As a furniture removalist I learned all mattresses are stained, and that’s fine

You’ll never catch me owning a glass dining table now I’ve moved so many. But it was the people I worked alongside who made the job what it was Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email My “wilderness years” began when I lost a job I loved hosting a daily radio show in Melbourne, then spent a decade slowly rebuilding my broadcasting career. That meant most of my on-air appearances went back to being unpaid, and the rent wasn’t going to cover itself. To survive financially, I spent 10 years saying yes to almost every job I stumbled across: pub trivia host, wedding DJ, babysitter, copywriter, documentary reviewer, arts event moderator. But the gig that changed my life was the years I spent as a furniture removalist. I decided to work as a removalist because I thought it might be a cheaper alternative to hiring a personal trainer. Better than that, because I’d be the one getting paid to get ripped. Then the pandemic hit, all my entertainment and event-based work disappeared overnight, and suddenly I was a 39-year-old woman spending her days hauling other people’s lives around. Some of what I learned was about the furniture itself. For example, you’ll never catch me o