Isn't it funny how your opinion of a place improves when your workload changes from boot camp to boy scouts. One minute I am legging it to and fro like I've just discovered the ability to walk, and the next, I am lounging around working on my tan. Yeah, there is the occasional bin that needs to be cleaned amongst all the leisure time. And I can stack a few of these same bins around the place if I ever get bored of doing circle work in a forklift.
What was once the least desired occupation in Hell's fieriest oven, now seems like a holiday in Paradise with J.C. as your manservant. Admittedly, Chief Nut Case is still prowling round like a crack addict going cold turkey, and his venom did cost an Irish guy his job the other day. Being Irish, he wasn't prepared to take a step backwards when a confrontation threatened, and he might have lost a few teeth trying to prove he wasn't afraid of someone nearly twice his size, even if Chief Nut Case is only larger in girth.
Diminished duties often accompanies increased responsibility and I am extremely unhappy to report that this is also the case here. I have less to do, but I could give headaches to untold numbers if I fucked up something while being more concerned with sunscreen application. To export outside the sunny state of Queensland, tomatoes have to be showered with a funky chemical that fruit flies don't really groove with. I have to mix up this toxic brew and should the pH go beyond acceptable limits, I'm solely to blame for some serious red eyes that are not marijuana related for once.
The other cerebrally challenging duty prompted the journal entry title that may lead people to believe I had just landed a starring role in a porno. (If that was really the case, it would be more accurate to call it Fiddling with the bendy straw.) Further proof of that can be seen in the 'Movember' cookie duster I have just sown the seeds for. Working as an actual fireman is too obvious a reference for someone like me to make, but proper hose management is an essential qualification. Especially when I spend half of the day watering the road.
Water restrictions don't apply at this farm apparently, and covering every square inch of dusty road with litres and litres of water must be important enough to justify paying me $17 an hour to do it. So instead of the occasional gust of dust dirtying tomatoes bound for a thorough cleaning anyway, most of the forklift driving is done in a mud bath more suited to nubile young babes to wrestle in.
The job is so easy that the forklift driving, non-existent lawn maintenance and fruit fly alchemy aspect are totally optional. And it is an option that Vincent, the quirky old Chinese man who does this job on the other team, doesn't feel obliged to take up. He can't drive a forklift, and he seems a bit too eccentric to be trusted with poisons, so he called me his 'hero' when I told him of my extra duties. Something probably got lost in translation there, but it was a nice sentiment nonetheless.
After extolling the many positives of the job, Mother Nature gave me a reality check with the almost unseen phenomenon of rain. My skin needed time to go from lobster red to coffee bean brown, but my internal thermostat hadn't needed to use the heat setting since I left Melbourne over three months ago. It was a fair shock to the system and it wasn't even the fun, play around in the monsoon tempest kind of rain. It was more like the drizzle and sleet that makes Melbourne weather so endearing to practically no one.
Not that I would complain about it. My new role has almost cemented my desire to see out the season, and only an unjustified outburst from Chief Nut Case could change my mind. It's a shame that such a perfect job could be so afflicted by a boss who must have spent his childhood enjoying the taste of window panes. So lets just see if it's the plants or the prick who prompts this porn star reject to prematurely pass on to the next possible adventure.
