Chapter 8: The Job

The Job

What did I end up doing in Tauranga for almost 2 months? I worked in a factory, a kiwifruit puree factory to be precise. Every morning I woke up around 6 am so that I could eat before driving ~20 minutes to the factory in Te Puna. For most of the weeks I gave a ride to another one of the women who lived at the hostel and that was wonderful. Occasionally (given that it's becoming winter here in NZ) we were treated to incredible sunrises (though the whole, let's take pictures thing was far from our thoughts). The factory is composed of two major parts: the factory and the fill room. I spent the majority of my time in the fill room, all decked out in a hair net, coat, gloves and crocs:

In the fill room were three “stations” where one could work. First, boxes had to be constructed – I made so many that I got super fast at making them, it was awesome. When we were on top of our game this is what all the boxes looked like:

Due to trade secrets these are the only pictures I was able to take.

After the boxes were constructed they were taken to the next station where they were filled with kiwifruit puree up to 20 kilos. The next (and final fill room) station involved a magic machine that took all the air out of the bag and sealed it closed. Then the bag was folded and the box put through a taping machine before being sent out to be stacked. Occasionally we would add seed to the puree which served for some difference. While the actual stations were rather repetitive we changed which ones we did several times daily which helped create variation.

The other job I did was done in the factory. To work in the factory I had to keep my hairnet and gloves on but trade the crocs for gumboots and the coat for an apron. Because of noise I also put on noise blocking earmuffs. Then I would put on two additional pairs of gloves and plastic sleeves before standing in front of a conveyor belt and sorting out appropriate kiwifruit as it rotated by me.

I ended up with a lot of time to be somewhat lost in thought which was fairly unique. We also did some listening to music and chatting. Overall it was a good experience, although not one I am keen to repeat anytime soon, factory work is pretty boring and I'm lucky I ended up at a good place with fun people. :)