Please not the title of this update. German. (Not Germans)
Wwoofers are "Willing Workers On Organic Farms". The idea is that backpackers come out to a station and do a small amount of work in return for their board and keep. They get to see Australia and the employer gets some free labour. As you can probably imagine all sorts of different people come out to stations as Wwoofres. Some come because they are interested in seeing the outback and the famous massive stations on which we work. Others come as part of a planned Wwoofing trip around the country and will spend a couple of weeks on a property before moving on and getting work somewhere else along the road. Others come because they have run out of money and are looking for an easy way to get free food and a room.
These last ones are the worst. We have a German here at Jessievale at the moment. He I think is in the latter bracket, but a little different. He is happy to do the work and the long hours but I can't help thinking he is a free loader. The other day I had to check some waters and asked him (while he wasn't able to come with me) to give the quarters a clean. Sweep the floor, tidy the kitchen, wash up a couple of cups and a knife etc. I went off to check the waters and when I came back, nothing looked to have changed. I asked him what he had done and he told me. . . get ready for this. He had wiped the draining board and put all the dirty things back on it. It took him a F++++NG hour to wipe a draining board.
Yesterday I left Jessievale to go to Clio with Tom. We left at 4am and loaded the last roadtrain at 9.15pm last night. Quite a long day. I had left our unnamed German friend the task of cleaning out the back of the truck - scraping up the poo and throwing it out of the back. Not the best job, but certainly not the worst and not somthing that I haven't done myself. Today we checked a bore and had a look at some cattle before driving back to Jessievale. I arrived back at around 4.30, and fixed a motorbike tire. Went into the quarters and asked the Greman if he had cleaned the truck. "not yet" He has had two days to do only this and hasn't done it. He told me he was pissed off as he wasn't left any jobs and was board. We left him just one job and he didn't do it. He said he would do it on Sunday if we get a day off. hmmm work out the logic in that !!!!
For anybody that reads this with a romantic idea of riding off into the sunset think again. There are times like this, but there are also times when you have to do the shit jobs. like cleaning, washing cars, changing oil. These are outweighed by the horse riding, the helicopter flights and the fun you have, but you have to take the rough with the smooth. I am about to tell the German this. You can't pick and choose the jobs. You can't not do things because its not what you want. I really didn't want to get up at 4am and work until 9pm but hey sometimes you just have too.
He also smells. I have told him, Willy has told him, Mark has told him, Tom has told him, Mick has told him. He still smells.
Ed
xx
