I haven't wrote a blog in a while and the main two reasons for this was that I was busy and that internet places like the hostel and the library were troublingly unavailable. So in this blog I will tell all about how I got the job, how I hated it so and why and also why I'll be quitting for better reasons the day I get paid. I went on gumtree and searched for jobs. This time of year there are no good jobs. This is something I found out while listening to triple J radio in my car (didn't think I'd be typing 'in my car'). I found this job handing out yellow pages. There really weren't that many jobs and the ones that were online you either need experience in something or you have to find jobs that are odd... like handing out yellow pages. So I applied for that one and then kept looking because that job didn't start until the 4th of January and they wouldn't get back to me until later anyway. So I found this other job which was fruit picking, tomato picking. I saw the pay; 70c per kilo and as I hadn't worked on a farm before I assumed... don't do this!
So I rang the guy and noted that the job required no previous experience and no training and other potentially frightening things. I was like, it still pays money right? Well let's get to it then. So the man at the other end of the phone was a young Chinese man who spoke better than broken engrish so that was good. I organised a date to go to the farm and planned to start work that day, something he told me I didn't have to do. I got in my car on that day and headed up the road. It was funney because on the map it was straight up the road, the highway. I literally took two turns and then was on the highway and headed almost 40mins up the road, so I couldn't get lost. I was looking for a bridge but as I got to the area I realised that the dark colour on my phone map wasn't a river but bushland... so I felt silly but started looking for the right turning... to find I had stopped off on the one before it. A few moments later and I was heading on the right road. The farm isn't far from the highway but when you reach it you get very confused. I felt out of my depth and felt that everyone would know that. As I walked in I thought everyone was looking at me but instead no one said anything. I made it to the office and met the David in person. He showed me a place to find a car park.
After setting the car there I talked to a nice Korean lady about the job but it was hard to get every thing I wanted to know from her and mostly pay day eluded me. Then we got a lift on a quad bike into the fields. There were a bunch of people there and I should have picked up on how chinese men were driving the tractors and chinese women were picking the tomatoes. The only other people there were backpackers from France, Italy and the like (some UK too). So basically David showed me a bucket, a line of tomato vines and told me to pick the yellow ones up (so yellow, orange and red). I tried my hand and searched wildly for the hidden tomatoes. No matter how hard I tried I only got just over two boxes in five hours. Putting that in perspective each box is roughly $14 so we're looking at about $30 for five hours work with is $6 an hour... now considering the minimum wage is $15.50 I felt rather cheated. So did I go back?
Yes is the short answer. I had started and I found out that I only get paid on the 2nd of Jan, so in order to get that $30 I had to come back anyway and with nothing better to do I decided to try and prove a point. I wanted to see how much I could bang out and assuming $14 (one box) was minimum wage I tried to bash out a box an hour. Now for the first four hours I didn't do this but then suddenly at 11 o'clock there were tomatoes everywhere on this one row. I could literally sit there for mintues plucking them off of one place. I also discovered that in bunches you could collect 4, 5 or 6 tomatoes on one go which improves your rate by like 600%... so you can see how you might make $14 an hour and get 10 boxes a day. But this work is hot and bothersome and I spend all day thinking about how I should be doing a geology job and using my mind more. I realised that the only way you could do this job is if you planned to do it all along without any other plans. It's like working in a supermarket as your life isn't going anywhere there either but it is money and you do have free time. I returned in order to waste time basically and even though I have to drive all that way up there its not like I'd be doing anything better here... working in 38 degree though, especially around christmas time when peps are all talking about how cold it is back home and what presents they get... its like I've been removed from the world and am looking in, not a good feel. I wanted the yellow pages job because at least then I'm not bending over and being dependant on tomatoes being there, houses don't hide behind vines! Picking fruit is hard work basically and unless it pays well its not a good idea because it's pay is hard to make and the heat and dust and dirt and heat and people who can't speak english... I have a problem in this country backpacking as my English is too good so people can't understand me, figure that one out o_O
No comments:
Post a Comment