Mike has been working as a farm assistant on the OB Group dairy farm Sanderry in Manawatu for the past 14 months, and he says it’s the best decision he’s ever made.
Mike is from the England and after leaving school at 15 he started a career in the Merchant Navy. After three-and-a-half years travelling around the world and finding out he got a bit sea-sick, he jumped ship and changed to the army.
“I was in the army for 12-and-a-half years. By that stage I had done most of the tours from the 80s through to 2000 and it was getting a bit much, I was a bit over the military lifestyle.”
A corporal at the time, Mike had to decide whether to stay on and complete 22 years of service, or opt out half-way and take the half-pension.
“The longer you stay in the army, the harder it is to get a job when you eventually leave. The skills you have aren’t really that transferrable, so I opted out.”
After leaving the army, Mike took a holiday and ended up in New Zealand, a place he had never heard of before. He’d thought Australia was the furthest you could go. He fell in love with the Kiwi way of life and beautiful landscape and after heading back to England decided to move here permanently. He got his residency and went from there.
“I’ve been all over the world in my military career, although some places weren’t all that nice. I have seen most of Europe, South America and other places but there really isn’t any place like NZ.”
He landed his first job in NZ working as a jeweller for Michael Hill, before taking up a role with Rebel Sport and Briscoes as a profit partner. As time went on, his hours got longer and he says even when he was on holiday he was still working seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. After nine years his enthusiasm for his job was waning and he was starting to fall ill.
“My wife said to me ‘what do you want to do’ and I made the decision to call it a day and walked away. It was scary because I was earning a fair bit of money, and to walk away and not have something else lined up was scary, but it’s the best thing I ever did.”
Mike took the next year off work. He got involved with road cycling and joined the fire service as a volunteer fire fighter before seeing the job advert for his current role on Sanderry farm.
“I looked at the description and it mentioned lifestyle, hard work, early mornings, meet new people and working with animals. So I broke it down; I wanted a job where I could also have a life outside of it, I could do early mornings no worries and hard work has never scared me. I have never worked with animals before but it really appealed to me.”
‘Even though they are all younger than me, they have a wealth of knowledge and are really good at what they do.’
His first day on the job was a steep learning curve, having never set foot on a farm, let alone a dairy. He got a “milking 101” lesson from his boss and quickly picked up the basics, and he continues to build on his skills and knowledge every day. If he’s not sure about something, he’s quick to ask questions and is keen on absorbing as much information and gaining as many skills as he can.
Milking is Mike’s main task on the farm, as well as bringing the herds in for milking and farm maintenance, from fencing through to topping. Although he enjoys most things on the farm he says calving is his least-favourite task. The total herd is about 1000 cows and they operate a split-calving system. They have finished calving 600 of their autumn calvers and are getting ready for the next round of calving.
“They’re little buggers. They’re like little kids and there are just a lot of them around and you can’t really control them.”
Mike’s change of career came as a surprise to his friends and family. They were concerned about the change, especially given the timing of his entry into the industry, not long after dairy prices took a dive. He says it’s a decision not many people understood.
“People were hugely shocked. There hasn’t been one person I know not said ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing this?’
“I don’t think people were expecting me to last this long, but the longer I’m in it, the more I enjoy it, and that was the biggest thing for me. I wanted a job that I truly enjoyed and would look forward to going to.”
Although he admits some days the 2am starts aren’t always enjoyable, he is yet to have a “what have I done” moment about his career change and is enjoying being able to have some work-life balance. Part of work-life balance for Mike is not living on the farm, which he says enables him to switch off from work at the end of the day and engage in his out-of-work passions like cycling.
Mike is a keen cyclist and is entering the K2 bike ride this year, the toughest ride in the southern hemisphere. Stuart Taylor, general manager of OB Group, is sponsoring Mike for this ride.
“I got into cycling a number of years ago. I weighed about 110kg and wanted to get down to a healthier weight, so I started cycling and cleaning up my diet and dropped about 30kg in eight months.”
Mike says he is still trying to find his feet in the industry and isn’t sure where he wants his career to end up just yet.
“There are a lot of different paths to take in the industry and at the moment I’m just trying to learn as much as I can. I would like to experience some different farming systems and experience some other ways of doing things at some stage.”
To further his learning Mike decided to get started on some Primary ITO courses. He’s completed five courses in the past year and is currently working on a new course offering – Pastoral Livestock Production. The course, along with a suite of other new courses on offer from Primary ITO, is designed to integrate the theory learning and assessment with the practical, day-to-day onfarm aspects of the programme – putting theory into practice. Trainees learn why things are done onfarm and how that applies to their own workplace.
His bosses are supportive and reimburse Mike for the cost of the courses. He also draws on the experience and expertise of the people he works alongside every day, especially his manager Sam Onley.
“Even though they are all younger than me, they have a wealth of knowledge and are really good at what they do. Stuart is really good to talk to as well; he really knows his stuff and he’s who I normally go to if I’m really stuck on something.”
Mike’s change of career might have shocked his friends and family but he says he finally feels like he has landed his perfect job.
