Advertisement
Published: July 31st 2010
Hello everyone! I have a job now (if only an on call basis one) working at a fish factory. I had always thought that fish were caught out in the ocean, but apparently they just come out of a hole in the wall on a conveyor belt in this place. I can only assume that there is a massive workshop on the other side with cheap backpacker labour where they make the fish. They probably divide the workers into sections like bones, guts, meat, skin, final paint, and the job they all dream of one day having, the slime guy (as in the guy who gets to spray all the smelly fish slime on the finished work). The fish come out pretty fast too so either the people are working really fast, or they just have hundreds of them.
I joke of course but this place is one huge maze of conveyor belts and fish packing stations. We all have to get dressed up in white cover-alls, white gumboots, a stylish hairnet, with some rubber gloves and disposable white plastic sleeves and top it all off with a thick white plastic apron (I’ll try to get a picture next time). I started my first day mostly in the position of (what I like to call) Fish Orientation Specialist, where in the person simply stands at the end of a conveyor where the jumbled fish come, straight from the bins and drop them onto another conveyor with slots and put a single fish in every slot all facing the same direction. It is as mentally stimulating as it sounds, and since we can’t have music players, your brain sort of switches off. You have time to ponder the great questions of the universe, your place in it, and why everything smells like fish.
The second day was much the same, but toward the end of the it I was moved into a packing position to fill in for someone who went home. Only slightly more thought intensive than the Fish Orienting position the Seafood Product Presentation Engineer (as I like to call it) is only required to open a box, put a bag in said box, put a layer of fish in that bag in that box, and a plastic sheet into that bag and box and layer of fish, and fill the rest of it with the rest of the pre weighted fish in your hopper, before wrapping the top of the bag over the whole thing. Wash rinse repeat until there are no more fish. I’m pretty sure I calculated pie while at this station (FYI the answer is 6).
On the third day (oh glorious Friday) I was a Quality Assurance Officer A.P.T.B.W. (As Pertaining to Box Weight ) where the packaged fish the Seafood Product Presentation Engineers make come down the conveyor to a digital scale. They must be from 20.01kg to 20.49kg or that section of the conveyor stops until the weight is rectified. At times I need to add a few fish or take a few fish out, but on this day there was a 3 hour period where I would sometimes have to add up to 3kg of fish (most of this grade fish are between .25kg and .6kg) or remove up to 2.5kg because some of the scale measurements were off further up the line. Of course the time where I had to add up to 3kg came before the time I had to remove the up to 2.5kg, so every 10th box had to be pulled off to use as fill fish. Following that little escapade, I had to remove up to 10 fish (Mackerel) from many of the boxes and toss them into a bin that could hold maybe 35kg at best, therefore the supervisor (or sadist as I like to call her) told me to get a box and bag and plastic sheet and pack those fish away as I had the previous day, only to do it while I was weighing the other boxes as well! So there I am: add some fish or take some out with anywhere from 2 seconds to 10 seconds in between boxes to throw 1 or 2 fish into my own 20kg box and make it look neat.
In any case I lived through it and honestly can’t complain all that much because the weigh station is one of the cushier (not to mention cleaner) jobs on average. With any luck I’ll be there again when we’re called in next time.
Other than the work front, I’m still in Tauranga and kicking back at the hostel. We celebrated Anika’s birthday a couple weeks ago by going to a bowling ally (her wishes). The only one we found here was a 10-pin place which was fun once you got the hang of it. I got a couple of strikes but Timo won the first 2 rounds and Anika won the 3rd. Many people were surprised to hear that bowling isn’t that big a thing where I’m from and they were even more surprised to hear that I’ve never been 10-pin bowling with a ball that has finger holes. They call bowling with a smaller ball kegeln (keeg-len) and don’t usually play that in Germany. Cosmic bowling after 9pm was a new and confusing experience for them as they don’t have anything like that back home either.
Tobias and Timo left heading south toward Wellington earlier this week. We had a BBQ send off for them the weekend before where everyone (10 people) paid something like $15 and bought a huge bunch of steaks, burgers, sausages, and chicken steaks, along with some fixings for pasta salad and a big cheesecake! We hung out in the sun all day at the picnic tables adjacent to the propane barbecue and only went in because it got too dark and cold out for most so we continued inside!
One last thing I’ll add before I go, I made myself some picture eggs for dinner tonight and everyone (from Germany and Taiwan) here was dumbfounded by them. They were all asking if this was authentic Canadian cuisine! This isn’t just a Canadian thing is it? Maybe North American? Anyway I taught them how to make them and they’re going to give it a shot tomorrow.
That’s all for now, talk to you later!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0624s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
LaRae
non-member comment
Hi
What are 'picture eggs'? I have never heard of them. Are you sure they are Canadian? I don't even think they are 'Logan'. We are having a lovely but foggy July. Hopefully, we will see more sunshine in August. No rain though! I'm working 3 part time jobs so am pretty much on the go every day! Take care, La Rae