~ Curious Charlie ~

Oxfam Trailwalker 2013 @ Thursday, April 25, 2013

It's interesting how different two events running on the same day can be. At one event everyone was nice, at the other those on the bottom of the hierarchy where treated like trash by some of the staff. Interestingly the prior event was NFP and promoting fairtrade, while the later operated sweatshops.

Oxfam Trailwalker. 7.30am. Mt Evelyn. Checkpoint 5. Parking Marshall. Open skies, green meadows and horses. Spent the morning directing cars (as the road was meant to be one way). Most cars turned around and took the exit, only two got past me, one was speeding, and the other was the milkman who asked what was the road the other exit lead to.

Warm weather, windy though, but the sun was shinning. Soon a guy joined me patrolling at the gates, a medical student in his final year. Best conversationalist I've ever met at an event, interesting topics, and he didn't ask to me join his ~~cult~~ church. :)

One of the thing we talked about was being a bitch - at work. He agrees that it's ok to be a bitch at work when it's required, like when you work in a male dominated work place and people don't treat you as an equal because of your gender, and believe you belong in the kitchen. e.g. surgeons. I've heard Helen is scary at work, and always wears pants. Though whenever I see her she's a warm, friendly amazing person who's a great baker.

Another situation that calls for 'survival of the bitchiest is when you work in an all girls industry. That's me. We aren't even competing for jobs yet and the other girls in events (some, not all) are bitches to me. It's to be expected. Though it's not that bad, I've been to the modeling academy where I was bullied by girls half my age - quite sad really as I used to work as a tutor, and we did have 14yr old and they were nice.

You've got to be a bitch sometimes (read: at work) to survive, but then when I'm with people I like I'm completely different, rarely do I feel the need to dominant a guy (all my friends except one is a guy) in every way possible, but it's something I do everyday at work. I never said I wasn't a totally bitch, it's just a side you don't see because I don't feel a need to be that way with people I like.

Lunch was a salad roll, commercial apple pastry (strudel?) and apple.

Later on we packed up (the checkpoint we were at was closing at 2pm), stacked chairs and did two rounds of picking up rubbish and moving bins around. Most interesting thing we found was a bottle of Jack Daniels, we also found lots of tea bags. No condoms. XD

Added 6hrs to my log. Everyone was nice, and one of the operations assistants was very friendly and had a friendly vibe about him. I would definitely help out again next year. :)

Chocolate! I love it, it's very smooth and melts perfectly.

But I did find plastic chips that were the same colour in the milk one...

Trip back home, changed bags and clipboards and onto the next event. Puma's Glow Run.