Potato Ponderings

So in the last 3 days I have worked 43 hours which is pretty hilarious as the average 5 day week is 40 - 45 hours.

On day one of my 3 days of hell I worked 16 and half hours. Outrageous I know. One thought I had on this very long and painful day was just how much extra thinking I have been doing. Obviously everyone thinks a million random thoughts a day but back in London, during work hours, I would either be totally focussed on the task at hand (naturally), messaging my friends about weekend plans, rehashing the events from the previous weekend or looking at viral cat videos/images. But staring at potatoes rolling along all day really opens up your time and really allows you the chance to delve into life’s quandaries *cough*.

Here is a small glimpse into a few of my thoughts on this particular day:

The News:

I thought about how I have no idea what is going on in the world aside from a few Metro News updates I have caught on Facebook. Not sure if articles about a woman giving birth to a lizard or a drunk moose who fell into a pond is really the hard hitting news I am looking for, but I will take what I can get....

Potatoes:

Kind of Current Events:

Oh my god - how about episode 8 of season 4 of Game Thrones. WHAT THE FUUUUCK.

Did that just happen?

My Trainer:

I haven't seen my New Guinean trainer since week one as we have been on different schedules but I finally caught up with her this week. She is so adorable and reminds me so much of my amazing housekeeper, Angelina, because she is all cuddly and cute and has this big warm laugh. She does, however, have a faded tribal tattoo on her forehead - maybe she is one of those Yanomamo Indians of Papua, New Guinea that I learned about in Social Anthropology 101? Nah she totally doesn't seem the raping/pillaging/cannibalistic sort. She is also another one that I can't understand for the life of me. She sounds JUST like all the adults on Charlie Brown.

LISTEN HERE

Climate Change:

So my ex, who I recently visited in New Zealand, airdropped this series called Vice onto my computer. I have been way too absorbed in other really educational shows like Girls, True Detective and Game of Thrones but once I ran out of these I started watching Vice as a sort of last resort. Well, this show is AMAZING. Each episode is divided into two 20 minute documentaries about things like corruption in Afghanistan, scrappers in America, the crime situation in Rio ahead of the World Cup and various other subjects. It’s awesome because it is just a great slice of educational info about some really prevalent issues.

One that has been playing on my mind a lot, perhaps because I feel pretty guilty about my lack of knowledge about it, is the issue of climate change and the melting ice caps in Greenland. What I learnt from this episode is that if all of the ice in Greenland melted, it is a distinct scientific possibility, that 80 of world’s 100 biggest cities would be under water. LATERS Cape Town! And according to one scientist interviewed, climate change has outpaced the worst case scenarios that were observed 20 years ago.

I know Al Gore and some other important peeps reckon that if appropriate actions are taken soon, the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less CO₂ and planting more vegetation to consume existing CO₂. I reckon we are gonna be fucked because humans are a bit useless really so I propose we start using some of those army helicopters that are going unused in Afghanistan (according to a different episode of Vice) and start shipping some of the melted sea water outta there. How about the Salt Water Swimming Pools for Everyone Initiative? 

Also my new bezzo, Tanja, told me that the average penguin has a temperature of 42 degrees. UMM no wonder the South Pole is freaking melting, let's ship those guys outta there too.

Solving world problems whilst grading potatoes! As you do!

Runnnnnnnnnnn!

The Hiccups:
I got a bad case of the hiccups for about an hour. Do you ever get the hiccups and sometimes have a panic attack that you will have them forever? IT TOTALLY HAPPENS! I have read several articles about people who had them for like decades. Anyway Tanja just told me that in Germany, if you get the hiccups it means that someone you know is with someone else but thinking about you. Well that is just GREAT. Juuuuuust GREAT.

Lorde's 'Ribs':
This song will usually pop into my head once a day. It reminds me of going over Waterloo Bridge on the way to work. Now, I haven't been suffering from too much FOMO but I did have tickets to see Arcade Fire in Earl's Court a few weeks ago and my bestie, Kate, said that Lorde and 2manyDJS were the support acts. *Sob*

LISTEN HERE

More Potatoes:

Diet:
So over the last few years I have gotten quite into exercising regularly and eating healthily. I have gone on a few runs over the last few months and have tried to keep things as healthy as a lowly backpacker can (excluding my sky-rocketing goon consumption) but today I thought about this article I read about how you can burn between 300 and 500 calories a day just from fidgeting. As a potato grader I am doing some pretty frantic fidgeting for sometimes 16 hours a day so I must burn at least around 1000 or more calories a day. It is also SO unbelievably cold in the factory; I literally wear 5 layers or more and still freeze my tits off so I must also be burning loads of calories trying to keep warm. So with these facts in mind - I am burning roughly 1500 calories a day, the average female calorie intake is 1500 a day THUS I can eat cake for dinner.

Sport: 

Chirp Chirp

Mathematics:

Right so upon hitting the 12th hour into a 16 hour shift:
The number of potatoes graded so far = 
The number of fucks given
This number of fucks then doubles every hour until work is completed

And of course more potatoes:

Seed Shed

So today was my fourth time in the glorious seed shed. Tanja (my German NBF) and I have been lucky enough to score an extra day of work in said shed since we started! Proof that it never hurts to ask and/or be a big bad suck up and/or to get your waps out!

This shed is a lot better than our usual shed as there are only 3 workers, a forklift driver and our supervisor. We are under constant supervision at the big, bad, main shed - getting crapped on for over or under grading, being late, singing Christmas carols in June etc. But in the shed where potatoes go to die and quality doesn’t matter, work is a lot less stressful, because, YES, grading potatoes can be very, very stressful.

So there are two jobs in the seed shed. The first role involves standing up some stairs at a conveyor belt where the old potatoes are delivered. Here the potatoes are sprayed with red fungicide and coming bouncing along the conveyor belt, literally all bloodied and screaming, whilst you find the most rotten or fossilised looking of them all and send them to their deaths in the waste bin. Glamorous I know.


View from the top. Or very bottom depending
on which way you look at it.

These then bounce along some other machine then onto another conveyor belt. There is more potato screams of despair as they head to the slicer that cuts them all up and spits them onto yet another conveyor belt, headed to their evil executioners/circumsizers (depending on the shape of the potato). This is job number two. On this conveyor belt there are some blades attached to the side and we have to find any potatoes that the slicer missed and we get to ‘SMASH THE POTATO’ (said in evil German accent followed by evil laughter).

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the massacred spuds as these are then replanted/resurrected to create brand new potatoes. Mind blowing I know.

So during a day in the seed shed there are a few movies/characters that always seem to roll through my mind.

1.Bane
We have to wear these mouth mask thingies that make me feel like Bane from Dark Knight Rises. So for the first good hour of work all my thoughts are said in a Bane voice. I end up sounding like Sean Connery (yes still in my head) and (yes for the record I can do a mean Sean Connery accent not just in my head). BUT seriously, do their voices not sound exactly the same?

I also do a little dance like this when I see the potatoes rolling toward me...

2. The Shawshank Redemption
During our lunch break we sit at a small table just outside of the warehouse instead of our usual lunch area on the other side of the property. Something about the stark light, the massive concrete area where the empty crates are kept and me imaginging my water bottle is a cold beer, reminds me of that scene when Andy and some of the inmates do some work tarring the roof. Probably not great that I am comparing my life to a film about a tres depressing high security prison but anyway. 

3. Zoolander.
Regardless of my gloves and mask and various pieces of protective, dead sexy, workwear, I always come out of there with black panda eyes, black smears everywhere, coughing dramatically and declaring that I have the black lung.

4. Shrek
This one was a once off just because I found a potato that looked like Shrek...who soon met his fate. Moo ha ha.

 
5. Waterboy
So the forklift driver aka the man who gives us free chocolate who I cannot understand at all, well he has reminded of me of someone since I met him and I just have not been able to put my finger on it. So you know that coach, Farmer Fran, from Waterboy who no one can understand...BINGO.

Sorry for the delay in posting but I have had some WIFI issues! Up next are some scandalous tales from the backpackers as well as tips on how to NOT lose your mind whilst working 17 hours in one day.

Laters! xx