I know this post is long awaited, so here comes my perspective on that fateful day.
After a normal workday we decided to go to the Skylagoon in the evening. I always wanted to go there and it just seemed perfect to go there with these girls. We had an amazing time and I discovered that I love Rosé.
Anyways, after dipping in the water for about 2 hours we decided it’s time to go home. But what would be Reykjavík without visiting the Reykjavík girls! Via WhatsApp we learned that Iti quit the job and so we DEFINITELY had to go and get the news! When we arrived it was a really interesting atmosphere with Iti and Sabira being tipsy and everybody more or less pissed off by the whole situation. I remember just sitting on the side with Lisa, listening to the others.
As I was the „eldest“ guide who had been there for quite a while I couldn’t really understand all of their points. Personally, I never had any issues with our co-worker, in contraire, I always enjoyed working or riding with him as we always would chat, laugh and have a good time. We liked quite similar horses so we kind of made a game out of stealing each others horses. I feel like I was able to understand both sides of the coin, the side of our bosses and the girls side and was torn inbetween them. Yes, not everything here was going the way it should and the horses were definitely not always treated in the best way, but regarding my former experiences as guide in other countries it is quite hard to always have them treated perfectly. I don’t want to make things look better then they were but for me if I said something usually our boss listened and even got the vet a couple of times when I said something is wrong with a horse. Sure there is room for improvement but the horses definitely could have gotten treated worse. We tried to switch them inbetween Reykjavík, Ölfus & a field the best we could and usually horses that came from Reykjavík went straight on a field for at least 1-2 weeks to rest. Sometimes our boss would randomly take horses that were not supposed to go because they were tired but generally he would listen to our suggestions.
Anyways, I remember I was not even able to fully follow the conversation because I never experienced these problems with any of our bosses/coworkers (both, living in Reykjavík or Ölfus). I could understand the girls frustration but for me personally it wouldn’t have been an option to leave. I was just trying to make the best out of all the situations to make it the best for the horses and for us.
In general, I would always go back to this workplace and actually am during Christmas time.
I feel like they do really care for their horses, even if you can’t always see it. I had a lot of conversations with our bosses/coworker about the horses and I know that they are really important to them. They are trying to find a balance inbetween caring for them and not loosing money. Because they didn’t get tons of money that summer, they were trying to survive. Everything is getting more and more expensive so that old ways didn’t work anymore. (#'insiderknowledge)
During my stay I might just have gotten used to a lot of things so they became normal to me, but everybody should keep in mind that there is no black and white but always something inbetween.
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