Crazy characters
Host: Farrcombe Contracting
Written by Raine Pugh – Owner, Farrcombe Contracting.
Often you come across lots of different characters who sign up to work for you. Last year we employed a guy who was a plumber from Melbourne with no previous outback experience. ‘Plumber’ as we named him was a real quick learner and within a week he had become a great asset to our team. He could decipher the difference between wet and dry cows, and call out the branded and cleanskin weaners. Plumber was the sort of new age guy who came from the city wearing skinny leg jeans and attended the gym and solarium on a regular basis. We convinced him that working for us worked out better for him as he was getting paid to be fit and tanned rather than paying someone else to give him the same image. He would often work shirtless in the yards during the day, which the girls enjoyed, however he copped a fair bit of cheek from the boys. Plumber also managed to lose the gear lever off one of 230’s (motorbikes), the boys used their imagination and replaced the gear lever with a pair of multigrips. Plumber, however managed to ride his way through three pairs! Lost forever now in the middle of Auvergne somewhere.
Plumber and a poddy calf at Carlton Hill Station.
Another time when we were short staffed we employed Dan the backpacker. We found him to be a lot of laughs especially when he knew he had done something wrong. Dan would come straight up to Potter and start abusing himself with swear words only getting them mixed up . . . the most common was . . . ‘shut the f . . . up’ was rearranged into ‘shut your f . . . k up’. This made us laugh and the saying still sticks today.
Dan riding Potter’s most prized camp draft mare during a muster.
Josh joined our crew in 2013 and on one particular muster we will always remember the urgent need for one of the bikes which Josh was riding. We found him stuck in the only mud puddle for 1000km radius. The puddle would of only been 2m wide, but someone he managed to find the middle of it. It took a couple of blokes to get the bike unstuck. Josh also introduced us to Tough Tuesdays and Sleeveless Saturdays. This meant you were allowed to dress up all tough on Tuesdays and wear your sleeveless work shirts on Saturdays. This started a trend within the camp and pretty soon the whole crew joined in on the new look.
The crew enjoying a cold beverage at the end of the day.