Typical! Just days after posting a nice little breakdown of how I planned to split my savings up until the end of the year on my Instagram (shown below); I lost my job... 😑
Now, I've not technically completely lost my job as our company told us that they were just "standing down" all of the Electrical TA's for 2-3 weeks because we are catching mechanical too quickly and running out of workfronts for electrical (solar farm niche content right here, sorry). But, in solar farm world, timeframes are ALWAYS pushed out longer than normal. Although, apparently not when it means keeping people working for as long as planned, as it turns out hahaha (if I don't laugh, I'll cry).
I could go on about the unfairness of it all and how its a massive kick in the teeth because I've worked for this same company (through labour hire) for 3 years across 4 projects back-to-back and always make sure I work hard to prove my value. BUT, the reality is, I am just a casual, labour hire employee who is just a number to this company, at the end of the day. This is the risk with being casual and if I wanted more stable work, I could've found it but I liked what I was doing and it's enabled my partner and I to go from project to project working away together so, up until this point, being casual hasn't hit us with any confronting situations until now.
I'm trying to stay positive and hoping that either we will get a call to come back sooner, rather than later, or a new opportunity will come up. I've already spoken to a friend who has applied for a solar farm job that is paying really well for sparkies and TA's much closer to home so that is looking like a good alternative option. There's always going to be work we can find, it's just a shame if we have to start over with a new company that doesn't know us at all. Change is always scary but I also think it could be a great time to open more doors for us and being closer to home is always a good thing. We could literally go home every Saturday night and Sunday as I think it is a 6 days on, 1 day off roster! That's exciting to me after working away so far from home for so long.
Anyway, what will be will be and in the meantime I plan on going for long walks, long gym sessions, swims and trying to find somewhere I can do some yoga and pilates on my mat without being looked at weirdly. I've had to move into my partner's room at camp (no job, no room!) and these dongas are TINY but I could always just about manoeuvre myself in my own room to do it but with all of our stuff in here together, TIGHT doesn't even describe the space we have right now haha! We're basically giving it to the end of the week for our boss to say whether they have a date for me to come back and if its still looking as vague as ever, I'll have to fly back home and leave my partner here for a while.
What I will say, seeing as this is supposed to be a blog about That FIFO Money, is that I am so glad that I am on top of my finances and that I have a good emergency fund to fall back on. It's now even clearer to me, more than ever that, especially in my situation of working casual construction jobs, I ALWAYS have to have a good emergency fund and expect the unexpected. I wish I had got a bit further ahead and if we had known, we wouldn't have taken a nice 6 weeks break in between the last project and this one but of course, we can't see into the future. I'm going to have to be extra tight with my spending while I'm not working as to not go backwards too much but at least I know that I would have to be out of work for a very long time to actually chew through all of my emergency fund and any of my other savings accounts. Not having that huge burden on our shoulders, makes this shock a little more bearable for my partner and I. I can imagine just how stressful it would be if we weren't in the financial position we have worked hard to put ourselves in over the years. We even had our first mortgage repayment come out for our first investment property, just the week before I got the flick and we are still not super stressed out or under pressure for me to get another job ASAP. Having the flexibility to wait and see what works best for us in the long run is a blessing.
Wish me luck and if anyone knows of any good jobs out there for an Electrical TA with solar farm experience (also up to try something new outside of solar!) please let me know! Cheers!
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