Nice to see another kiwi lost in England coding in Perl :)

I don't have too much advise to offer on this, other than if you're a professional coder, try to find work in an environment with people more experienced than you (not that many of us have the luxury of choice when it comes to jobs). I worked for two years in such an environment, and my Perl is now something resembling reasonble.

Oh and also, although OO can work a lot of the time, one of the strengths of Perl is that you don't have to use it. There are a lot of times where a more procedural approach a lot cleaner, so don't get too caught up in the OO hype :)