Traffic Controller - Stop Spending Money, Go For The Best Backpacker Job

Hey folks!

Last weekend, my time as a traffic controller came to an end after eight long weeks of work. I stayed in Murchison all this time which makes this small village the place in New Zealand the one I've spent more time at than at any other place. Thus, it's not a surprise that a lot of things happened which I would like to tell you about in the following. I decided to split my entry into eight chapters:

1. How I got the job

2. The principles of the job

3. The JCL crew

4. Accommodation

5. Workers from other companies

6. Free time activities in Murchison

7. Trips

8. Conclusion

So let's start from the very beginning.

HOW I GOT THE JOB

As a consequence of the earthquake in November 2016, the road reaching from Christchurch to Picton via Kaikoura got severely damaged so that it had to be temporarily closed. This means that currently, all the traffic that used to go this way, including a high percentage of trucks, needs to go through the area around Murchison now. However, as the roads in this area weren't built for the size of trucks, they all need to be widened as quickly as possible so that there are numerous working sites between Christchurch and Picton at the moment. You need at least two TCs per site so a lot of new job opportunities arose literally out of nowhere. It's also a highly lucrative job: You work between 60 and 80 hours a week and don't need to pay for food and accommodation. As a backpacker, this job is the best you can get if you don't have any working experience or particular qualifications. Therefore, traffic controller has become an extremely popular backpacker job during the last six months. After looking for a job in Queenstown without any success, I decided to go to Christchurch to become a traffic controller, and after completing a one day TC course in Christchurch, I got the necessary license. Unfortunately though, I really struggled to get a job for two weeks before I finally got in touch with an agency called FS Trades. I went there on a Thursday, and after passing a drug test and getting inducted by my future employer, JCL Asphalt, I signed the contract the next day. Three days later, I was ready to start working when we met at the JCL yard at 4 am. From there, the JCL van took me and my fellow citizen Celina who started on the same date as me to a beautiful place called Springs Junction where day one was just about to begin.

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE JOB

Once we had arrived at Springs Junction, we were welcomed by Brent, our STMS (Site Traffic Management Supervisor). He took us to the nearby working site and a few minutes later, Celina and I were standing on the back of the Traffic Management truck, our task being to set up the site. From the course, I had a rough idea of what a site looks like in general, but without Celina's help – she had already worked in Murchison a couple of weeks ago – I wouldn't have known what to do at all. Let me concisely explain you the principles of setting up a site. At first, you need to put up some signs: Men working together with 30 km/h ahead, a flag man indicating you may need to stop soon and temporary 30 km/h signs, the distance between all signs being 100 meters. After the speed limit sign, the so called threshold begins. That's the zone the traffic needs to wait in when it's getting stopped by a TC whose task it is to turn to paddle from “GO” to “STOP” and vice versa. The next part of the site is the taper, a diagonal cone line reaching from the outside to the middle of the road to ensure that all traffic enters the life lane whereas the other lane is restricted to the JCL crew to do their road works. In our company's case, these road works consisted of widening the road by doing some preparation one day and asphalting the prepared space the next day. Between the two tapers, the so called mid lane is set up which is done by putting a cone down every ten meters. Once that's all done, you jump on the stop/go paddle and start doing traffic control. The principle is super simple. As there is only one life lane, the traffic can only be sent from one end of the site at a time while the traffic at the other end is waiting in the threshold. The TCs communicate via radio. A typical conversation looks like this: “Person A: My last vehicle is a silver Toyota, 234.” “Person B: Copy, silver Toyota 234, I'm holding.” Once the last car arrives at the other end, person B says: “Received and sending” and sends their traffic. That's how traffic control works. Besides, I always tried to appear as friendly as possible, so I gave every single vehicle that passed me a big wave and a huge smile. This even led to Rachel, an STMS from another company, telling me: “You're the happiest TC I've ever seen.” You basically don't do anything else than that for a couple of hours, so work can obviously get boring from time to time. Luckily, us JCL TCs were allowed to listen to music during work and in addition, there were at least some drivers every day who talked to me while they were waiting in the threshold. Some particularly nice ones even gave me some food or drinks. In the late afternoon or early evening, all the cones need to be removed by putting them back onto the truck and the signs are either turned (if there's more work to do at the site the next day) or completely picked up (if all the work is done). Setting up or removing a site can be really exhausting and painful, especially if it's cold outside in the morning. My fingers felt like they were frozen more than once. During my time, work started at 6am during the first five weeks – in the end, this was changed to 6.30 – and we usually worked for 11 to 12 hours a day, regardless of the weather. In total, I worked for 541.5 hours on 47 working days, seven times from Monday to Saturday, once from Monday to Friday. I worked at two different places. The first one was Shenandoah which is about 30 km from Murchison and the second one was Springs Junction. It takes you approximately one hour to get there from Murchison. Very occasionally, when we were on one site with more TCs than we needed, we also helped on the site and did some basic manual labour.

THE JCL CREW

After starting work with Brent as my STMS and Celina as my TC partner, teams were changed after less than one week. Gabriel and Jens, the other German TCs, were more experienced than us so that Brent decided to put one experienced TC together with a less experienced one. He swapped me with Jens which meant that I was going to work with Gabriel for the next two weeks. Whereas Brent was constantly responsible for Jens and Celina, we had different STMSs during that time. At first, we worked with Jessie but then he left the company after a few days and was replaced by Kevin who didn't have a driver's license though so that he was downgraded to a TC very soon. He left after one week anyway. Dan took his place for the third and the beginning of the fourth week before a more steady period started. During the first three weeks, I learned a lot about traffic management. I have to admit that I had a couple of problems when I started doing the job. I was sometimes clumsy setting up the site or putting down the cones or simply didn't know what I was expected to do. Gabriel was a good teacher though. From time to time, he was – in my opinion - a bit too impatient (still far more patient than Brent though), but all in all, he did definitely help me to improve and to become good enough to be a teacher for Paul, my next TC partner who replaced Gabriel from week 4 on. At the same time, Kirsten was hired as our new permanent STMS. I was facing a completely new situation. After being in the role of the unexperienced TC for the last weeks, it was my new task to teach a beginner the principles of traffic management. And it actually worked out quite well. Of course, not everything went perfectly at the beginning. We made mistakes and from time to time, Kirsten got quite angry. But Paul and I got along with each other very well and our performances improved almost every day so that in the end, we had become a good, fast and reliable team. Kirsten was very pleased with our development and really sad that I was leaving JCL. She even bought me a 12 pack of beer after my last day in her team – super nice. Apart from the other TCs and my STMSs, I obviously got to know all the other crew members as well. Many of them are still quite young, such as Dylan, the project manager, James K., Joel, Jullian, Josh, Mik or Cameron whereas on the other hand, there are also some more experienced workers like Ian, Andrew aka Chewy, Paul, Craig or James T. Otherwise, we were joined by Emma and Thilo, two more German TCs, for a short time, but Emma left after two weeks and Thilo was transferred to the second JCL base in St. Arnaud. In general, nearly all the crew members were really friendly, easy-going and fun to be around and I got along with everyone pretty well. I couldn't have wished for better colleagues.

ACCOMMODATION

During my time in Murchison, I shared a house with three other Germans at a time. That's why the unofficial name of the house was the “German house”. Everyone had their own room, and in addition, we had a living room with oven and Sky TV. At first, I stayed with Celina, Jens and Gabriel. After three weeks, Paul replaced Gabriel and when Celina left one week earlier than me, Felix took her place. Celina got visited by her boyfriend Jannik quite often so there were a couple of days when we were five people in our house. It was generally nice to have our own house. The only major problem was that it was very cold inside so we always had to light a fire and the wood which was lying on the ground next to the entrance was sometimes really wet so that it was hard to make it burn. But with Jens's and Paul's good wood chopping and fire making skills – it was generally my task to carry the wood into the house - we managed to get a warm house on most of the days. Another thing which could have been better was the fact that we weren't reliably provided with breakfast although this was clearly stated in our contract. So I never had breakfast at home and the lunch box we got for work – and which was often not that good to be honest - had to be enough for both breakfast and lunch. We always had a good time at the house and I had a good relationship with everyone. Sometimes, we also had visitors at our house. I will tell you more about that soon.

WORKERS FROM OTHER COMPANIES

As I already said, there are numerous sites around Murchison at the moment so that there are obviously more companies which base their workers in Murchison than just JCL. First of all, there's Fulton Hogan, the company which determines all the rules and regulations all the other companies such as JCL, Men at Work or RJ Civil have to stick to. And if there are other workers, you obviously get to know some of them if you're there for eight weeks. The first one I met was another German TC called Jonas from Fulton Hogan. I also got to know Manuel und Fabian from the Fulton Hogan nightshift team and two Czech Fulton Hogan TCs, Hanka and Petra. They had all already been there for some weeks when I came to Murchison. Besides, I met Zac, a Kiwi, and Armin, another German. They both came to our house quite often. After a couple of weeks, we were joined by an Irish trio consisting of Danielle, her brother Marc and his girlfriend Laoise. Otherwise, there were Andy, Liam and Connor from England (all Fulton Hogan) and Mike, Braydon and Aaron from New Zealand. We sometimes had dinner and went to parties or on weekend trips together (more about that later on). They had totally different personalities but in general, they were all really nice people and I enjoyed their company.

FREE TIME IN MURCHISON

We didn't have that much free time during week days since we worked until the early evening, but at least we had around 3 hours left on an average day to have dinner and do something else. After work, we all had dinner at one of the two hotels that exist in Murchison, The Commercial and The Hampden. The Commercial was closed one week before I left though as a catering service for all the roadwork companies moved in there so that from now on, all the workers will be dining there every day. The food was usually really good and more than enough. After dinner, we sometimes went for one or more games of pool or went to the gym. Yes, there is a gym in Murchison. It's not very big and quite basic, but definitely good enough for a good workout. I went there with Jens, Gabriel and especially Paul quite often, about three times a week. Otherwise, the British and Irish Lions were on their tour through New Zealand during my first weeks in Murchison, so I got to see quite a lot of rugby games at the Hampden. We also had three community dinners at the Murchison Rugby Club which meant that we were allowed to take as much food as we wanted from a big buffet. All the workers came together for these dinners. After eating far too much, we were taught the basics of rugby by some of our JCL colleagues after the first dinner and after the second one, we played some basketball. On the Sundays I spent in Murchison, I usually took a look at some shops, walked through the village or just stayed at home with the others. On the second weekend, I took a walk up to the skyline of Murchison. It was quite a nice walk and you get a really good view from the summit. During the walk, I met Andy who then took me with him in his car to go for another walk (Johnston's Creek) which wasn't that good though, unfortunately.

During the final stages of my stay, there were quite a lot of parties. The first one was Celina's farewell party on a Thursday. We had some 15 guests at our house, most but not all of them being JCL colleagues, and a lot of fun playing some drinking games and sitting together. Almost everyone had to work the next day but no one really cared. So it wasn't a big surprise that the following day was one of the hardest I had during my entire time. When we had our daily briefing at the yard in the morning, I was literally sleeping with open eyes. I don't remember a single word that was said during the briefing. And I don't know how, but somehow Paul – he didn't have a hangover but he was ill – and I did quite a good job setting up the site. Kirsten later said she wouldn't have noticed that I had a hangover if I hadn't told her. Quite a miracle, given the fact that my legs felt like custard.

The next party was exactly one week later. I had been to the gym with Paul and one or way back, Braydon saw us and invited us to come to his birthday party. Paul was quite tired and didn't feel like going, so I joined Braydon and went to the house he stays at. And again, I saw quite a lot of well known faces. We had a good time together until something really annoying happened. Hanka opened a bottle and smashed the crown cork right towards my glasses so that the cork put a major scratch into one of my lenses. I was really angry after that, not with Hanka – it was an unlucky accident – but with the fact that my glasses were damaged, and it took me some time to calm down. Too much time for the owner of the house who made me leave just because I was angry. Totally exaggerated and unnecessary, in my opinion. I mean, neither had I broken or smashed anything nor had I fought or sworn at anyone. But never mind, I didn't want to get into trouble, so I just left the house. By the way, Hanka apologized several times and already paid for new glasses, so everything is all right.

Two days later, we had the next party at our house. Not everyone I would have loved to come was there, but we were enough people to have another good evening. Around 17 or 18 in total, I think. We played flunkyball and some card games and it was great to spend my last evening like this. I didn't drink that much though because I also had some big plans for the next morning. However, one glass of Bourbon Cola was enough to make me fall asleep on the couch during the party, so I went to bed quite early.

TRIPS

After four weeks, I went on my first real trip after starting work. I decided to go to Kaikoura for 1.5 days and had a brilliant time there. On Saturday, the weather was absolutely perfect and after reaching my destination in the morning, I decided to take a walk along the coast which took me a couple of hours. Kaikoura is located on the end of a peninsula so that it's surrounded by the ocean, and on the other side, there are mountains which are up to 2.000 meters high so I got some extremely nice views during the walk. I also saw loads of sea lions. The walkway took me along the cliffs so that I could see them relaxing in the sun from a very high position. On my way, I also met Yolene, a nice student from France, and completed the rest of the work with her. When we came back to the town, it was already getting dark and we went for dinner at one of the numerous fish n chips shops. Later on, I decided to go to a pub to watch the third and last game between the All Blacks and the Lions. It was the decisive game since the All Blacks had won the first game and the Lions the second one. The pub was filled with supporters of both teams and the atmosphere was really good. The game was extremely tight and exciting and eventually, it ended with a draw so that both teams sort of won the series. On Sunday, I went to the airport since I had booked a scenic whale watching flight. I jumped on a small plane with four other tourists and found myself above the ocean a few minutes later. And the flight was successful. We saw a big sperm whale for a couple of minutes before it disappeared into the depths of the ocean. After that, our pilot showed us Kaikoura and the surrounding landscape from above for a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, the weather was very cloudy so that the view wasn't as good as the day before. But hey, I got to see a sperm whale! And the price was allright since I had found a real bargain on the Internet. In the evening, I returned to Christchurch and stayed there until we met at the JCL yard at 4am.

On the following Saturday evening, I joined Paul, Jens, Armin and Zac for a trip to Nelson. We arrived there around 10pm and went to some different clubs. It may appear a little bit crazy to drive 130 km one way just to party a bit but there's generally not that much to do in Murchison on a Saturday evening, so why shouldn't we have some fun in a small city? In New Zealand, all the clubs close at 3am so we stayed in Nelson for some 5 hours and arrived at home in the middle of the night. In the next morning, I went to the Commercial to have breakfast while the others were still asleep. While I was eating my pancakes, a truck driver called Phil joined me and asked me if I wanted to go to Westport with him to see a seal colony. So I thought, why not, and jumped into his car. A bit more than an hour later, we had reached our destination. However, the problem was that we still had to walk for around half an hour before we could actually see the seals, and it was constantly raining outside. We had both been expecting that the seal colony would be right next to the parking lot. Anyway, we still decided to take the walk which actually featured some pretty good coastal views and then finally got to see the seals. It was really nice to watch them. They were playing in the high tides and apparently had quite a lot of fun. If the weather had been good, we would certainly have stayed longer, but the rain got worse and worse so we decided to head back to the car. When we arrived there, all our clothes were totally wet and it took almost a day until my jacket was dry again. But it was still worth going. I had never seen sea lions playing in the sea before and Phil was a good company and interesting to talk to.

One week later, we went to Nelson again, this time with some more people. Liam, Manuel, Fabian and Aaron joined us. Unfortunately, after we had arrived in Nelson – it was already quite late anyway – Aaron locked his car with the keys still being in there so no one could open the doors again. Therefore, we spent another thirty minutes discussing how to solve the problem. Eventually, we figured out a way to get the car opened by a car service without being charged, but it took them two hours to get to the carpark so that some of us didn't get to party before 2am. The others, including me, went to the first club around midnight, but that was still far too late. It had been better the week before since this time, we departed from Murchison too late.

The next morning, I was again the first one in the German house to get up, so I went to the Hampden alone to have breakfast there. While I was waiting for my food, I was joined by Aaron who told me he was taking some others on a day trip. As I didn't have any plans for that day yet, I asked if I could join the group and he said yes. So after having breakfast with Danielle, Laoise, Marc, Aaron, Andy and Jonas, we left Murchison to see some nice spots. The first one was Lake Rotoroa, one of the Nelson Lakes. It was nice even though there was big cloud on the horizon which prevented us from having a really good view. The next stop was a lookout a few kilometres further down the road. Then we went to Nelson itself – and got disappointed. The weather had been quite good in Murchison but the closer we came to Nelson, the worse it got. When we arrived in the city centre, the sky was totally grey and we had some light rain. Therefore, we just went to the Christ Church and had a look at it from the outside and spent our day looking through some shops and having lunch afterwards. In Danielle's and my opinion, it would have been a good option to go to an island close to Nelson, but apparently, the others didn't really feel like doing that. I also came up with the idea of taking a walk to the center of New Zealand, but the only one who would have liked to do that was Jonas so we dropped that idea as well. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the day trip and it was definitely the right decision to join the group instead of staying in Murchison all day long.

On my last day, Armin had organized a great activity for 12 of us: paintball! I had been looking forward to that the entire week, but then the big shock came in the morning when Armin was informed that the game was canceled. We had already come together at the Hampden, so after having breakfast together, we quickly agreed on playing laser tag, so we all – Danielle, Laoise, Marc, Connor, Mike, Liam, Armin, Josh, Jullian, Ben, Janson and I – went to Nelson together just to realize that the laser tag center was closed even though Google had indicated it was open. So we needed a new plan and decided to go to the cinema instead. It wasn't noon yet and our movie was to be shown in the early afternoon, so must of us went to a restaurant together and had some food and drinks. When we were at the cinema and wanted to buy our tickets though, we were told that there were only three tickets left for the film, so we had to change our plans for the third time. Our final decision was to go for a game of bowling. And this time, our plan worked out and we managed to play with nine players (everyone except Laoise, Danielle and Jullian who were just watching us play). Playing with the others was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it, not because I beat all the other players and won the game but because being with all these nice people was a perfect ending for the eight weeks I had been spending as a TC. After leaving the bowling center, we all went for some shopping and then drove back to Murchison where we arrived around 7pm. I had dinner with the Irish trio, Josh and Connor, saw some others for the last time and went home to pack my things and said goodbye to my housemates. In total, it was a very well spent last day.

CONCLUSION

I basically couldn't have wished for a better time in Murchison. I came there to make money in the first place – mission more than accomplished. I had started my with some $700 on my bank account, and in the end, I had more than 9000. But making all this money wouldn't have been any fun at all if I hadn't met that many lovely people from different countries, not only from JCL but also from other companies, especially during the second half of my stay in Murchison. In addition, I was able to enjoy amazing landscapes during work almost every day, whether it was the farmland near Shenandoah or the alpine scenery at Springs Junction. In short, I had fun, made money and new friends and saw once again how beautiful New Zealand is. I liked nearly everyone and I'm pretty sure everyone liked me, so I think I couldn't have asked for more. Thank you for the good time!

Cheers

Max