Christmas Letter

Umm, will this count as my Christmas letter?  I have never sent a Christmas letter.  To be honest, I really don't want to start. Once you start something like that you set a precedent and for the rest of your life everyone will expect Christmas cards. Then someone who isn't on the mailing list will say, "Why didn't I get one?" and then another tree has to die.

This is why I need to be constantly occupied.

Well Christmas is only five days away. For the first time in my life I am going to spend Christmas on a beach. I strongly suspect that I will fall in love with the arrangement and will be forced to find ways to continually facilitate such an event. I have been waiting for Christmas for a long time.  I'm not a big fan of the season. I am excited for the new experience.  When I landed in May, Christmas (henceforth called crissy) was a distant date. It loomed behind the horizon.  I will admit, I was worried that I might have to spend crissy alone.  I wondered how I would react and what would go through my head.  It was a foolish fear.  Plans have already been made for me to reunite with the Italians. The comedy is that Michele and I actually tried to call each other at almost the exact same time. He and I are really excited to cook for each other. Also we plan to drink a pail full of wine on the beach.

Aussies do chrissy differently than North Americans.  Firstly, they call it crissy.  I don't think I will ever be able to wrap my head around Aussie slang. Almost everything has some sort of nickname.  Often the nicknames make no sense whatsoever.  It is what it is.  The second major difference is in the meal. Normally for crissy Aussies dominate and crush epic quantities of sea food. Lobsters, prawns, mussels, scallops.  "Throw another shrimp on the barbie" is not just a comical phrase, it is something you actually hear during the holiday season.  I have yet to see any baby eating dingos but who knows what tomorrow holds.  The other major difference is that it will be a balmy 30 degrees.  Maybe even warmer.  That is why I have been looking forward to crissy for so long. I'm not a nice person. I have been patiently waiting for Canada to freeze. I missed out on our glorious, frantic summer.  Now I get to calmly lounge in the sultry white sand while the great white north suffers through the perma-dark winter we all know so well.  

2014 was an exciting year.  I spent the first three or four months climbing rigs down in Swift Current.  I was pissed on, I was knocked out of the rod basket, I froze a chunk out of my ear, I watched a service double nearly obliterate two lanes of traffic, it was a good season.  The rigs are something I couldn't recommend to anyone and I would also never speak ill of them.  The friends you make on a rig are eerily similar to the ones you find on a football field. Tough men, doing a tough job, often in some of the harshest environments you can find. They don't pay us to do the job, they pay us to endure the suffering. I am glad to say that I have done it. It takes a certain type of mental toughness to work in that field.  After the rigs, I kicked tires and rested up before this Aus trip.  Australia is where I have been since the end of May.  Australia is where I will stay until the early middle of next year.

The first job I had down here will stay with me for a while.  I found myself thrust into a situation for which I was unprepared and untrained.  Pruning grapes isnt hard, once you have experience. I still dont have experience. I was very lucky.  The people I surrounded myself with were salt of the earth.  They understood that I was in a tough spot and that I was only asking for them to try their best and stay positive.  We made a merry little band of misfits.  We also accomplished a job that the locals had not seen completed in a long time. Success feels good.

After a short trip stateside to ensure that a young woman got married I found myself back in Australia.  My next job found me in upper central NSW.  I was working for a harvest crew.  The harvest crew in question had been recommended to me by a working partner from Leeton.  His words were, "Work with Mark". They were wise words.  Mark was a foreman for this harvesting mob.  This crew owned 5 combines and was leasing another.  The owner took it upon himself to take the three largest combines, all German models, and run them himself.  Mark had the other two combines, a late 2000's model Case and a first generation *120 model. The leased combine was a brand spanking new 7230.  Our machines were vastly smaller and our crew was half the size.  We cut more wheat then they did.  It was a combination of the equipment, and the people operating them.  German combines are clearly built for Europe and they should stay there. Also, some men are not leaders.  Mark is a leader, Mark is an incredible man.  Sadly, I have discovered something about Australia.  The old style British class system is alive and well down here.  I don't like it.  I respect a man who knows how to do a job and demands that a job be performed to a high standard. I have no respect for a man who demands excellence, displays mediocrity and attempts to sell himself as an expert.  All that said, this time I did expect to find this man at the helm.  My contact had warned me.  Thankfully the crew was divided.  This division allowed me form multiple working relationships.  I left my employment with this company and was hired by another mob before the day was through. 

There is a rather funny exchange that occurred on the day I retired my post.  At least I think it is funny.  It goes like this.  Basically my previous boss really, and I mean really, enjoyed dismissing employees.  In the employee contract it clearly stated that employment could be terminated at any time, without previous warning.  He utilized that clause in the most barbaric ways possible.  In my opinion the worst example happened to a young englishman.  The boss made plans to fire him on a Thursday. Very early in the week, he told his plans to a number of people on the crew.  Thursday rolled around and after working until 4pm the englishman was dropped off in the middle of a country town and informed that he no longer worked for this particular company. Now all this was well within the employers rights.  What disgusted me, and many others, was that he began to gloat and brag about the inconvenience he had caused for this young man.  I sat quiet and waited.  Eventually the weather began to turn.  There was a massive harvest rush. The early summer rains were coming and we were working around the clock to beat them.  A lot of wheat got harvested in that week.  I was driving combines from six till midnight then repairing them when could.  It was fun. As the clouds broke, I knew change was in the air.  Mark had already given me a warning, the boss was planning to can me as soon as I was finished cutting wheat for that client. The rain would stop us for over a week and during that week, a lot changed.

Firstly, half of the crew said "Fuck this" and quit.  Secondly, my phone started ringing off the hook. An offer was made that I couldn't refuse, so I called Mark and I laid it all on the line.  I told him about my offer and he laughed so hard I thought he might cry.  He thanked me for the work I had done and told me that he would happily work with me again, anywhere and anytime. So I called the bosses wife.  She was the one who had initially hired me. I told her that I would be leaving. I thanked her for the opportunity. She asked me to stay.  She thanked me for my work and she thanked me for the conversations we had shared. I should break and explain that the current job had taken me over 300 km away from this companies home base.  A face to face encounter would have been redundant and wasteful. Knowing myself, this was a relationship best broken over the phone.  My phone had not sat for three minutes when the boss called.
He shouted, "Whats this I hear about you quitting? You cant quit!"
"Unfortunately I have to leave South-hole harvesting" was my tongue bit reply.  I continued,
"Thank you for this experience, I value it greatly."
"Its pretty ungrateful of you, leaving like this, after everything we have done for you"
"I appreciate everything you and your wife have done, thank you, but I have some offers and opportunity in front of me that I simply cannot refuse and it would be foolish of me not to explore them. With the rain that has just occurred and the long term shut down we are faced with I had to make a tough decision and I believe that this is the best option for me."
"You're sure trying to be civil about this,"
"Thank you" I interjected
"FUCK CIVILITY"
"...." I smiled, I take sick pleasure from upsetting this man, and the calmer I was, the angrier he became.
"It is a shame that you feel that way"
"You know, normally we call references, we didn't call your references," he was huffing now, "maybe we should have called them" Then his tone changed, to an gloating air of self righteousness, "You better ask yourself what kind of reference we will give you"

I paused, and one million things ran through my mind. In my head I had already lived this conversation far too many times. However, this particular outcome had not been forecast, you never get them right. Once again I smiled, above all else, this man values his ego and his image. So I calmly said, with my coldest, most venom laced tone,
"The reference you give me, will in no way be worse than the one I give you"

Silence. Sweet golden silence. 

"Well then" I asked.

*Click*

As the black knight said, "Alright then, we'll call it a draw"

It has been a funny year.  Some days have been tough, far more have been fun.  More than ever, I fully realise that the only limitations I have are ones that I place upon myself.  I will no longer tolerate shitty attitudes or humans.  There are far too many good people in this world.  I will help those who want to help themselves, because I can work with those people, not for them. I will continue to learn, the day I stop learning will be the day I die. Hopefully I will write more and with any luck my writing will improve. Anyways, Merry Festivus. I must now leave you because I just watched a four inch long cockroach climb into my air conditioning blower. Sooooooo, I'm going to tape the vents shut before I go to sleep.