Sixteem months of unemployment is as long as I ever hope to go without a job. It was in the middle of the Great Recession, and at the time it seemed like everybody was out of work, but the fact that I was in good company didn't prevent it from breaking my spirit, just a little bit. The end of that slog also meant that I was maybe a little more willing than I otherwise would have been to take the first thing that came my way, which is how I ended up working on The Farm.
The ad was forwarded to me through a friend of mine, along with a very tentative sort of recommendation: 'Hey, heard about this, not really your thing I know but if you're really desperate...' It offered a low hourly wage and a profit share in exchange for hard labor, no farm experience necessary, and included a link to an organic dairy in a little coastal town about an hour's drive from where I lived.
So, fuck it, I applied. I filled out the online application and got a phone call the next day telling me to be at the farm first thing Monday morning for an interview. They were a small crew, they said, and the work wasn't exactly complicated, so they put a high premium on personal compatibility and work ethic. I lay awake the night before the interview feeling flabby and unfit; how was my flabby software-enginner body going to feel after a day of shoveling shit, or whatever? I knew I'd probably feel fine after a couple of weeks, but that first couple of weeks...
I was also hyper-aware that it's easy for the first job you take after along stint of unemployment to become your new career; was I embarking on a glorious new future as a farm laborer?
On the other hand, I couldn't watch any more Netflix; they kept extending unemployment benefits, which were more or less the same as what I'd make shoveling shit, but I just couldn't handle getting up in the morning to nothing, day after day. Couldn't stand one more day of sending off my requisite five resumes and hearing nothing back; coldn't stand the thought of one more interview process where I was one of sixteen people they were talking to that day. So from that perspective, shoveling shit seemed like just the thing.
It was still dark outside when I got in my car and pointed it west. This time of the morning, the roads were clear, like you wanted them to be when you started off a little late but they never really were. I got onto the freeway and out of town without ever slowing down except for actual traffic signals. The half-hour drive through the mountains was amazing, like setting off on a road trip, and then I made a turn and the ocean stretched out before me. I turned south and arrived at the front gate of The Farm fully twenty minutes early, so I turned around and found a place to sit where I could look out at the water.
The first interview was exactly on time; when I got back to the gate there was a guy waiting, wearing jeans and a fleece-lined jacket. He pulled the gate aside and waved me through, then closed it up trotted along behind me until I stopped and gave him a ride up the dirt drive.
His name was John; he described himself as the Production Manager. He was in charge of making sure that the dairy met its production goals; there was somebody else whose job was making sure that the plant was kept up and running smoothly, and a third person in charge of making sure new initiatives and improvements got done. It sounded like a lot of management for a small operation, but the callouses on John's hand when he offered it to shake were reassuring.
He guided me to a dirt lot around the back of the main building, and then around to a barn where the interview would actually take place; there was a small kitchen in the barn with a coffee pot and a couple of tables that looked like they'd been raided from a camp site site. They actually had "Nationl Park Service" stenciled on them.
I talked to four different people, who all aske me pointed questions about work habits and physical fitness levels. I gave honest answers: I'd given up my gym membership when I lost my last job in favor of running and calesthenics in the morning, but that had petered out after about six months. Unemployment was soul crushing, and it was easy to just spend a day in your pyjamas, which was more or less why I was here. How did I feel about getting here at the crack of dawn every day? Fine, it beat sleeping all day. How about long hours? As long as I got paid for them.
They had a culture that was somewhere between West Coast Casual and Japanese Uberconformist: There was a mandatory morning run, mandatory mid-day yoga, afternoon climbing. They ate together, The Farm supplied breakfast and lunch. Was I OK with that?
Sure. I mean, the emphasis on physical fitness was understandable but weird; the shit-shoveling seemed like it would be plenty of exercise. The people I interviewed with all seemed rugged and fit, and they all seemed really concerned with my work ethic and ability to work in a group; valid concerns, honestly. I could only emphasize my willingness.
John came back around at the end of the interview process and shook my hand again and offered me a job. The pay offered was as meagre as the email I'd been forwarded had suggested, and the work just as hard as I'd imagined, but I took it, glad to have something to do other than go home and sit on the couch.
John paired me up with a teenaged-looking young woman named Allison, who was just back from the morning group run, and we sat down at one of the national park service tables with a cup of coffee.
Allison pulled a very last-September looking MacBook Pro out of a cubby along the wall and set it on the table in front of me.
"Surprise," said Allison, "How's your Python?"
The ad was forwarded to me through a friend of mine, along with a very tentative sort of recommendation: 'Hey, heard about this, not really your thing I know but if you're really desperate...' It offered a low hourly wage and a profit share in exchange for hard labor, no farm experience necessary, and included a link to an organic dairy in a little coastal town about an hour's drive from where I lived.
So, fuck it, I applied. I filled out the online application and got a phone call the next day telling me to be at the farm first thing Monday morning for an interview. They were a small crew, they said, and the work wasn't exactly complicated, so they put a high premium on personal compatibility and work ethic. I lay awake the night before the interview feeling flabby and unfit; how was my flabby software-enginner body going to feel after a day of shoveling shit, or whatever? I knew I'd probably feel fine after a couple of weeks, but that first couple of weeks...
I was also hyper-aware that it's easy for the first job you take after along stint of unemployment to become your new career; was I embarking on a glorious new future as a farm laborer?
On the other hand, I couldn't watch any more Netflix; they kept extending unemployment benefits, which were more or less the same as what I'd make shoveling shit, but I just couldn't handle getting up in the morning to nothing, day after day. Couldn't stand one more day of sending off my requisite five resumes and hearing nothing back; coldn't stand the thought of one more interview process where I was one of sixteen people they were talking to that day. So from that perspective, shoveling shit seemed like just the thing.
It was still dark outside when I got in my car and pointed it west. This time of the morning, the roads were clear, like you wanted them to be when you started off a little late but they never really were. I got onto the freeway and out of town without ever slowing down except for actual traffic signals. The half-hour drive through the mountains was amazing, like setting off on a road trip, and then I made a turn and the ocean stretched out before me. I turned south and arrived at the front gate of The Farm fully twenty minutes early, so I turned around and found a place to sit where I could look out at the water.
The first interview was exactly on time; when I got back to the gate there was a guy waiting, wearing jeans and a fleece-lined jacket. He pulled the gate aside and waved me through, then closed it up trotted along behind me until I stopped and gave him a ride up the dirt drive.
His name was John; he described himself as the Production Manager. He was in charge of making sure that the dairy met its production goals; there was somebody else whose job was making sure that the plant was kept up and running smoothly, and a third person in charge of making sure new initiatives and improvements got done. It sounded like a lot of management for a small operation, but the callouses on John's hand when he offered it to shake were reassuring.
He guided me to a dirt lot around the back of the main building, and then around to a barn where the interview would actually take place; there was a small kitchen in the barn with a coffee pot and a couple of tables that looked like they'd been raided from a camp site site. They actually had "Nationl Park Service" stenciled on them.
I talked to four different people, who all aske me pointed questions about work habits and physical fitness levels. I gave honest answers: I'd given up my gym membership when I lost my last job in favor of running and calesthenics in the morning, but that had petered out after about six months. Unemployment was soul crushing, and it was easy to just spend a day in your pyjamas, which was more or less why I was here. How did I feel about getting here at the crack of dawn every day? Fine, it beat sleeping all day. How about long hours? As long as I got paid for them.
They had a culture that was somewhere between West Coast Casual and Japanese Uberconformist: There was a mandatory morning run, mandatory mid-day yoga, afternoon climbing. They ate together, The Farm supplied breakfast and lunch. Was I OK with that?
Sure. I mean, the emphasis on physical fitness was understandable but weird; the shit-shoveling seemed like it would be plenty of exercise. The people I interviewed with all seemed rugged and fit, and they all seemed really concerned with my work ethic and ability to work in a group; valid concerns, honestly. I could only emphasize my willingness.
John came back around at the end of the interview process and shook my hand again and offered me a job. The pay offered was as meagre as the email I'd been forwarded had suggested, and the work just as hard as I'd imagined, but I took it, glad to have something to do other than go home and sit on the couch.
John paired me up with a teenaged-looking young woman named Allison, who was just back from the morning group run, and we sat down at one of the national park service tables with a cup of coffee.
Allison pulled a very last-September looking MacBook Pro out of a cubby along the wall and set it on the table in front of me.
"Surprise," said Allison, "How's your Python?"
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