Listen to your Guts – Pt. 11

Being in down under and talking to other backpackers, I’ve heard all kinds of horror stories about getting ripped off by shady employers. I’ve been working on a horse farm for the last six weeks and – whew, I guess that was my experience in that regard. I had quite some fun there and also learned a good bit, but let me rant away at the bad stuff first. Maybe some other backpacker will read this and avoid similar situations. So, what was the job offer? First of all, free cost of living for as long as I would be working there – or so I understood it when I read it, the ad for the job is long offline so I can’t check if I just read it wrong. I’d be doing 6 weeks of unpaid apprenticeship where I would learn horseriding followed by 3 months paid by hourly minimum wage. Sounds like a solid offer, huh? As always, reality differed quite a bit. Let’s start with the accomodation: Run down and filthy, with a horde of japanese girls dwelling in it and, well, actively worsening the condition by not moving a little finger for cleaning. Talking to the owners about this and the mechanical faults, they understandably took the position that they had more or less given up with the current staff, but if I wanted to fix up stuff they would happily supply material. Alright, fair enough, at least that makes people invest and not treat their free accomodation like shit if they have to fix it up themselves. Well, at least that’s what it makes with me. Can’t speak for my coworkers in that case… I tackled some of the stuff in the last blog like remeshing of flyscreens and cleaning the kitchen, as an instance this is a ‘proof’ pic to show my boss that I actually replaced the broken fan in the shower because he didn’t dare to set foot into the mess up there.

Also, I cleaned out the ‘trash hut’, which contained four heavy-ass tube TVs. Just to get rid of some of the tons of trash flying around all over the place.

Can’t attest me lack of enthusiasm. On the same trip, I even helped cleaning out the hostel and filling up the van for a dump run, just gotta say that broken tailgate dampeners are bloody scary.

Now for the work part. On the plus side, it was very varied and not that hard for someone of okay physique like me. Got to ride a horse quite quickly, I was just put in line with customers who mostly didn’t know anything about horses either. Then I got put in the leading position. ‘Just make your horse go and stop – he knows the way.’ Good enough for me to get by. But any instructions for when something happens to a customer behind me? Nope. Later, (after something happened) I would learn that the front rider has to stay on his horse at all times so the other horses would keep still while the side riders would figure out the rest. Bravo. Tell me that before I get off the horse to pick up the reins of the patron behind me. During my six weeks of apprenticeship I had a total of *two* actual riding lessons. And I really had to go after the supervisor for the second one. The other girls would also have lessons very sporadically. Just keep that in mind for later…

Fast forward five and a half weeks as I slowly started probing for the contract. By then I had heard from a former employee that payment had been unreliable when she had been working there. Hmm, another red flag. That’s when I decided to pack up my car, just to remind myself that I could just leave if the contract turned out to be a bad joke. The other girls – barely speaking english and depending on the transport provided by their boss probably feel a whole lot more dependant than me. I’ve got a (sort of) running car, and I’ve got enough money to bridge the gap until I find another job. Not every backpacker is blessed with that kind of security. When I finally got hands on the contract I was supposed to sign, I was a bit baffled by the general form, I’m used to something different from the last working contract I signed in Oz. Following a long paragraph that was more or less copied from the riders agreement every customer has to sign (don’t play stupid games around horses or you win stupid prices), this was the only addendum:

Where do I start? First of all, I’m missing the employers signature here. I’m not firm on aussie law, but to me that means that the employer isn’t bound to adhere to this “contract”, and secondly he can deny ever employing the worker because – well, he didn’t sign anything stating that. But that’s just my crude general logic regarding contracts, let’s get to the details.

1. I don’t see the hourly wage paid anywhere – does it just default to minimum wage then..?

2. ‘ for no more than 3 months’ is an interesting phrase to me. Sure, I’d get my second year visa out of this, but why not employ me for longer if I’m doing a good job? I suspect cold calculation. After less than a week I have been leading trail rides, so dumbed down you could say that they got me working 4 months for the price of three. Fair enough point to say that I’m not a fully fledged rider during my apprenticeship yet, but lets save that point for later. 3. Accomodation. $36 is a proud price for 6m² stilt hut, and now remember that I’m supposed to keep it in shape too. The washing machine was reportedly broken down for over a year, so we had to use the one in the (most of the time empty) hostel down the hill. This gave me an idea: Why not move down into the hostel? The rooms down there are only $25 a night, I’ve got my own kitchen I don’t have to share with my coworker-pigs and it’s fifty metres less walking to work. This was the first point I brought up in my very one-sided contract negotiation and sadly the only one I got through with.

4. $160 for 3x training per week. Now let’s look back at what I’ve witnessed before. Two lessons in six weeks, one of which I had to run after. Also, looking at the busy schedule and the lack of lessons the other employees were receiving, I found this point to be very debatable. Also, even if the lessons started as soon as I signed the contract – why did I not get any during my ‘volunteer’ phase? Obviously, I had been good enough to do the work they wanted from me. And here is where my negotiation ended in shambles. Before I could fully formulate my proposal to change the contract to read that I would take (and pay for) at least three riding lessons per week as long as they were actually happening, he got upset at me and blurted ‘Either you sign the contract or you have to leave’ to which I could luckily reply something along the lines of ‘oh no worries bud, car is all packed up and ready to go’. Preparation pays. After that, I allowed myself the typical investigative journalist question that never gets answered anyway: ‘You know that all those subtractions look like you’re trying to get below minimum wage’ and like a true statesman he answered that this was a unprovable allegation and that I would have to leave now. And so I went, giggling at first, because it just felt so surreal. And we’re not even finished with my list of questions about the contract. Sadly, he’s got a fair point. All of this stinks to hell and back, but I don’t see how I could pin him down.

5. Equipment hire. A somewhat fair point it seems at first, thinking of it, what am I hiring? The only sensible thing to me seems to be the riding helmet. Cracked from multiple former users. The cheapest riding helmet I could find online was $30. Probably a pretty shitty one, but still better than cracked. But this isn’t a point I’m after that much, if it stood for itself I would have gladly accepted it, but in combination with all the other subtractions…

6. I guess the last two points are somehow meant to even each other out, but the way it’s phrased, both would have to be subtracted. Let’s do a bit of math. Not that I’m any good at that, so feel free to correct me. I would work six days a week for roughly 7hrs a day. With a minimum wage of $23p/h, this would be $966 p/w. Working for four months there would give me $15,456 without subtractions. Now let’s be at least a little bit realistic and subtract $25p/n and $50p/w for food and accomodation which would leave me with 11,856$ after the span of four months. Now let’s see what’s left after all those proposed subtractions and only getting paid three out of four months: $8.436. In my example I would be paid out $17.64 per hour, whereas in the proposed contract it shrinks to $12.55. Or rather, I’m giving five dollars to my boss every working hour for nebulous reasons. But that’s enough ranting. I stood my ground, and that’s a lesson learned for life.

Why did I even stay there for six weeks? It wasn’t all bad, you know. I didn’t lose any money at the time, read about riding online and could try it out the next day by myself. Also, this was the first time since buying the van that I didn’t need to plug it together for the night to sleep in it, which made it possible to relaxedly get the front brake pads changed, prepare the rear windows for tinting and mount aftermarket bashplates.

Furthermore I met a lovely british couple who tried to get the hostel running again and abducted me to the beach on my days off, where I witnessed a wildfire in the middle of surfers paradise.

Quite a shot, huh?

When the girls learned of my ‘contract negotiation’, they decided to leave also, they would just have to get themselves a car first… After a week it was me who finally ferried them into civilization again because it couldn’t be helped. Talking about the independence of owning a car, huh…

Settling in around the Nerang public library, I finally found the time to tint two of the three rear windows and started looking for jobs.

Try spying through my window now, council hounds! The smaller window on the right was my first attempt and has lots of bubbles, whereas the big window has turned out quite okay. I’ve still got a spare roll, so maybe one day I’ll get around to redo the rear window. Within a week I had found a promising job in the middle of nowhere which would keep me occupied for the next two weeks, and well, I can already spoil a bit since I’ve returned from that already – I’ve had a blast.

In the end all I gotta say is: Listen to your guts. And maybe sometimes listen to dad as he’s got a fitting movie quote in store to lift me up.

‘There’s 106 miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark out, and we’re wearing sunglasses’ – ‘Hit it!’