I really enjoyed the 2021 kiwifruit season at Trevelyan’s. It encouraged me to open up to new people, learn new words, as well as connecting with different cultures. Everyone was caring and friendly, almost felt like I was at home with such positive people around me.

There were times where I would get stuck or caught up on my line because the kiwifruit was just rushing through. The amazing people would whip over and always give me a hand. The biggest motivation definitely was the money, it’s just epic. I didn’t even imagine I would make this much, but because of my bustling and working through the holidays for two weeks I did it.

Waking up in the morning because I started work at 7:00am or 7:15am, really was a test of my time management skills. But I was always organised the night before work, as I started to adjust with the routine to wake up early. It really benefited me in other ways too, because now coming to school I’m just so used to it.

I might have had some sleepy mornings but because of my mindset, I have to focus. If I want to earn money then I know this has to be normal to me, so in my mind, I knew I could do it if I tried! The IT boxes are trays and you put the fruit in holes and wrap it up. Whereas ML/MB boxes come with the correct amount of fruit per box on the line and all you have to do is wrap the box. To be honest I always looked forward to the IT boxes and hoped the supervisor would come to me after the grower change and say you're changing from ML/MB to IT. Grower change would happen every 100 bins which meant we were packing a new orchard grower’s fruit. That means you would get a 4-5 minute break and could talk to people around you!

Tips

• Talk to people, or even say ‘hi’ because this will open up your communication with others and you might even make new friends

• If the line is too fast, talk to the supervisor; they always want the best for you!

• Don’t look at the clock, just enjoy, jam to the music!

• It’s super easy to make workmates, just engage with the people around you…

• Lastly, stay calm and put a smile on your face, because the benefit is you are earning tons!!

Challenges:

It did take me time to get used to the speed. Sometimes I would get caught up on my line while packing fruit, but these challenges did inspire me at the end when I realized not everything can be perfect, but if you keep pushing then you will be satisfied with your work.

I definitely found that people will come along and give you a hand anytime if they see you struggling, even if it was their job. This is the meaning of the skill ‘ teamwork’. They would always come around and ask if you were okay.

Lastly, if you get tired and get frustrated, then talking to your supervisor is the best thing to do, because they will try putting you in a slower line so you can rotate from IT boxes to ML/MB boxes. If not then you could try the labelling job and go around to lines putting labels on boxes. This is fun because you get to interact with people and will not get bored easily. There are other things you can ask to do which is grading where you check the fruit quality to see if it's rotten or has marks. Or, you can do tray lining where you put plastic bags in the box and put them under someone's line for their fruit to drop in. But this is where it challenges you and you have to be super duper speedy.

Armandeep Kaur.

Year 12