Today was my last day working at Hendies Hire. It has been almost 5 years since I started working there on the 19th of November 2004. I remember my first day at Hendies, there were boxes everywhere, it made the place look like a huge maze of boxes. Started off with stacking plates onto trays which then go through the dishwasher and Matt (the boss's son who also worked there) would stack them into plastic crates.

Today started off like any other day, had tea for breakfast while watching an episode of "GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class". Drove down to work at around 8:15am, traffic near the city was slow as usual, and arrived at work a little after 9am. Then straight into cleaning up the stuff that had been left on the desk and dishwasher.

Around noon, co-worker Michelle bought cake, since it was my last day. Boss Michael, Michelle and I stopped to have some cake and we talked about my new job and other random things. The cake was really nice, rich chocolate cake with chocolate icing. After having cake, it was back to work, gradually going through the big wall of boxes and polishing hundreds and hundreds of wine glasses.

Towards the end of the day, switched from polishing wine glasses to putting tea cups and tea saucers through the dishwasher. Then finally at 5pm, time to tidy up to go home. A departing bird leaves a tidy nest, so I scrubbed the dishwasher like I usually do, I think I was probably the only one who cleaned the dishwasher at the end of the day, tried to tidy up as much as I could. I didn't really know what to say, Michael said a few things, then after saying "Thanks, see ya", I left Hendies. Before driving home, I stopped at a local shop to buy something to eat while I sat in rush hour traffic.

Although I had wanted to quit for a long time, because the job is incredibly boring and repetitive, and I had developed some sort of skin allergy to the dish washing chemicals, I feel a little guilty for leaving, since things are going to get busier and utterly chaotic towards the end of the year. I hope that they will find someone who can do the job quickly and properly. I never really thought of my job at Hendies as a washing dishes to earn money, to me, it was more like helping someone out and getting paid was a bonus. And so ends an era of polishing wine glasses for 7 hours a day.