Images

LIANA CORBINO

“I feel that a house should represent the people living in it, so I try to use my expertise to create great interiors that reflect the home owners”.

I am an interior designer, and currently my role is the Assistant Design Manager at the Gallerie in Port Melbourne.

I was always into the art subjects at high school, doing art and graphic design. At first, I didn’t know where my creativity was going to take me, but in year 12 it became a bit clearer. I loved working with colours, I loved fashion and design – everything to do with houses. While my friends were buying Girlfriend and Dolly magazines and watching Beverly Hills 90210, I was buying Home and Belle, and watching Better Homes and Gardens.

So I applied for an interior design and decoration course at RMIT for a 2 year diploma. I chose it over a degree because it seemed more hands-on, not as technical. I wanted to know more about soft furnishings, colours and styling a home, rather than where to put a wall. Continue reading →

TENDAI EVANS MANGWIRO

“Going home empty-handed was not an option”

I am a chef de partie at MoVida Next Door in Melbourne.

My first passion was IT. I’ve always loved doing it, starting with high school. It was really interesting, especially in Zimbabwe where I am from, because it is a developing country and it’s a relatively new thing there.

After I finished my A-levels , I did a graduate diploma in IT at National Institute of Technology. NIT is an Indian college, but they have a subsidiary in Zimbabwe. Originally I wanted to be a systems engineer, but I ended up doing network engineering at NIT, because in order to do systems you had to have really high grades, which I lacked unfortunately! Continue reading →

JONATHAN CARTER

“I got my first death threat just after a month, and being young, it hit me hard.”

My last job was as a Senior Dispute Resolution Manager with a big insurance company.

My job was to resolve disputes with customers – mainly defending the company to the financial ombudsman.

I wasn’t particularly focused in high school, there was a lot going in my family – mom was often away, dad had depression. That made studying difficult, and I ended up with a low score that limited my choice of university courses. I chose to do a course in writing, which I actually enjoyed.

I completed the course in 4 years. We were writing short stories and movie scripts. By the end of the course, however, I realized how hard it was to have a writing career. Not many Aussie authors, especially of short stories, were or are published today. Continue reading →

ELIZABETH LISTON

“I get excited about new gadgets, about making something work in a new way. You do a little “whoo-hoo!”

I work as a contact centre specialist for a telecommunications company.

At high school, I did a business course that involved work placement for a chartered accountant, and at the end of that, they offered me a job. I finished school on Friday and started work on Monday! I was 17.

There, I got to use one of the first Wang minicomputers – not really ‘mini’ by today’s standards. This was late 70’s. I ended up being the data entry person, a new role at the time. Continue reading →

SARAH MOONEY

“I wanted to see how far I can push myself and how many boundaries I could break through.”

I’m currently living and travelling in Peru, making and selling jewellery and having amazing adventures.

I was born on a cattle farm in Shepparton. We moved to Melbourne when I was in high school, and that’s where I fell in with a rough crowd of kids. I stopped doing schoolwork, started wagging, drinking, getting into fights. I became an absolute terror, my parents and teachers couldn’t do anything with me. Continue reading →

ANDREW HARRISON

“What’s my next challenge?”

I am a photographer. I have a business called Passion8 Photography.

In the 70’s, I went to the famous experimental school, Ardoch High, in St Kilda. We called teachers by their first names and only had four core subjects, the rest were electives.

At 15, I decided I was ready to live on my own, so I got a flat and left school to do an upholstering apprenticeship. I loved making furniture from scratch, sewing, working with my hands. I learnt how to sew in high school, actually. One of the electives was Machinery, and a few of my mates and I thought, “Yeah, let’s get into machinery!” We rocked up and it was sewing machinery. Continue reading →

SUNNY GILBERT

“I went from cooking in some of the best restaurants in the world to parmigianas and fish’n chips.”

I am an Executive Chef at Austin’s in Prahran, and also a part-owner of The Window Corner Cafe in Reservoir.

I didn’t have a concrete plan to go into hospitality. After school, I got heavily involved with the marketing and promotion side of nightclubs, which wasn’t the healthiest job as you can imagine – late nights, drinking and all else that comes with it! And after a little while of that lifestyle, my mum, in her wisdom said: “Son, you better go and get a job where you can get a feed.” I was pretty skinny at the time.

So I went to my cricket club and asked if they had a kitchen hand position for me. They did and I found myself working with John Walsh, who was big news, big time in Darwin – he used to work at the Lodge for Malcolm Fraser as his personal chef. John was my introduction to a hard-working, strict kitchen environment. Continue reading →

CLIFF RAUX

“That’s the best thing you can do – your primary function as a human being, is to love and connect. I do that through music.”

I am a Musician – Drummer / Singer / Songwriter / Producer.

I was born into a musical family, my dad is a drummer/bass player and my mum used to be an opera singer and a dressmaker. My parents exposed us to music at an early age. Dad used to take me to his band practices, and I’d always be mesmerized by the drummer. I started playing drums when I was 3, mainly because I was drawn to them, but also because I liked to bang things loudly.

As a kid, I loved to watch old movies just to listen to the soundtracks: there was something about the music that made me feel as though I was seeing what I heard, like colours. It was my own little world; I started going to sleep with headphones on just to be in that world all the time, which I still do to this day.

My family was very much a working class household, so we couldn’t afford much, like actual music lessons. Continue reading →

SUSIE *

“I got to the stage where I’ve been flying for over twenty years, and I needed a change.”

I juggle two roles: a flight attendant and a real estate agent.

I didn’t do very well in high school as I was more interested in boys and partying. After high school, I found I didn’t have any real job prospects. So I went to work for my dad, who was a chemist. He trained me up to do dispensary work, fill out scripts and do customer service, which allowed me to get a better role within a bigger chemist franchise two years later.

I worked there for seven years, progressing within the company. By the time I was 25, I was managing the whole branch, doing the payroll, buying stock and overseeing staff. I did enjoy it, but knew I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life. Continue reading →

What I Did / What I Do

Personal experience stories focusing on work and career.