OZ5: Port Douglas (fifth and final bit)

When we got back to Port, I called Ramada to see what my work schedule was going to be and Tjaart answered.  He looked at the schedule and said, “You start in ten minutes.”
I was like, what?!  I told him I would be late, but would be there as soon as possible.  I dragged my feet going back to work, but at the same time it was nice to have a distraction from feeling sad about saying goodbye to mom and dad.

My schedule was heavily loaded for my last couple of weeks.  There were always whispers of management “trying to hire replacements,” but of course it never happened as fast as they said.  Somehow they had managed to get themselves into a position where I was the most senior and best waitress they had, which was setting the bar just a bit low.  Things must be bad.  I was glad to have the hours before we weren’t allowed to work anymore, but it also felt nice having a definite end in sight.  Not only did I have an end, it was the very last day I COULD work on the terms of the Working Holiday visa.

Things were just about the same as when I left, with the addition of a couple more faces.  In my six months there, I watched Tjaart alienate several employees by rudely pushing them to their limit.  If someone had a lot of learning to do in the job, Tjaart’s answer was to be hard enough on them that they quit.  He did this to several people.

To be fair, most of the people he tried to push over the edge were going to need a SUBSTANTIAL amount of progress to be very useful, but it still gave Tjaart no right to be as cruel as he was.  I think I probably wasn’t cut out for being a manager because I think employees have feelings.  :P

But he was always pushing people over the edge right at the moment when we needed them most, causing those of us left a great deal of distress for having to run the place so short-staffed.  During the last month or so of working for Ramada, we were so short staffed that one person calling in sick was quite bad news for everyone else because there was no spare person in the roster.  This was partially because it was slow season, so it made no sense to keep too many people on the line when it was unlikely they would get much work, but it still sucked nonetheless.

There were several nights each week where we barely held it together in the restaurant.  We were stretched to the max.  I loved working with Christian as supervisor on those nights because he was positive, foul-mouthed, and funny and kept the mood light.  I also loved working with Tjaart on those nights and watching him sweat and nearly lose it himself.

There was one night where our bartender called in sick.  There was no one else.  We had two of the useless waitresses, Tjaart, and myself.  Tjaart asked me to run the bar.  I had been getting more and more comfortable making drinks and running the bar, but I had never even attempted running the bar during dinner service.  I agreed to do it, but only on the condition that he knew it might be way above my capacity still and that if I needed help, I would get some.

I did okay for a while, but after a while, the orders were coming in so fast that my brain went on overload and I was just moving back and forth behind the bar, not knowing what I was looking for.  I called the front desk and when Tjaart answered I simply said, “I can’t cope.”  He knew what I meant and said, “Okay, I’ll be back there in a minute.”  I did as many tiny orders as possible, but was so relieved to get out of there.  Tjaart told me that I was to run the front desk.

Me behind the bar when it WASN'T busy

I could handle that

Everything was moving so fast and we were just falling more and more behind.  It got so bad that Tjaart called the Night Auditor for help.  Ben graciously came down, tried to calm us down, and did a few things for us here and there.  He was a very cool guy.  One night as we were closing, Christian was counting the till and a voice came on the radio that we keep to communicate with the front desk.  It creepily said, “Christian, I seeeeeeee youuu.”  He was watching him in the surveillance cameras.  He would occasionally pop in to the restaurant and say hello and he was one of the few front desk people who chatted with us.  I would later find him at his other job bar tending at one of the hip restaurants in town, where he made my drinks super strong for me and gave me a wink.  Haha, funny guy.

The end of that hellish night couldn’t have come soon enough.  Even Tjaart was like, what the f* was that?  I think that was the night that we stayed after to have a glass of wine on the company.  This little bit of appreciation didn’t come often, but when it did, it made me feel less murderous for having to work like that.  :)

I was so ready for a break when my parents came and then I was so ready to be done after when I had a week or two more.  I was glad that I had a definite end date and could use the line that it was illegal for me to work after May 7^th.  It definitely was, but I don’t think anyone would have noticed or cared if I had worked more.  But like I said, glad to be done.

Joe and I built a week or two into our end schedule in Port just to relax and enjoy the place, since we had not been able to enjoy much of Tekapo, which was a shame.  We spent a lot of the time getting caught up on correspondences that we’ve let slip, but we also spent a good deal of time hanging out with friends.  It was so much easier to plan things when there was no work to get in the way!

Joe learned fire twirling in our last days around Port

Two weeks before we left, Freja mentioned that she was going to go sailing at the yacht club for free and said we should join her.  Apparently this has been an event that happens every week and no one bothered telling us about it until the weeks before we left.

We got there before she did, but Joe saw someone he knew.  Andrew had started doing a bit of work at Paradise Links and so they met on the job.  As it turned out, he lives mostly on his boat and invited us to come sailing with him when he was going to Indonesia!  We were psyched about the idea.  He also introduced us to one of the big sailors who would take us out that night.

The sail was perfect.  We had to get on a boat before Freja arrived, but we figured we would see her afterwards.  The sun was setting and the wind was taking away some of the hottest heat.  It was gorgeous.  I don’t know why no one told us about it in our six months of being there.  Even Drew knew about it and we saw him every single day.

Joe and I, out for a sail

After that first sail we did in fact meet Freja and she invited Lachie to come eat.  The yacht club was known for its food, so we had a nice dinner there.

The next Wednesday we would go sailing again, this time with Freja and a girl named Jessica from Paradise Links.  Joe and Jessica had been learning French at the same time, so they talked about that a lot and had become friends.  Jess would be going to Paris for a month soon.  She’s hilarious because she is the selfie generation and she was doing the duck face repeatedly to get a good snap to post to Instagram and Facebook.  We both agree that she is prettier without the duck face, but if it makes her happy, that’s cool.

Paradise Links had a going-away party for Joe, which was very kind of them.  Joe was well-liked there and was great at his job.  He had a couple of drinks and got a little brave in his jokes with Rolland, the manic boss.  Everyone at the table agreed with Joe, so it was funny to see them watching the moment with interest.

Liz and Rolland, making tipsy speeches at Joe's going-away party

Ramada didn’t really do anything for me, partly because there simply wasn’t enough time or staff to allow anything but the same work we did every night, but also partly because I think the place was going to shit.  Erin was not coming back (they officially made her redundant), so Tjaart was taking care of some of the things she would have been doing.  But his idea of making the restaurant more successful was to cut costs and charge more, even though the workload and quality remained the same.  We were flogging our guts out trying to get our work done.  I was sad to see that the company that I felt better about compared to Peppers was slowly turning to that system of wringing every last minute out of the employees and every last cent out of the customers.

I thought how nice it would be to finish at Ramada and then go in and eat, or grab some drinks, but once my last shift was up, I had no desire to go back.  I eventually did, but only to return my uniforms.  I said goodbye to a few people while I was there, but then once I left again, I didn’t miss it.  Strange how it was such a big part of my life for six months and then the moment it ends, I don’t even think twice about going back.  I wasn't angry at the place or anything, just sort of content to not have it occupying such a big part of my life anymore.  No regrets.

Everything sort of wrapped itself up naturally.  We stuck around town long enough to see the Carnival parade (Port made up its own rules and decided that they would have Carnival in May, rather than February, like it’s supposed to be) down the main street of Port, which was very fun.

Out and about, watching the Carnivale parade

We stuck around the house for an extra day in order to talk to Andrew about the possibility of sailing with him to Indonesia, which didn’t end up working out, but we didn't know that yet.  Our visas would run out before he would leave, plus his boat was maybe too small for three people to really be comfortable in.  It was sad because that would have been a grand adventure.

Drew was surprisingly touched by our departure.  The dude was always so hard to pin down, so the emotional goodbye was unexpected.

We had paid Drew through more than our last day.  He wanted to give us some money back, but it seemed fair to pay for a whole week instead of a partial week.  Because we needed to stick around to talk to Andrew, we stayed an extra night and slept in the living room on a mattress on the floor.  The newest flat mates that lived in our room were two Argentinian girls who were already moved in, hence why we slept in the living room.  As we were getting in touch with the guy who we were riding with to Cairns, Miles showed his face and added a last zinger, treating us as if we were dirty backpackers that took but never gave.  It was frustrating, but also nice, strangely.  We knew for sure that we didn’t really mind leaving Port behind because it meant we didn’t have to see that shmuck anymore.  So thanks for wrapping that up so nicely for us, Miles.

We said goodbye to the lovely beach, the palm tree lined main street we biked along every day, the endless sunshine, and the mostly happy memories.

Goodbye Four Mile Beach!

We got in the car with Guy and headed to Cairns.