It's taken forty-one years, but I have finally found my dream job! As of August 27, 2008 I will be working at an estate vineyard on the North Fork of Long Island. This blog will journal my adventures, from seed to vine to wine and back again. Pull up a stool and I'll pour you a story.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Paradise Lost

Sunflower skeletons being scavenged by blackbirds

As the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end". As fate would have it, my securing a better job has coincided with the end of the "goodness" of working at the vineyard.

Without going down too much of a long and whining road, I have discovered that the vineyard owners' definition of their request that I "be flexible" translates to "never plan anything on your own time in case we need you to do something at the vineyard."



I was subjected to a hostile and very unprofessional session of berating and nastiness when I informed them that I would be unable to work a nighttime event due to having tickets to a show (which, incidentally, I had purchased over a year ago, and which will be my only outing with my husband this year). This verbal flagellation occurred in the presence of another employee, who tried her best but failed to vanish into a crack in the floor from sheer embarrassment.

In addition to this, I found an email (on our company email list, which my job requires me to utilize and read) from the boss to a former employee, informing her that my schedule would be switched around to accommodate her wish to come back and work for a few days. None of this had been discussed with me, and when the boss came to me at the end of a workday to inform me of a schedule change less than twelve hours in advance, I was, as you may imagine, less than inclined to "be flexible".


Alfred Hitchcock would have loved this place...

It really is a shame, because the vineyard is so lovely and it could be such a great place to work - if the owners would just treat people like... well, people.

Not to leave you on a sour note, here are some neat photos I took in and around the vineyard recently...

MORE HAUNTED HOUSES!



For some reason it's not so much the house itself
as the contents of the front porch that make
this one seem so haunted...




This house is yet another one which features an
uber-creepy upper window...



And, if you look really closely...



You might just see a HAINT!



The quality of light around this old place
really made it eerie. I took these just as the
sun was going down.



I took them rather quickly. I was - uh -
hungry, and wanted to get home to dinner.
Yeah, that's it.



This one is my favorite of all...


I drove past it quite a few times working up
the courage to get close enough to take
some really good shots.




Don't even try to tell me you don't
know there's something living under there
in that big black hole at the base of
the bay windows...





And what do you think shredded the curtains into
ribbons?


These are things I thought while I ran back to my truck.

2 Comments:

Blogger Elaine said...

So long - I've enjoyed the ride.

Super photographs.

November 4, 2008 at 12:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am so sorry this didn't work out. Love the haunted houses and hope the new job is a grand success.

November 8, 2008 at 5:33 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home