Sugar Beet Harvest: Real Talk
Sugar Beets are harvested in the fall and are used for sugar in many products; similar to sugar cane.
This is a very popular Workamping gig because the companies provide a free spot (usually with full hookups), pay good money and the season is very short, about a month in October. A lot of people have October free and are able to do this job in between other Workamping jobs.
Paul and Josh did this in October 2019 and I want to provide some basic information from their experience. Not all experiences are the same and they made the choice to at least try it out no matter what they heard about it; it is always best to try things for yourself because you never know for sure what it would be like.
11 Days
That's how many days total Paul and Josh worked. The weather did not corporate at all and this was the second season in a row where the weather was bad; it was actually worse this season than the 2018 and both 2018 and 2019 are classified as bad seasons. In fact, they ended up shutting it all down and allowing people to leave early because of the weather. Usually, from what I understand most beet harvest stations run for about 15 days but it may take a month to work those days so weather is always an issue, just usually not that bad. Depending on where you work, you may get "stay pay" where they pay you for 4 hours of work on the days you are unable to work. We were at a spot that did this. Those areas that do not pay "stay pay" usually pay a higher hourly rate and time an half on weekends so it works out basically the same no matter which location you go.
Night Shift
This is probably what killed it for Paul, being on the night shift. They said it is more laid back and you have more opportunities to learn the machines and while part of that is true, they were never told that the night shift is the cleaning crew. Since the trucks do not run all through the night, the night shift is responsible for cleaning the machines and this is not a fun nor an easy job. If Paul knew this before taking the job, he never would have signed up for it. Josh is very laid back and tolerates a lot and he even hated this job more than anything else he has ever done. At least he knows what messy, hard labor work is and he knows he is not cut out for it at all. The nights are much colder too and they were 12-hour shifts, 6 pm to 6 am.
No Days Off
Well, there were actually plenty of days off because of the weather, however, you never knew if you would go back to work the next day so it was best to try and keep a routine just in case. This meant that even being off they needed to try and sleep during the day so they would be awake for work at night. This was so difficult to do because it is hard to stay up all night without working. They were never able to get on a good routine and their sleep during the month of October was totally messed up. There was a phone number they had to call every day to see if they would be working that day, well that night. For the day shift, this was much easier because they were already on a routine and all they had to go is get up call and if they were off they enjoyed the day off. For the night shift, they had to try and sleep until 4 or 5 pm then call and if they were off they were awake for part of the night but not the entire night. They never worked enough days in a row to get on a being awake all night routine.
Muddy, dirty work
The nights they did work, they had to do a lot of cleaning and this required crawling through the machines and getting down where all the mud was. Definitely not fun work at all. Paul has always said that he can do anything for a short period of time which is why he likes Workamping. If he doesn't like it he can just move on to something else when that job is over. This was the first and only workamping job where he wanted to quit several times and ended up giving notice before it was really over with. They did have to shut it all down shortly after that and on record, they must still have him on good standing with the company because they keep sending emails for them to apply and come back for the 2020 season. There have been no second thoughts, the answer is definitely no for these two. They made it 11 days over about 20 days but they learned that the Sugar Beet Harvest is not for them.
There is Good News
Even though the work was awful and they learned it wasn't for them and they will not apply to go back, we did meet some pretty cool people and made some friendships from being there.
They did make good money for the 11 days of work and we understand that is probably what motivates people to do the job and to go back year after year. For us, it wasn't worth it and they would definitely rather work other workamping jobs even for less money. I'm glad we made some friends and that, to me, is worth the 11 days of torture work; of course, I was warm and cozy those days in the camper while they worked.
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