Unfortunately my ‘manager’ is the 26 y/o ‘head girl’ who pretends to care but seems to take no interest in my life only tell me what to do next, which is never anything interesting only connected with cleaning the yard. She doesn’t guide me, only tell me to work quicker which puts me under constant pressure and probably makes me go slower! I am made to feel guilty about taking a tea break when the senior staff are constantly slipping off for cigarettes and coffee. I am supposed to receive training from her which amounts to a maximum of 30 mins a week but during this time she just tells me what I need to do then disappears off. During the training she will just be chatting to her friend about her new boyfriend etc. Incidentally when my assessor last visited I simply had not been taught enough for what I needed to pass the module so was not even assessed. My manager now wants me to start earlier each day because she is doing 12 hour days. She tells me to think of the miney but I am being paid peanuts and she is on a salary over double my annual wage. When I am not working I am so tired all I can do is rest and am falling behind with my coursework. I am never allowed to put the interesting aspects of my training into practice as these kind of jobs are saved for the other staff so the things I do learn end up being forgotten.

My 30 min 1-to-1 lessons got cancelled so I could join a 1 hour group and get more time in the saddle but in my last lesson I was the only one so it got reduced to 30 mins again which was a real disappointment.

On a couple of occasions the founder of the centre has called me up to her house to clear up after her dog. When I sighed she said ‘don’t say you want to do it, we all do – welcome to the real world.’ and I don’t have the strength to oppose her. I used to find listening to the radio took some of the boredom out of skipping out the many paddocks we have. The paddocks are seriously muddy and extremely hard work but now I am not even allowed to listen to the radio as ‘it could be dangerous as I cant hear the horses’ but there are only 1 or two, usually no horses in the fields and 2 hours alone picking up horse poo in deep mud only sends my mind into deeper despair.

The only ‘mature’ girl on the yard says it is the worst yard she has ever worked on and could never work there full time. She complained to me that while we work on the founder and her partner just lie in bed all morning and never help out and that the field are so bad the horses are getting infections.

I really don’t have the energy to be any stronger. I get home at seven and only have the energy to eat then go to bed before it all starts again and to be honest I can’t see things improving. You cannot get blood out of a stone and enough is enough.