I returned to Sydney from Melbourne just a little over two weeks ago. I had been living in Melbourne for about a little over two years, and Sydney is where I spent most of my childhood, teens, and patches of my 20’s. I’ll be leaving Sydney for Newcastle in a month or so, but for now I live in Sydney. You forget and misremember some of a cities quirks in just a couple of years.
Something about Sydney has never felt like home to me. It has always been a little hard to articulate, but I have certainly tried to. Sydney has always felt a little corporate to me, the city streets of the inner Sydney always painted by a palate of business-casual. Despite living in such a gorgeous city, it would be unwise to expect the average resident to be friendly. People rush around, doing their best to disregard everyone around them. I grew up here, I knew well enough how to survive here, but I never felt as though it was where I am meant to be.
Since being back, my primary way of engaging with the city is through the shifts I have been picking up at an Axe Throwing place. I had a job in Melbourne as an Axe Throwing Instructor, which is definitely random, but I answer an ad on Facebook and got the job. I’ve been doing it for about a year and half, and when I left Melbourne I got offered some shifts by the Sydney venue of the same franchise.
It is through this very specific lens that I am making my following observations. Having worked in a Sydney and Melbourne venue having worked the same, strange job is making me notice differences between the cities.
The first thing I suppose I’m noticing is thee staff. In Melbourne, I found that people were pretty easy to get along with, so long as you asked them questions about themselves. People in Melbourne, normally, are pretty enthusiastic to talk about themselves, which I suppose I found easy to navigate.
Having returned to Sydney, I suppose I’m finding something else. People aren’t as approachable, generally, which I suppose aligns with what I remember of Sydney. Interestingly, though, I find if you can break through their tough exterior they actually are in some ways, kinder. It is as though as it is unnatural for them to expect that another person would be friendly and kind, which is an expectation I have of Sydney, too. If you treat them with kindness, though, they seem more likely to appreciate it, more likely to ask questions of you, more likely to connect authentically.
I base this off of a pretty small sample size, I have just found with certainly not all, but a few of the Sydney staff if you show them kindness and authenticity, they will return it to you in a way I didn’t recognise as much.
Next, let’s talk about the customers. Because this is such a huge difference between Melbourne and Sydney. In Melbourne, it was very, very rare for me to feel as though I didn’t like a customer. I regularly hosted private events like bucks and corporate parties, these lasting two hours. In two hours, you have a lot of opportunities to make it known that you are unlikable. This is pretty remarkable, then, that in Melbourne very few people behaved in ways I would describe as unpleasant. People had a healthy respect for what you were trying to do, and often appreciated the efforts.
This certainly can be the case in Sydney, I have done somewhere between 10 and 15 private events since being back in Sydney, and probably most have been pleasant to run. But pretty much all of the worst private events I have ever run have also been since being here in Sydney.
It is worth mentioning it is mid December, meaning right in the thick of “Work Christmas Party” season. This means I’m getting to see a decent cross section of the working population of Sydney. Let me tell you something, there are some diiiiiiicks in this city.
On my second day working at Sydney, I had these finance bros, and with maybe two exceptions they pretty much all tried to pressure me to give them favourable results. Implying this is a winning mindset in these kind of industries. “Come on, that’s 5 points, just give me 5 points man.” A natural and instinctual way of communicating. There are people like this in Melbourne, too, people who get pissy when they are not given the desired result. But there was a layer to the way these guys did it that felt uniquely gross.
I think three of four days ago, I had these landscape gardening tradies, and fuck they were cunts. Constantly talking over explanations, they literally started drinking 15 minutes after we started (At 11.30am) because they couldnt stand to be sober. I was running this event with another guy, and this other guy started trying to banter with the dudes like, “if you didn’t start drinking already, you’d have a chance to prove yourself”. This guy just kind of sneered, leaned in with a slack jaw and just kept saying, “can’t hear you, mate, can’t hear you.” It was cunty.
Just yesterday I had a group of dudes who kept making jokes to the effect of, “nah, practise shots are gay” and jokes about the sizes of their penises. These dudes were like late 30’s early 40’s. It was the only real banter they had between each other, which was a little depressing to see.
Comparing this with private events that I would run in Melbourne, I could pretty much count on enjoying them. Here in Sydney, I have found them to be a bit of a slog.
I have to talk about the difference in heat between Sydney and Melbourne, holy shit. The Sydney location is in a large, black warehouse that has a total of three fans and no aircon. Given that, I’ve been noticing the heat a little more closely than if I had just been at home. But Jesus Christ, the heat in Sydney can be truly insane. Working in that location, especially if you’re working an 8 to 10 hours day, you can pretty much expect to be saturated in a fine sheen of sweat lining your every core. I had to start wearing talcum powder to stop the sweat chafing I’d get. Add to that the way the Sydney venue has utilised it’s space, there are so many bottle neck areas that are horrendously claustrophobic when overpopulated (a good parable for the city of Sydney itself).
There is something else I wanted to mention. I can’t help but notice I find the people of Sydney more attractive. With the women, I get struck so much more often than I remember in Melbourne, being really struck by a pretty or an alluring outfit. With the men, I’m noticing that the average Sydney man seems to put a lot more effort into working out. Sydney itself is a very pretty city, but I guess I kind of forgot, so to are the people.
In some ways it’s exciting, In the last two weeks I have felt that internal tickle of seeing a beautiful woman so many more times than I had in Melbourne in the past two months. On the other hand, and forgive the cliche, but it’s hard not to be threatened by the competition. While I am by no means obese, I’m also definitely not in phenomenal shape, I never have been and frankly don’t aspire to do so. It is difficult to not feel a tiny bit inadequate.
Add to this, too, that I am having to remember a difference between Melbourne and Sydney that I noticed a few years ago. The people of Melbourne are a slightly more curious people, it is not all together abnormal for a strange to steal a glance at you, nor for you to steal a glance of your own. I suppose I had grown accustomed to this, receiving the occasional ego boost of a pretty girl looking your way, the occasional thrill of a moment of shared eye contact.
It is difficult to not notice differences between two cities, perhaps to mourn some quirks of where it is that you left. I don’t find Sydney as easy to be in, maybe that is a good way of putting it. I find though that perhaps the reward of staying with this toughness are greater, though. Sydney is a beautiful place full of beautiful people. People won’t be perhaps as forthright in showing you the beauty they have inside as in other places, but if you are patient, there is that beauty, too.
I find Melbourne easier and more straight forward to navigate, though your rewards for navigating it can be sometimes skin deep. A city where you can be friendly with everyone, but rely on very few.
The same is true in Sydney, it would be unwise to rely on anyone and everyone. There is something slightly more transparent in the way the people of Sydney consort themselves, knowing who to trust is perhaps that little bit easier, even if you have to work that little bit harder to get to know someone in the first place.
I don’t know why I feel compelled to voice this, I have no intention of staying in Sydney. Since I am here, though, why not consider this city I have for so long called home. I get to see her in new and familiar shades.