2023, Australia, Farming & Gardening, Workaway

How bizarre, how bizarre

I want to try to capture how bazar this workaway gig has been. I’m going to try to tell it backwards to not lose the oddness of today.

At dinner last night, I asked what A would like done today. She was unclear and provided nothing specific for me to work from. When I got back from the Mona Museum, she was on hands and knees weeding one of the front flower beds Spencer and Kelsey and I had weeded. Some stalks of grass were bothering her. As she had said MANY times before – you have to pull them before they go to seed or they become a bigger problem. I refrained from voicing the obvious- the yard is surrounded by this grass. Pulling a few more in the flower bed is not going to make a difference. Compared to the tarp loads of weeds we had pulled out, she had only a small collection. Still, I was offended and a little irritated for about 2 seconds.

With no plan from last night, I did not hurry to start my day. When the operations manager knocked on the door around 8:15, I was dressed and ready for a task. I moved bottles, then sorted bottles, then sorted and cut up cardboard to address a mountain of cardboard that had been piled on top of other stuff.

Three times, A came around from the office on some errand and managed to find fault and try to make corrections and to do the work herself. I was good nature all day told her I could handle the work and encouraged her to go back to the work that only she could do. At 11:30, I stopped for lunch, had a nice call with Esther and then went to find my next task. After checking a few times, A suggested it was too hot to garden. I should hang out until later when she would take me up to the house to water or something.

If my knee wasn’t causing so much pain, I would have simply walked. Decided a half day of rest was a good idea, I hung out in the cabin. I checked in around 4. I tried to check in at 5:30 but A was on a tense call. At 6:15, with no indication of a dinner plan (didn’t want more goat stew) and not wanting to interrupt, I started making a salad for dinner. The only thing I had wanted to do was run a load of laundry. At 6:30, after my dinner was ready, A came over to say she was ready to go. She looked only the tiniest bit surprised that I had fixed my dinner. It meant she didn’t need to deal with dinner or chitchat this evening.
I had bought and fixed dinner last night. The deal is supposed to be that they provide dinner and food for making breakfast and lunch. The breakfast/lunch part hadn’t worked at all. I bought all of that food. The dinner’s have been veggies and goat stew, except the night I forced the issue by adding pork chops to the shopping cart. When A said it was goat stew again last night, I bought chicken and wine and things to prepare the chicken for all of us. It was really good. They both really liked it.
What I am not explaining is how off the whole experience has been with A. I feel bad for her. She sees her life as one hardship after another. I enjoy R’s company. He is sweet, optimistic, funny and interesting. I feel bad for him, living in the shadow of darkness that is A.
None of that has anything to do with me, really.

Except it does.

When I told A I would be leaving on the 8th instead of the 16th, she seemed miffed and suggested I could leave on the 6th. I wasn’t even sure she remembered I was supposed to stay till the 16th. I waited until I was certain we would have the garden in working condition before I told her, just to be clear that I would finish that project. Last night, she said she didn’t even want to think about the garden or go in the garden or something like that. It was a rude and inconsiderate thing to say, considering the work we did last week. A doesn’t think about impact when she speaks. The manager said today that her moods and meanness made it hard to hire and keep employees.

It’s somehow disturbing and sad and irritating to have come here and guided Spencer and Kelsey such that we, as a team, really did a great job reclaiming the garden only to be told A no longer cared. A week ago, she was in tears of embarrassment over how she had neglected it, how it was her happy place and she desperately needed it back.

Wow!

So, I lead the workers, I provided the knowledge and the skill and the optimism. I kept the project on track and the workers happy.

A didn’t hold up her end of the bargain. She had two emergency events I helped her with, happily and with good energy. She didn’t fix meals I wanted to eat, she didn’t provide food for the rest of the day. She never acknowledged the progress, just found new tasks that could follow current effort.
I want to be angry. I want to be more irritated. that’s what’s curious. I know this workaway stay was not a good one. The housing was not as described, the work was not as described, they garden was in way worse shape and the support was almost non existent. If I were to give honest feedback, I would not recommend coming here. It feels odd.

Now I will spend one more day doing something, then one more night, then catch a bus north to the next location. Let’s hope it is better. I haven’t been harmed by this one. The work time with S and K was fun because I made it fun. The time with A was like a social experiment, trying to improve her vibe.

Maybe I should have left this morning.