5. Laundry Duty Sucks!

It was late October and at 5:30am when my alarm sounded, it was still dark and very cold. Getting dressed needed to be really fast and organised otherwise I feared I would get frostbite.  One time I got up for a really early shift and I had accidentally put my shirt on backwards and I didn’t even realise until hours into my shift.  I was so busy I couldn’t swap the shirt around until my first break. 

At my first laundry shift, I decided I needed to be really organised in the morning and I jumped into the prepared clothes and was out the door within minutes. I was walking the few steps to the laundry room before I realised the job doesn’t actually start with laundry. I was looking at my Duty Sheet with my torch and it said Kitchen first! I kept walking to the kitchen area and found it already busy with staff getting breakfast and lunch-making facilities for the guests.  

It was only 5:45am and already there were guests appearing.  Only the faint night lights helped them to navigate the many stairs from their rooms to the main dining area in the dark, because of course there is no power until the generator started at 6am.

By now I was using my watch to help me with the numerous time-dependent duties so when my watch alarm vibrated, I saw that I had to turn on the generator. I still had my torch and I used it to locate the oil stick and check it was at an okay level.  I pressed start and it chugged a little before starting with the familiar loud truck engine purr. 

I waited a minute for it to warm up and then turned on the power.  All the lights suddenly turned on in the room and I waited to hear the roar of the burners kick in before I headed back towards the kitchen to continue to help with set-up.

By 7:30am the guests had left with the guides and the lodge team sat down at the table to have breakfast.  Sometimes there are left-over poached eggs, bacon, baked beans and waffles but on this day, I did not have time for breakfast. I had take the wet tea-towels into the Drying Room then strip the beds with the Lodge Manager and get the first load of towels into Big Bertha, their massive commercial washing machine that did the bulk of the washing.  

The Drying Room is really similar to what we called the Hot Room when we were processing honey.  The Drying Room uses the heat generated from the generator next door and a massive fan swishes the hot air around.  When first entering the room, it is not dissimilar to a hot nor-wester on the Canterbury Plains.

I hung the tea-towels on the wooden slats above my head and headed back to the laundry to reload Big Bertha.  Once she was whirring into a new cycle, I threw the pillow cases into the smaller machine.  Growing numbers of dirty laundry bags appeared on the floor and I would wish Big Bertha to hurry up so I could get the second load of towels in.  From here on in, both machines needed to be constantly going to keep ahead.

By the time I hung out all the sheets out in the Drying Room, it looked more like a Chinese-laundry and I was running around under them trying to find the door to get out. It would be some time past 2pm when I finished and I would be completely exhausted. Not only that, but my skin would shrinken into a lizard-like texture with the dry heat and contact with the washing powder. I hated Laundry duty with a passion!

A week later and I had another laundry shift and my back still ached from the first laundry shift! After a few laundry duties, I developed a system where I would fold the wet flat sheets in half then throw them over the railings above and make sure they were relatively straight.  Once they were dry, I would take them off holding on to the corners and fold.  

Once I was determined to beat the young British lodgee, who had done the job the previous year so had plenty more experience than me. 

"The trick is to have breakfast first, really quickly," the Brit told me. "Then go for it and don't stop until you have finished.  Then you have the rest of the day to enjoy!"

I smashed his record but then Lodge Manager gave me more chores afterwards so that didn't really work out.  

Another time I had worked really hard, starting with stripping the rooms, remembering the Brit telling me to put all the pillowcases inside one pillowcase and don't bother with a laundry bag for them as it slows you down.  I had pulled off the sleep sheets from the bunk beds and took the full bags of linen down the stairs to the laundry room.  I worked really fast and hard and then finished two hours later than the time before.  What the heck?

Turned out we had a bigger group staying the night before... and as the season kicked off, we would have much bigger groups thereafter!

We were allowed to listen to music on headphones during our shifts so I was using the music to keep going at a fast pace.  My back was aching after the numerous trips back and forth to the drying room with crates of heavy wet towels, but there was never the time to stop! Never leave a washing machine empty when you have dirty laundry, I recall being told.  

I sweated profusely during laundry shift and it really was like a extreme athlete’s workout. I lost a heap of weight.  

Once I went for a walk after finishing Laundry shift and went to the nearby Clinton river. I was still wearing my headphones listening to a podcast Guru who was telling me to take a ten minute break for some mindfulness.  Once I was at the river, I walked along the boulders and up the river slightly until I found a rock to sit on.  I took my shoes off and dipped my feet into the freezing but clear water and took a deep breath.

I was kept so busy on the job that everything else was forgotten, even the view. On this day I looked up at the snow-capped mountains and admired the beauty of nature. It was mostly beech forest to the river and if it wasn't for the pesky sandflies, I could have been in heaven! 

Through my speakers the guru continued "Empty, empty, empty" and I wondered if my feet were still attached to my legs as I couldn't feel them anymore.  I pulled my foot out and poked at my numb big toe.  The sandflies increased their attacks and I gave up being mindful and headed back to the lodge, picking some yellow Buttercup flowers along the way.

With my room being at the entrance of the staff quarters, I see the guides and lodgees walk past and they often look in and wave. One day I decided to close my curtains for some privacy when someone knocked… “are you okay?” Honestly! It’s like being in a fish bowl, I moaned out loud.

The job, the bush, the lack of privacy… it was all getting to me. I tried stretching my aching back before popping a paracetamol and heading up for dinner at 6pm. Honestly, the laundry shift sucked.