I started with a bunch of new people all staying at my backpackers, so the horror of it all was a little diluted. The first 3 days were 'training days' with lots of informational DVDs as well as a lot of hands on experience with an allocated trainer. We started at 8 and ended between 16:30 and 17:30 which is pretty intense as you are standing all day long. On Thursday I spent the day in the 'seed shed' where all potatoes go to die but more on that soon. Oh and then friday came along where I woke up at 3:30am, left for work at 4am, started at 5am and finished at 5pm. Yes ladies and gentleman, 12 entire goddamn hours sorting millions of goddamn potatoes. I actually took a photo of myself after day 5 but it is too harrowing to put up and it would no doubt go viral within hours, especially as I am wearing a hair net. A freaking HAIR NET.
So here are a few things to avoid whilst training as a potato grader:
1. When you find one that looks like a love heart, don't flutter your eyelids, smile and pass it over to your New Guinean(?) trainer.
3. When you find a potato cut into 2, don't clap the pieces together and pretend the potato is talking like Canadians in South Park. (Jokes totally do that one because it is hilarious)
4. When you find one that looks like this one, try and keep it together...
To summarise my wealth of potato knowledge; there are A - F grade potatoes and at each station there are charts showing the % allowance of all major and minor defects depending on the grade. Malformation, spot rot, lenticel, rhizotonia, scratches, stains, bruises, green potatoes, cut up potatoes. Yep, potatoes have a lot of freaking issues.
Moral of the story is y'all need to appreciate your next sack of potatoes because they are all perfect because someone has thrown out the tonne of rubbish potatoes that haven't quite made the cut.
More smashing tales from the potato world soon. FML.
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