Literary
productivity has dipped recently as hard work and hedonistic
pleasures have superseded creative output and coherent thought. Some
cosmic governing body decreed that frivolity and fortune seeking was
my new karmic currency after over investing in its opposite,
depression and destitution. That state of affairs in Melbourne
brought on my economic (and spiritual) recession that preceded the
current global crisis in a manner too similar to be coincidental. Or
most likely, completely unrelated.
My financial
recovery is far from complete but at least sirens no longer accompany
every eftpos transaction. Had I been mining the treasure trove
available to every backpacker in the form of the Black & Gold, or
Home Brand label, I would presently be contemplating jaunts to
foreign destinations. Instead I have my head fractionally above
water, just far enough to see that work will remain the theme for the
next few months. Everyone in the hostel has embraced the savings that
can be made from buying exactly the same product, in far less fancy
garb, that the swish looking packaging that brands me and my
patronage of it as a flash packer.
My bunk mate for
the duration of my Bowen stay has moved on to greener grass, bluer
oceans and less work orientated situations thanks to her savings
dwarfing my own. After arriving on the same bus as me, Julia did
virtually the same things as me and hence, she had similar
expenditure. This was due largely to my fellow slaves banding
together in a social group to ease the pain of each working day in a
warmer corner of Hells kitchen. Thanks to Black & Gold's budget
building characteristics, Julia managed to fatten her bank balance
almost three times more than I have been able to.
After constant
jibes from me about her entire pantry looking like a supermarket
display for its cheapest brand, I've quickly realised who is having
the last laugh. Perhaps I should have been hitting the goon bag.
Perhaps my organic muesli had the same flavour and nutrition as her
quarter-of-the-price B&G oat and fruit extravaganza. Even more
likely is a similar end result to what any of us ate given how much
alcohol is consumed on a regular basis.
And yet the flash
packer mindset prevails. Something in my constitution totally forbids
me from even trying to compromise present living standards for the
benefit of future rewards. Tubs of fresh tabouleh don't come in
single coloured labels. If I am going to drink coffee, it is not
going to be instant stuff that could also be used to clean engine
oil off the concrete driveway. If an occasion is good enough to
warrant an alcoholic beverage, I owe it to my taste buds to treat
them to a nice beer or whiskey, and not a slightly more sterile
version of possum piss in a goon bag.
So out of
necessity, my stay in Bowen may extend until the end of the season.
As our farm has started picking it's final patch of tomatoes, the end
of the season could be as soon as five weeks away. I had planned to
leave in two weeks and see what Cairns had to offer me in the way of
less crippling job opportunities. That decision nearly left the Board
of Ideas when the work load went from mildly taxing, to each shift
ending with me feeling like I've had a lobotomy.
The critical point
happened long enough ago for me to be able to think about it without
being forced into a twitching fetal position. After showing up for
work, we all spent three hours trying to look busy with importance in
our gait and a broom in our hands. The computerised back bone of the
tomato sorting and packing behemoth had gone non-binary and had
brought productivity to a cuss-riddled halt. With every surface clean
enough to eat off, we were made to sit around for two hours waiting
and looking deliberately non-productive.
Finally the
computer decided to abandon its picket line and work started in
earnest at noon. By 2:30am the following morning we stacked the last
pallet away. Certain work orders had undergone the sort of 'purple
monkey dishwasher' alterations that happens with Chinese whispers as
directives passed down through ever lower forms of life. Work was
done that shouldn't have been, insults had been traded that couldn't
be taken back, and the owners ended up with a bigger profit than they
had any right to expect.
The bungled chain
of command had given the night shift a night off, and not told them
their hours for the following day. As some of us appeared to have a
small degree of locomotive control in our delirium, we were
instructed to return to work three hours later. Were this nightmare
to be true, I swore to myself that it would be the final 4x2 to fall
on the back of my camel of tolerance.
Unfortunately I
swear so much these days that I quickly forgot the significance of
the oath. Shane saw the stupidity and illegal nature of returning to
work so soon, and slept well past our follow up consultation with
Satan. By this stage no one was capable of affecting an appearance of
conscious body control and blame for the situation started to pass
back along the same rusty and unreliable chain of command.
We were
compassionately granted leave by people who failed to grasp the fact
that it would have been more compassionate to have not expected us to
come back to work in the first place. So we spent 25 hours out of 28
at work, and still the workforce remains the same. I've given up
asking myself why no one quit, least of all me, and focus instead
upon a wage that accumulates savings AND avoids a Black & Gold
orientated diet.
