I arrived in Palmerston North or Palmy (as the locals seem to call it) around 4 weeks ago now, when I first arrived I dropped of my bag at my accommodation and then went straight to sign a contract and learn more about the job. The owner asked if I would like to start that day and with me having nothing to do, I agreed. Little did I know that I would then be working for the next 9 days.
My job is in a Pack House, My role is to cut and pack vegetables, now your probably thinking, well that’s easy? It is I guess, unfortunately they need them a certain way, a certain amount of leaves or a certain weight or size. After almost a month now, I’m pretty sure I’m getting the hang of what they want.
This job is the same everyday, so when I first start at 5-5:30am we do around 2 hours of cutting up pumpkins into halves and quarters, then we cut the butternut squash into halves for around 45-60 minutes, we then take our break for 10-15 minutes, after the break we cut the squash in halves and quarters and then go back to the pumpkin and make pumpkin pieces, moving on we start to cut up the green, savoy and red cabbage into halves and quarters (the red cabbage is possibly the toughest, one guy lasted 2 days at the Pack House before complaining that he thought his wrist was broken due to the red cabbage, he never came back) all that’s left after this is the cauliflower halves and florets, this is personally the worst vegetable to cut, they require you to cut off the bottom leaves and then half it. They constantly ask for more leaves even when it’s a particular bad cauliflower and has no leaves to start with. They manager doesn’t appreciate little jokes like “the farmer didn’t grow enough leaves”.
They have another section of the company where they pack Pea Straw and Lucerne into bags, its very tiring and tends to hurt your back due to the constant bending up and down. First we have to pull apart the bales of straw and then we have to mix up the two types, then we have to push them into 20l and 90l bags, it gets terribly tiring especially as all you seem to hear is “faster, faster” from the manager. I also came out with hundreds of cuts/ scratches on my wrists due to the straw and the sharp edges on the bags. I have not had to do this job for two weeks so I hope that stays the same.
They have recently started to create a new product which is vegetable noodles, an alternative to pasta, they are currently starting with small orders per day but due to the reaction from Countdown (a supermarket in New Zealand) this will be a good product. They have a few choices, they are making Butternut Squash, Zucchini, Beetroot, Kumara and Carrot noodles.
It is pretty tiring being on you feet for 10 or more hours a day. When I first started I was doing your basic 9-5 shift, however now I start around 5:30am and finish when the order is complete and this tends to be anywhere between 3-8pm. The breaks are pretty poor in my eyes. If I start at 5:30am I get around 10-15 minutes break at around 8am or 9am for a quick breakfast and then between 15-30 minutes at around lunchtime and that’s it, I have discussed this with some of the newer guys that have just started and they seem to agree that were missing a break and that its against the law. If I end up working till 8pm, all I can think about is going back to the hostel and going to sleep to recharge the batteries ready for another 5am start. I started working with one day off per week, I have since changed this, as working 6 days in a row can get a little tiring and when it comes to my day off I have little energy to do anything.
You have to have good balance for this job, your working all day around vegetables and once the early morning pumpkin seeds and excess pieces miss the bins and hits the floor, it becomes excessively slippy, even more so when you start to add in the cabbage leaves. I have slipped plenty of times, luckily I have maintain my balance and not hit the floor.
My second day on the job, not being used too holding a knife for so long I came out with around 4-5 blisters between my thumb and fore finger which became problematic when cutting for the rest of the week.
The manager, he’s one of those guys who seems to have a need to control everything, I’ve had a couple of head to heads with him due to his certain management style. Its definitely different to what I’m use to and when I brought up that there could be cultural differences due to him being from india, he ignored this and started swearing at me. He’s very impatient and rude when it comes to training, he shows you once and then only lets you know when you’ve done it wrong. He also belittles you by talking to you like a child and shouts for no reason whatsoever, I have wondered several times about going to the owners of the company but then think that I’m only a backpacker staying for three months so my concerns may just be invalid. I just tend to pass it off and know that I only have 2 months left and then I can continue my adventure.
Update: after dreading coming into work for the last week I finally decided to go to the owners after being fed up of treated like shit, the owners were very sympathetic with the issue and mentioned that its not the first time he has been spoken to about the way he talks to and treats people. Also confirmed some of my suspicions of a possible god complex.
Strangely I haven’t cut myself yet which seems a little strange for me especially handling a large knife all day. I did how ever accidently stab one of my colleagues on my first day, I was pushing some scraps off the table and into the bin whilst I had a knife in my hand, I mean it wasn’t a massive cut but he certainly felt it. I also recently “accidently forced my knife into my managers finger”. He definitely wasn’t amused. It was a genuine accident but due to the way I’m treated by him I’m quite happy it happened.
The owners of the business are extremely lovely. I’ve recently had a bad case of toothache in which I had an infection. I explained to the manager my current situation and asked for the earliest day off I could have so I could book in for a dentist appointment, this was on Saturday and the guy offered me to have the Thursday off. On Sunday I explained that it had got a lot worse and I would need a day off sooner, I even compromised and said I could come into work at my usual time and just leave earlier. He said this was a possibility. Later that day the owners were in and obviously noticed I was suffering a little. I explained the situation to the owners, the owner then said to me that he would ring his dentist on Monday morning and see if there was an appointment available for me. On Monday at around 11am he came to me and asked if I was ready, he had found me an appointment, he then took me to the appointment, waited for me and then took me to the pharmacist to collect my prescription of antibiotics and then returned me to work. He then said to me that if there was anything I needed or if I just needed to talk to someone that I could call him. Genuine guy and definitely worth working there just to meet him.
“Jobs fill your pockets, Adventures fill your soul”
Joe Bloggs 