It's all very new and I'm still settling in at Rochford Wines and at home. On the weekends I work in the restaurant, Mondays and Tuesdays are off-days and Wednesday to Friday I'm doing all kinds of stuff around the vineyard. What kind of stuff? Well, since the concert season is just starting I've been some stuff to prepare for that. Also the vines are starting have leaves on them and soon the grapes will grow.
For the concerts they're building a big stage and a mixing stand. There's a backstage area that consists of containers -- the kind you find on construction sites. There are fences going around the backstage area and the whole venue. The building, moving and setting up of these things has been outsourced so I don't get to do that. But the backstage area had to be furnished. That's where I and Alex come in. We have been moving sofas, chairs, coffee tables, lamps, clothes racks and rugs from various places to the backstage containers. We had to get all this stuff from different places -- Alex's house, the "conference room", Helmut's place and the restaurant -- and drive it to the backstage area.
Besides that I've lent my helping hand to the bar taking out the trash when I have the time and to at the warehouse where I cleared all the empty cardboard and moved around pellets of drinks. John runs the Cellar Door aka. the wine tasting area and gave me this assignment. And finally I've been working with Richard. He's some kind of handyman. He does everything. We have been repairing fences, clearing out burnt, dead trees, filling up potholes and that sort of stuff. Nothing too hard and I've even had to chance to use some powerful machinery. Richard is an Aussie from Albury, NSW and he is pretty cool. He smokes a pipe during breaks and he has an aura of calmness about him.
So, that's what I do and I will do a lot of other stuff. ANYWAY, I got a contract today. I have to sign it and bring it back to work. It's a full-time contract for six months, with one week's termination notice on both side. I have a "base" salary by the year and every fortnight (that's two weeks, Einstein) I get paid one 26th of that. I'm obliged to work the concert days and public holidays. Overtime is included in my pay. But I might get bonuses! Doubt it though... Oh, and my title: Wait Staff and Vineyard assistant. What it doesn't say is that every week I get to take home one bottle of wine -- I've tasted three different wines and I've liked one, a late pick 2010 Chardonnay.
Ok, if you didn't get that all you have to know is that every two weeks of work my bank account fattens by about $900 after expenses. Approximately. And it also means that I'm going to get to have a week of and meet my brother in Sydney at the end of November. My plan is to stay at Rochford somewhere into February even though I have the option of working until the end of March.
In closing I want to tell about some wasted time at work. Yesterday, I was supposed to help Alex move the furniture. I ended up watching a black and white Gladiator movie for 60 minutes. Today, while repairing some wire fences Richard's car's transmission got stuck in P while we got stuck in S (rhymes with nitwit). Watching movies? I don't get paid. Acting like tilting your head and looking at car parts is helping? Get paid.
Simply Red on Saturday so don't fret if I don't blog until next week. I'll try to make Twitter or Facebook updates if I get the chance, but it's going to be pretty busy.
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