Where I assume the bits responsible for making the water hot once resided—but then I really have no idea.

Woke up this morning with no hot water, went to work without having showered, came home on my break to sort out what I thought must be a billing problem, and after several calls ended up speaking to the body corporate.

Turns out that last night someone physically stole the mechanical parts of the apartment complex that provide the hot water.  Like, to the entire complex.

Who would do such a thing and why completely eludes me, but there you have it.

So there we have it: what started out as a mere fantasy when I was four or five years old has actually been realised.  I am now a fully qualified tram driver.

“C class” on my certificate means that I can drive these:

(Source: VICSIG)

and, technically, these too:

(Source: VICSIG)

I’ll be trained up on another model soon as well.

So, how to sum up the last five weeks?

I’ve had a total blast.  There are absolutely no regrets at this stage about throwing in the IT towel.  (Not that I have done so fully yet anyway; I’m still spending a few hours each week at my old job tying up those loose ends from two months ago.)

For the most part, everything has been pretty much as I expected: you go, you stop (usually), you need to drive for everyone else on the road, you need to know the city and the suburbs and you need to know how to fix broken tram bits as they invariably break.  And perhaps most importantly: the work doesn’t come home with me.  Once I’m out the door, that’s it until I return.  I’m loving that greatly.

What has actually surprised, then?

Acceleration. When the tram is empty and conditions are dry (but pretty much no other time), with full throttle you can get from zero to sixty pretty quickly—that is, significantly faster than surrounding traffic.

Magic invisibility. When cars and pedestrians don’t want to see you, they simply don’t see you—or even hear you.  This is particularly bad in the city, but applies everywhere else too at times.  You can be sitting 30cm behind a car (or indeed, a person with earphones on) that is blocking your clearance dinging away to no avail.  Luckily, the C class trams also have a car-like horn.  That has proven to be effective.

Rich people behaviour. The most “antagonising” car drivers haven’t actually been P platers in utes, but middle-aged drivers in BMWs, Audis and Mercs.  I’m not sure whether this is just a side effect of driving through relatively rich areas like Kew and Balwyn, but I just cannot wrap my head around the mindset that these people appear to have: “I’m late for my cheese tasting.  I’ll just cut in front of this 40-tonne vehicle going down a hill.  It wouldn’t dare hit me; I’m driving a special, expensive car and hence am above the laws of physics.”

Taxi drivers. A lot of them have always been pretty bad in my experience as a tram passenger, a car driver and a city pedestrian, but the way so many of them so aggressively pull U-turns in such close proximity of approaching trams, I am astonished that there are so few accidents.  They also frequently like to block an intersection (and hence my tram) for complete light cycles, presumably thinking that if they do so they’ll get somewhere quicker.  That’s when they get a horn in the face for the next 60 seconds.  I like to pretend that it might teach them.

Lack of adhesion. Steel wheels on steel tracks (circular object on a flat plane—essentially infinitesimal contact) have poor grip at the best of times, but once drops of rain start hitting the tracks, it’s so much worse.  I’ve already gone into a skid several times, even sliding through two stops in a row on one occasion.  Even more frightening is when you try to move off on an uphill slope and start moving backwards because in the process of spinning the wheels forwards, all grip has been lost.

Timetables. All things considered, it really isn’t easy at all to keep a tram on time.  Bad traffic, poor track adhesion, ignorant road users, people holding doors open—delays of a few seconds all the way along a trip compound into 29-minute delays, and then you have to kick everyone off so you can start heading back in the other direction and that makes people sad.  More experienced/senior tram drivers generally seem to break a lot of internal rules (like crossing certain pieces of track at certain low speeds) in an attempt to mitigate these delays.

Indignant car drivers. Sometimes things go wrong enough that you need to pull up in the middle of the road (…obviously) and transfer all of the passengers onto another tram.  Cars, obviously, have to wait while this occurs.  And boy, do they like that.  And as they finally speed past, they tell you how much they like it—while falling victim to the Doppler effect and the sheer comedic value that that adds.  So ultimately, it becomes more of a treat than an insult.

Passengers so far have been pretty good.  I’m hoping that this one will mostly be a case of “get what you give” in that if you’re not hostile or a smart arse towards them, they’ll be civil right back.  I’m sure that there’ll be exceptions to this, though.

All in all, I’m happy and I’m looking forward to whatever may happen from this point forwards.  Watch out for me on the 109, 48 and 31 routes as of Monday morning, bright and early.

I have a week and a bit off after that between this job and the next, during which I’ll be pretty much free for all.

My nose and throat are chock full of carbon.  I’m not sure whether this is due to some sort of internal combustion in my head triggered by receiving this offer, or because I left a candle alight in my bedroom overnight.  I’m hoping it’s the latter.

In other news, my CFS has relapsed.  I’m going to be laying low while that sorts itself out.

With this decision made, my notice has been handed in at work and now I must decide how the 40 hours a week of keeping the roof over my head will soon be spent.  (Not that that roof will always keep my head dry, as it turns out.)  And the fact that “something completely different” comprises countless possibilities is somewhat daunting.

I’d like something that gets me away from a desk.  Something that involves movement.  Something that gets me dealing directly with people.  Something for which I can dress up a little, maybe.  Something that can present the opportunity for advancement.  Something that doesn’t drain me of all of my mental and physical energy.  And perhaps most importantly (at least for now), something that can’t come home with me once I punch out for the day.

Part of me wants to take this opportunity to scratch some itches and dabble (or maybe even settle) in some areas that interested me before computers decided to monopolise the picture.  I’ve loved trains and trams for as long as I can remember; it would be awesome to get involved there somehow.  I’m booked in for a Medium Rigid licence training course; perhaps I could look into some other facet of the transport industry.

Anything that won’t have me staring at a computer screen for hours at a time will be nice, though.

With almost suspiciously good timing, a real estate agent who is tasked with finding a new tenant for my apartment has asked me to get in touch if I might be interested in becoming a Property Manager.  That role looks like it might fit all of the criteria I’ve listed above.

I wonder what other employment ideas I’m missing right now?

With mental energy left after work, I’ll be in a better position to do something productive outside business hours.  It’d be nice to work on some personal programming projects and release some of my work to the open source community.  I have some ideas for some financial modules I could release on CPAN.

Or, you know, I could reacquaint myself with some friends and family who must certainly feel long forgotten by now after months (and in some cases, years) of neglect.

It’s going to be an interesting few months.  That is pretty much the only guaranteed constant for now.

What should you do when a light fitting in your apartment starts gushing litres of water?

You know, besides race to remove thousands of dollars of electronics from the area, along with your birth certificate and whatever other important documentation you may have on your desk because you’re in the middle of moving house?

Had this happened just an hour later, it would have been right in the middle of my real estate inspection.  Gold.

Had it happened even later, I may not have even been here to save my stuff.  Poor form, apartment; poor form.

We have previously established that my appearance alone (or perhaps the way I walk) tells people that I don’t approve of rape.  What is it about the appearance of my upper body that makes me seem so unlikely to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

Mind you, given that the selection process was clearly more than just random, I’m sure I’d be asking the inverse question if I were pulled over.  Since I go to no effort to look nice for work though, I think I’d be less surprised in that scenario.