Up until today the last proper days work I did was back in Septmeber 2009!
I wont lie…I’ve been enjoying bumming around Oz slowly dwindling my savings and lazing around on the beach during the day and drinking away the nights….it’s a good life!
But on a chance conversation this morning I ended up actually doing some manual labour (yes actual man like, hands dirty manual labour) for Cockatoo Paul.
Paul needed his new trailer de-rusted and repainted so he could get to work on his new Bush Tucker Community Project, so I offered myself up for the job.
However this work wasn’t done for cash in hand, or for any solid wage – this was true backpacker work, a service for service trade off.
The principle is a simple one – Paul charges $20 an hour to make his Aussie Jewelry; an awesome array of kangaroo claw necklacces, leather cuffs, kangaroo teeth broaches, inlayed opals…some really original and truly Oz pieces that I’d been eyeing up.
Paul was willing to pay me $20 an hour for the work he needed doing, but ideally wanted to save the cash to help get his project up and running.
So instead of any dollar changing hands each hour I worked gained my $20 credit for whatever of his pieces I wanted, which was great for me as I’d been eyeing it up for a while but didn’t want to part with any hard cash!
6 hours later, after a whole lot of rust grinding, metal polishing, de-cluttering and primer coating Paul had on pimped out, good as new trailer and I had myself $120 of original Bush Tucker Jewlery…sweeeeeet!
So I now have an awesome Kangaroo claw necklace and a whole heap of credit for a custom piece I’m getting done when I’m back in Byron in a few week :)
I like the trade off principle, sure some hard cash would’ve been good (although Paul did hook me up with some cash in hand photo work after) but if someone has something you want and has something they need doing you should seriously consider this time trade principle…it’s a good way of working, you don’t drink away your hard earned cash and everyone comes out of it better off.
Embrace the travelling nature….
x