bit of racism from our boss and the “manager” girl we were living with – they’d made a couple of comments about foreigners in Australia (which could have been only jokes, for their defence), but the boss had told us since day one that he didn’t like Italians, that they were thieves. Straight to my boyfriend’s face, who is Italian.
A month and a half went by, and Elio and I were really fed up with working there. Our knees and backs were messed up, the boss was being unfair, we just weren’t happy. So, one day we decided it’d be our last week. Well, spoiler alert, it was actually our last day.
OUR LAST DAY AT THE CARWASH – The first time I’d ever gotten fired in my life!
We’d decided to count the number of cars we were supposed to do minimum per person, according to how many hours everyone had done, and came up with the number 144.
At the end of the day, we asked “so, how many cars have we done today? For sure quite a few, it was a busy day!”, to which he replied “sorry, guys, you didn’t make it, you’ve done 146”.
I said “well, perfect! We were supposed to do 144, so we get the bonus today!” “No, no, no, I helped you guys for half a day, so you haven’t done 25 cars each”.
First of all, he was lying, he’d helped for one-hour tops, and second of all he’d never EVER included himself in the counting of the bonus before.
On the inside, we went ballistic. On the outside, I was sarcastically smiling, while Elio’s face was shut down. A couple of minutes later, Elio couldn’t take it anymore and spit out “So basically, the bonus is just up to your mood and not about the number of cars we’ve done?”
They went back and forth for a while, each one of them defending their point of view, the boss even said “if you’re not happy here, you’re welcome to leave”, to which Elio answered “you just like to control people, you know you’re lying about the bonus.”
The conversation ended quickly with an iconic “I DON’T THINK SOOO” from our childish boss.
After that, we thought “Ok, let’s just keep working until Sunday night to finish our week, and then we’ll quit”, we couldn’t take it anymore. The next morning, our boss showed up at 8AM sharp, asking us to meet with him in the office.
“Your services are no longer required” he told us, with a huge grin on his face. “Ok!” I said, with a smile on my face. “Can we please sign our papers, and for the uniforms, we will get them back to you ASAP.”
He just stood there, in awe, staring at us and looking for some kind of disappointment in our eyes. I think he thought we’d throw a fit or beg him to let us keep our jobs. We did not want him to feel like he had any power over us. Five minutes later, we smiled and wished him a great day, and were out the door.
To be honest, it felt kind of weird afterwards. It was the first time we’d EVER been fired from a job. But we kept our heads high, thinking we didn’t even care about the job in the first place anyway. Well, we could never have predicted what happened only one week after…
THE MOST ABSURD STORY I’VE EVER HEARD
During the next week, we debated whether we should get another physical job in Australia or just spend that time trying to find a remote one straight away and keep on traveling with that money. Every single day our housemate would come home and her first (and only) question was “Have you guys found a job yet?”
Sunday comes, she’s on her break from work, pulls up in the driveway of our house, and tells us “I need to have a chat with you guys inside”. And right away, with as much drama as she could muster, she faked a legit panic attack, fake crying, fake shaking, all red and yelling “WHAT DID YOU GUYS DO LAST NIGHT? WHAT THE F*** DID YOU GUYS DO LAST NIGHT???”
She should’ve won an Oscar.
Meanwhile, our French roommate was celebrating his last weekend in Australia before heading to Canada, so he’d partied the night away. I subtly asked him “did you do something?” he shrugged and answered “no, no, no nothing”, none of us understood what was happening.
Come to find out, someone had sent a message to our ex-boss, accusing him of having syphilis. Yes, you read that right, syphilis. (One detail you must know: the boss and manager were both pretty close; she’d even consider him as her second father.) He was convinced that one of us had sent it, well actually, that it was Elio.
He’d supposedly gotten the message during the night, and told our housemate to kick us out. He apparently couldn’t bear the thought of us still staying at her house, or else he’d fire her. “I CAN’T LOSE MY JOB! I CAN’T LOSE MY JOB GUYS, IT’S SO IMPORTANT TO ME!!!” said the rich girl that wanted to quit just 3 weeks before, still trying as hard as she could to shed a tear.
We all looked at each other, clearly seeing through her game. She just wanted us out of her house. What kind of 60-year-old adult in his right mind would get this affected by a stupid syphilis rumor?
EVERYTHING ESCALATED SO QUICKLY – We got kicked out of the house!
All three of us headed down to the car wash, having pretty much figured out their game but didn’t want to believe that was it… everything seemed so absurd. I walked up to him, and asked if we could go and talk in the office. He looked up and locked his eyes on Elio, with a very angry, red face, yelling “IT’S YOU! IT’S YOUUUU!!!”, pushing Elio with all his strength, yelling the same thing over and over.
We were so confused, Elio kept saying “I’ve done nothing! I’ve done nothing, I couldn’t care less about your life!!! Why do you think it’s me?” After about 5 min of them going back and forth and Elio getting pushed violently, our ex-boss started yelling “NOW GET OFF MY PROPERTY OR I’M GONNA CALL THE COPS! ANYWAY, OLIVIA IS KICKING YOU GUYS OUT OF HER HOUSE!”
I just wanted answers, I wanted the truth. This whole story just seemed too crazy to be true, I didn’t know what to think: that he really did get a message stating he had syphilis and was really convinced Elio’d sent it, or that Olivia just wanted us out of her house and they came up with this plan together.
Still, both scenarios didn’t make any sense for me at all. If the first one was true, how could someone get affected by a stupid message this much to want us out of his employee’s house, threatening to fire her if she didn’t?
If the 2nd one is true (which is the one I believe to be) and she just didn’t want us living in her house anymore, why didn’t she just sit down with us and ask us to leave her house? We would’ve understood, it would’ve saved so much heartache and confusion, and we most definitely didn’t want to stay somewhere we weren’t welcome.
After this whole argument, I went up to our ex-boss asking him calmly to just tell me the truth: “we’re going to leave her house no problem, just please tell me the truth now, is this all a huge messed up scheme because she didn’t know how to ask us to leave her house?”
Every time I asked that question (about 4 or 5 times), he answered no, that it wasn’t it, with a smirk on his face, so proud to be hurting us.
GETTING THE ANSWERS I THINK I DESERVE?
I called our housemate, asking her to come to the carwash so we could talk. I told her we’d clearly understood her game, that all I wanted was the answers I thought I deserved. I gave her the opportunity to come clean, stating that we were going to leave her place the next day anyway, that she’d won, that we didn’t want to stay anywhere we weren’t welcome.
All I wanted was, again, to know why.
To have peace of mind. I asked her “if you didn’t like our company or if you wanted us out of your house for another reason, why didn’t you just come clean? We would’ve understood, we would’ve left, all of this huge cinema wasn’t necessary!”
To which she answered “but noooo, I love you guys! I didn’t want you guys out of my house, it’s all him (our ex-boss), I don’t want you guys to leave” with her puppy eyes.
“Then if you love us so much, why don’t you just lie to him, let us stay the 2 weeks we’ve got left in Australia, so you can keep your job, and not kick us out?” “I CAN’T LIE!! I JUST CAN’T LIE; I’M NOT MADE LIKE THAT!”
This made us even more upset. We’d seen her lie numerous times to us, and to other people. After us going back and forth, her not wanting to admit anything, we just got tired and fed up. We told her we were heading home, that we were going to pack our bags and be gone by tomorrow, but that she must send all of us our week’s rent back.
WHAT IN THE WORLD JUST HAPPENED…?
We headed home, still trying to wrap our heads around what’d just happened to us. How could people be so mean? They were (initially) kicking us out from one day to another, knowing very well that all the hostels were fully booked weeks in advance and our cheapest accommodation options would be on Airbnb, starting at $1400AUD/week.
Elio, and I love him so much for this, while we were trying to find the cheapest accommodation possible, said “but why don’t we go somewhere in Asia? If we can find cheap tickets, we’ll save more money than if we stay here, paying $2800AUD for 2 weeks!” And we did, we found $300AUD tickets (per person) to Bali, the next day, at 7am. We booked them.
During that time, she sent us a message on our common Whatsapp group: “Your rent has been transferred back. I want everyone out of my house by 5:30pm tonight.” The time which she finished work, she didn’t even have the gutts to face us again. It was 3:30pm.
We were all cooking lunch, so we only had time to eat, do one last load of laundry, pack up everything, and leave. We left the house a mess, felt bad about it but to be honest, she didn’t leave us much of a choice… we had no time to clean up after ourselves.
EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON
In the end, it all worked out. We never got the answers we would’ve liked to have had. We enjoyed Ubud, Bali and found our way, focusing more on our blogs. Even though it hurt, we comforted ourselves in the fact that “everything happens for a reason”, and it does.
Well, it was a lot harder for me to accept what had happened, Elio managed it better than I did.
We’ve both forgiven them, aren’t holding a grudge and have made peace with the situation. We wish them no harm, just hoping that they’ll realize that what they did was very wrong, and that they won’t do it to anyone else.
“Rise above the storm and you’ll find the sunshine.”
