I knew I was about to be sacked and felt no fear. Almost five years I’d been a content public servant, drifting from one department to another. Unfortunately I’d only ever been on temporary contracts, and those contracts were being torn up first.
The new LNP government run by Campbell Newman was sacking public servants without consideration for experience, productivity and abilities. I didn’t worry. There were other things to think about.
In April I became a father for the first time. Days after Angus was born my boss couldn’t guarantee my contract would be extended.
Angus was four weeks old when my boss delivered the news with compassion and a little bit of attitude. I hate what they’re doing, she said.
I assured her not to worry. Swapping business attire for a t-shirt and tracksuit pants wouldn’t be a problem. I wanted three months off to spend time with Kristine and Angus.
Besides, I had plenty of t-shirts. And there were things I needed to learn.
It didn’t work out how I wanted. Three days after losing my job I was offered a three month contract on the Sunshine Coast with the same department I’d just been sacked from. After much consideration I re-swapped my t-shirt determination for business shirts.
Instead of commuting from Brisbane each day, I lived in two houses for those three months, spending four nights a week with my parents. Kristine gained an understanding of what single mothers face every day while I played absent father.
Halfway through my new contract I knew it would not be renewed. Once again I embraced the end date. It meant time off, time to do some work around the house.
It didn’t take long to figure out my attitude to free time had changed. When I was employed the weekends were for building shelves, cupboards, repairing things and painting. With ample time the first month was spent in a slow mood.
Instead of being productive, domestic chores I once crammed into a weekend I crammed into a week. It took two days to mow the lawns. I spent three days renewing the vegetable patch and it still wasn’t finished. A job like that used to take six hours.
Kristine and I spent an afternoon cleaning out the spare bedroom. Two days later the room looked just as busy. We’d wasted our time.
Half of the window frames still need painting and the stairs need a few screws. The jobs I once constantly worked at were being ignored.
One Friday in October, Brisbane was hit by violent winds that blew one of my gates off the post, cracking it badly. That’s a two hour job I wasn’t bothered with. It was just something else to do when I didn’t want to do anything.
The first month of unemployment wasn’t totally idle. I had to relearn basic tasks like vacuuming, mopping and washing clothes. I’m getting better but kept forgetting to check Kristine’s pockets for used tissues.
I spent a week ignoring dust before relenting and going hunting with a cloth and polish. When the job was done the furniture looked new. Now I wipe surfaces each day, usually with my fingers to see if they leave a mark.
If my fingers leave a mark I find Kristine and tell her the house is dusty.
I changed the tap washers and installed new taps in the laundry, fixing a leak I’d neglected for months. I boxed up hundreds of sport books, making room in the book shelves for baby toys.
Those toys remain scattered all over the lounge floor. I also washed the car and vacuumed under the TV cabinet. Kristine was impressed.
There’s no doubt I was being lazy but I was also spending time with Angus and trying to take the pressure off Kristine.
After two weeks of doing dishes I figured we needed a dishwasher. Optimistically we had plans for a new kitchen drawn up, a basic one I would install myself. The prices were reasonable, but as the salespeople followed up on their quotes, Kristine was telling me not to do it.
My kitchen is about eighty years old. Everything works but it looks like the Millennium Falcon, a piece of junk.
I’ve learned new, valuable skills like changing nappies. My father Bill had four kids and never changed a nappy. My hopes at emulating his heroics were brutally destroyed days after Angus was born. I’m getting better at it but occasionally get poo on the change table, his legs and his clothes.
Kristine doesn’t understand how that can happen. Many times she has demonstrated how to fold a dirty nappy and dispose of it. I need to start paying attention. I’m not stuffing it up on purpose, though it seems pretty obvious.
Mostly I go outside when she says oh have you done a poo…
I didn’t register with Centrelink despite the urging of my friends and family. Mostly I couldn’t be bothered and I didn’t think it’d be hard to find a job. After a month my mate The Pole told me to do it, because Centrelink don’t backdate your date of unemployment.
‘I thought a smart fella like you would’ve known that,’ The Pole said.
I hadn’t. I talked to Kristine about registering and suggested I’d do it next week. She nodded and asked if I wanted her to go back to work. I waved that suggestion off. When Angus was born I wanted her to have a year off. Now I want her to have two years off. It’s best for his development to have her at home. It’s a bonus to have his father at home too.
I take Angus for a walk most days. He sits in a harness on my chest. It must be obvious to the locals I don’t have a job. One morning I said hello to a man waiting outside the vet.
‘Are you one of those house husbands,’ he asked.
‘I’m a Campbell Newman victim,’ I said.
He looked at me with a mix of sympathy and shame. ‘The same thing happened to my son,’ he said. ‘Good luck finding a job,’ he said without optimisim.
The worst thing about having a lot of time is doing nothing with it. As John Lennon sang, I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round. After I’d been unemployed for a month and I had applied for four jobs.
I spent a lot of time on the internet, ostensibly looking for work but usually reading about football, cricket or boxing. One afternoon I spent hours browsing eBay and Amazon, looking at boxing biographies I can’t buy until I get a job.
I haven’t read my phone bill email.
In late October I took Angus for a walk and we talked. ‘Queensland has the highest rate of unemployment in the country,’ I told him. ‘Daddy still doesn’t have a job, but it means I get to spend time with you and I like that better.’
By the time Angus was five months old I’d been sacked twice. I asked him if we should move to Melbourne. He didn’t seem to mind.
