Worst Case Scenario - Being Peter To Save Paul (Part One)

“Thing is mate, you do your day's work and get $80-100 dollars easy - that covers yeh sack and grub, the rest goes on yeh piss, know what I mean?” 

Micheal, the hostel owner, had taken the liberty of working it all out for me. I’d only approached the reception for my third $5 internet card in just over four hours yet here I was, roped in to an improvised seminar on doing “a days hard yakka”. The working hostel system depended on the flux of enthusiastic, able backpackers to service the demand for untaxed and uninsured cheap labour in the area. I part fit the criteria, I was a backpacker. But it appeared that Michael had confused my weak smile for enthusiasm, and my above average height for ability.

I’d returned from my months-long isolated stint on the working farm just the day before. It was located about three miles shy of fucking god knows where, so there was literally nothing to spend money on apart from bales of dry hay and second hand tractor engine parts. Not having enough space in my backpack for either, I’d been forced to save enough funds not to feel any immediate financial anxiety on my arrival in Cronulla, South Sydney. I also had zero intention of ‘drinking piss’ being the focal point of my day, be it slang for alcohol or otherwise. With the seminar pushing the ten minute mark and my complete silence failing to get the job done, I eventually had to verbalise my disinterest. “You know what I think I’m going to hold off for a while, explore the area, see the sights. Really get to know the place” I lied.

Of course I wouldn't have stumbled across any sights if I actually had gone looking. Once you’ve seen the beach, you’ve pretty much seen Australia. Disappointing, but what did I expect? From what I could tell the country had been discovered in 1986 by an obnoxious twenty year old on a surfboard. He was alone at first, but the waves inevitably brought more of the same, each and every one of them dressed in nothing but gaudy shorts and an inflated sense of self worth. It’s all very well attempting to be Californian and walking around shoeless, but clearly there was not one architect among them. Nor at any point did they get their bleached heads together and figure out there’s more to developing a culture than having endless barbecues and getting skin cancer.

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Oh how I’d dreamt of these mornings. These turn back over, no consequence, alarm free mornings. After a punishing day on the farm you’d be crawling to bed on all fours with the sun still in the sky, having to set your alarm for 4am yesterday. Here, no such fuss. But what the days in Cronulla lacked in urgency, they started to make up for in a creeping boredom. The majority of days my friends would be up and out, doing their odd days work or at full time jobs. Some wouldn’t be working at all, spending their time driving to the middle of nowhere to find a big rock to jump off, or driving even further and jumping off a different big rock instead. Eventually boredom stopped creeping and introduced itself to me properly, and we fast became inseparable.

I walked around the town in increasingly erratic circles. “Right, Ged” I said out loud, addressing myself. “YOU’VE got YOURSELF into this MESS - YOU’RE going to have to get YOURSELF back out of it. That’s why YOU’RE here. That’s why you’ve come ALL THIS WAY - TO LEARN - TO GROW - TO FIND YOURSELF - to know WHO YOU ARE and what YOU’RE CAPABLE OF - to navigate the world and BECOME A MAN”. I broke out into a light jog. If my iPod had Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’ on it I would have put that on, but I had to settle for singing GaGa’s ‘Poker Face’ to myself instead, as I finally reached the garage across the road from the hostel. There I spent twenty of my last sixty dollars on a mobile phone top up voucher. This was the beginning of the NEW PLAN. The FOOLPROOF, WORKABLE PLAN. I was going to WALK - No. STRIDE - No - MARCH back to that hostel - that WORKING hostel - and I was going to CALL MY DAD and beg him NICELY to send me some MONEY.

Thankfully, common sense had stayed beyond our meeting and interjected before I could make the call. ‘Yes Ged, Parental support IS an emergency option, but is it not one best saved for a complete evacuation?’ - It was right. Smart. How tested would Dad’s patience be if I go cap in hand now, only to to come back in a month's time with an even bigger cap, but now also sporting braided hair, whilst also  trying to skirt the fact I’d bought the matching pans for the 24 inch wok. It made sense to save the panic button for a flight home. However the decision to hold off on an S.O.S call would leave me sitting alone with the elephant in the room, and it wasn’t long before said elephant started to shit itself.

A big part of not wanting to do an odd day's work was imagining it feeling like an audition for a job I never wanted. These are jobs that the people paying you don't want to do themselves, so you can imagine there’d be no end of lifting, carrying, ripping and punching. A quick fifteen minute lunch (if you insist) and it’d be on with the biting, shouting, kicking and screaming. I was also in Australia, where everyone expects you to have had prior experience in all of this abject horror. In the anxiety of getting a distressed thirty stone cow in a headlock, in the agony of having the top nine layers of skin on your hands being subjected to rope burn. My experience on the farm had taught me that I was no good with my hands, or taking instruction. It displayed that I had little to zero core strength and had demonstrated my lack of simple problem solving ability. The employers expect to be exploiting workers that are switched on, brave and energetic - not forgetful, scared and tired. It’s a role somebody else entirely was born to play. I’d be woefully miscast.

Naivety being another quality of mine, I thought that a CV would still be required to land any potential day's graft (when in reality ‘sort of breathing’ and ‘not an undercover tax investigator’ qualified you). I hadn’t edited my CV in years, so I brought it up on the computer and gave it a lazy eyed once over. I ultimately decided that yes, all my call centre skills were valid, and that no, there was no need to put my recent farm experience on there, I’d just tell them about it in person if they were desperate to know. The only change I deemed worthy was highlighting my hobbies and interests section, the twin lie of gardening and volunteering. ‘Yeah that pretty much covers all the bases’ I reasoned. ‘Let’s just make that BOLD. Maybe Size 18. Yeah, that’ll sell me. That’ll do’. 

“Whatwouldda need that for, mate?” Michael snorted. “Nah, just chuck us your name and you go on the list, you prick! Jeb, isn’t it?” - “Ged” I corrected him, sliding my CV back into the plastic wallet. “Jez…you’re in D9 ain’t ya?” - “Ged. G, E, D and yeah D9, unfortunately”. He either missed or ignored my malcontentment and wrote my name in pencil on the list, reverting back to Jeb.