Seddon on my mind

Arrived in Seddon on Saturday. Staying in a house with 7 German backpackers, all of them work on the vineyards in the same group. I've learned from a brochure in the information center that 6 days in Seddon is equivalent to 1 1/2 months anywhere on the planet. Interesting! So, just to give you a rundown...

The town is tiny and consists of:

Grocery store
Information Center
Extremely shady bar
Cafe

and lacks...

ATM
Piped drinking water
People
Fun

Well, you can actually obtain water from the school about a half mile up the road, so that's not too bad. Hmmm...

So it is my fifth day here, and I worked yesterday for the first time. I will say that it was unequivocally the worst thing I've ever done for money in my life. It trumps the time I drank a Dunkin' Donuts Coolatta that had been sitting on the Boston T for a few dollars. Looking back I'm not even sure I did that for money. We spent 11 hours in the heat lifting wires and pulling them up to put on nails on posts. Now picture a football field of vines, with dozens of rows. A few times, I would realize (at the end of the row) that the wires had crossed somewhere along the way, which meant I would have to go back and uncross them at every single post. All while getting paid per plant...which boiled down to about $10 New Zealand an hour (converted to about $6 American with the going exchange rate). Our supervisor, Paul, draws an uncanny resemblance to Short Round from Indiana Jones, and he would go through your work at tell you what to redo. So imagine Short Round yelling at you while all this is going on. And rather than encouraging things like in the movie, he is being critical of you. Dr. Jones!



Now, whoever picked the under for days on the job, pat yourself on the back, because it is 2pm the next day and I am at the visitors center on the internet. I want to thoroughly thank my parents for encouraging me to pursue secondary education. After work I jumped in the shower and I was like Jodie Foster in "The Accused" washing away my sins. I've never actually heard dirt scream as it washed off of me, what a chilling experience.

So, I am still in Seddon for probably another 2 days, but I don't think I am getting up at 6am to work anytime soon. Oh well, I gave it a try.

Mike's international employment tally:

0 for 2