After the job is before the trip

Hello and greetings from the other end of the world!

Now that it's coming to the final stage of my first job, I would like to tell you again what has happened recently and what my everyday life looks like here. Since my last report, I have been working diligently for Ace six times a week and, of course, earned some money.

As mentioned before, after what felt like an eternity of just sweeping, we finally moved on to a new 'discipline': wire lifting. At first, I thought, 'Man, this is easy', but now my opinion has definitely changed. I'll tell you more about that later. Besides wire lifting, there was something else that was new to all of us: fruit picking. We had to remove the dried grape bunches from the grapevines, all of them. However, the instructions from Roger, our supervisor, were somewhat confusing. At first, he said, 'If four or five grapes are missed in a row, the row must be reworked unpaid.' Then, when our pace was too slow for him, he had a real fit of rage and scolded us in front of the whole group, wondering how it could take us so long. At that time, one row took me about 4 hours, and I was in the middle range. He said that anyone who takes more than 3 will be fired in the future. Supposedly, he has 70 people waiting in the wings, just waiting to replace us. Then he showed us how he imagined it. The catch was that he missed grapes on almost every plant. He dryly commented, 'If you leave something hanging on every third plant, it's okay!' Note: A row consists of 225-280 plants. So much for the topic '4 mistakes are too many' 😅 And of course, no one was fired, even though many were still behind the time limit. During the fruit picking period, I also had to say goodbye to Jeremy and Thomas from France, with whom I used to drive to work every day and who are now somewhere near Christchurch. Since then, I have been driving in Roger's van, where only Germans sit. That means, I speak German in 95% of the cases at work. Not exactly the point 😕 But I get along well with the others, although I am unfortunately the only one from Peace Haven. This time also includes one of the hardest weeks of my life, as we had to work overtime for a week. It was then the rule that I was allowed to get up at 6:15, was picked up at 7:00, had to work until 20:00, and then was home around 20:30. The first two-thirds of the day were dedicated to fruit picking, and at the end, sweeping and wire lifting. Sometimes I also had to go shopping, which means that there was hardly anything left except dinner in the evening. It was awful, I tell you! But it was well paid, of course 😆 In the meantime, I also met Nadine again, whom I already knew from the East Coaster of Stray. Among other things, we spent Sundays together by the river or had meals together.

But recently, things went back to normal - at least at work. We now have regular hours again and switched completely to wire lifting a few days ago, which is quite intense in the long run. On the one hand, the wires are sometimes twisted and crossed, so if you're unlucky, you have to constantly untangle them. On the other hand, sometimes it takes some strength to push a wire under tension upwards. But the worst are the clips into which the wires are hooked, as it is often incredibly difficult to remove the wires, which we have to do because we have to hook them into other clips afterwards. And of course, let's not forget that wire lifting involves covering long distances. Recently, we walked 19 kilometers in 6.5 hours during work! Normally, we work 7.5 hours, so that's probably around 22 on average. Luckily, it hasn't been very hot lately, so it didn't take too much of a toll. That changed this week, as summer is now coming at full speed. A real shocker came on Tuesday when we were introduced to Richard, who is apparently responsible for personnel decisions at Ace. He then gave a speech to our group, saying that he had been observing each of us for a few minutes. Then he named five people whose work he thought was good and told everyone else that they would be fired if they didn't work faster. In response to that, we all sprinted like crazy through our rows during the next round, trying to keep our jobs. That was too much for him again. Seriously, this back and forth is really getting on my nerves, especially since no one actually gets fired in the end. It's all just pressure to get better performance. By the way, we now occasionally also work in vineyards on sloping terrain. Sometimes it's tough to climb the steep slopes. But these vineyards are located in really beautiful landscapes. So it can happen that when there is no supervisor nearby, photos are taken during work 😀

Last week, things were not quite normal in the hostel. It started with some people being too loud in the kitchen again. The neighbors complained, which made Kevin lose his temper. He came into the kitchen angrily to give a loud speech. In the end, he asked the group, 'Does anyone else see it differently?' To which one person, who was sitting right next to Kevin completely drunk, asked, 'What did you actually say?' That was the final straw for Kevin, who immediately kicked the person out of the hostel, and that late in the evening. But it got even worse. As I was lying in my bed, looking for possible WWOOFing hosts, my roommate Simon suddenly came into the room, followed by five people, one of whom was completely out of control. He first shouted and then kicked our bedroom door off its hinges. At first, I just thought, 'What the hell is going on now? 😨', I was totally shocked and felt like I was in the wrong movie. Later, I was told that the South American guy who had gone crazy had given Simon 300 NZD for weed. Simon had placed a group order with several people, totaling 1800 NZD. However, he was scammed and didn't receive anything despite paying the money. Tough luck, but anyone who smokes weed has only themselves to blame. Especially since for that much money, you can do so many great things instead of just wasting it on weed. Anyway, two minutes after the door attack, the police suddenly showed up. The kicker was again that Kevin didn't call them because of this incident, but because the person he had kicked out wasn't packing their stuff fast enough. The police left without arresting anyone, and the situation calmed down somewhat. However, we had to spend the night with the door open, which was definitely not ideal in the cold temperatures 😣 As a result of 'Kitchengate', our kitchen is now closed from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am, which is quite suboptimal because you might want to get something to drink before going to bed or not be finished shopping by 9:00 pm. After all, you have to go over a kilometer to the supermarket, and that can take quite a while. At least the door was repaired after one night. Kevin also doesn't seem to care that 90% of the residents smoke weed, which is also illegal here.

Instead of smoking or drinking, I prefer to spend my evenings with meaningful things, when I have enough time in the evenings. I usually watch movies on my laptop or try to find a job or a WWOOFing host for the beginning of 2017, which unfortunately is much more difficult than I thought 😭 But even if it doesn't work out as I hope, I have a plan B in mind, which I would rather not use because I really want to experience farm life. But starting on Sunday, it's time to travel again (on Sunday I will go to Picton, and on Tuesday the Stray tour starts from there), and I promise you that it will be worth reading my reports. I am certain that I will experience a lot of exciting and thrilling things during the Christmas season and I am especially looking forward to the shared celebrations with the Stray group on the 25th of December and on the 1st of January. It's just a shame that there is no Christmas atmosphere here at all. There is some Christmas decoration in the supermarkets and other stores, and you can buy chocolate or cookies, but you don't notice anything on the streets, and life here goes on just like before. But it also feels weird to celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer. Apart from that, I have discovered a few beautiful spots in the city, such as the center, a small park, and the rugby stadium, as you can see from the photos.

In any case, I already wish you all a nice remaining Christmas season 🎄❄⛄ The next report will hopefully come shortly before Christmas Eve 😉

See you soon,

Your Max