Workaway Review

With Workaway, one has the opportunity to rate their experience with stars, and then leave a comment. I’ve been thinking a lot about what my review would look like. I think it would go something like this:

“Whereas I would love to be objective and devoid of emotion in my review of working at Casa Giulia, it is impossible to do because working at Casa Giulia is inseparable from Giulia, herself. 

At Casa Giulia, you will work in an incredibly beautiful part of the world and meet all sorts of interesting people. However, you will inevitably get sucked into the cult of the personality of Giulia, which is both fun and tumultuous. Giulia can be kind, outgoing, caring, and generous, as well as flighty, sensitive (and, interestingly, insensitive) and quick to anger. She is incapable of separating friendships from professional relationships from any other “ships.” 

You might work and party your ass off, you might be forgotten, or find yourself anywhere on this spectrum, all depending on what is going on in Giulia’s life at that particular moment. For example, she might ask you to help her boyfriend harvest olives from the beautiful olive trees on the property to make olive oil. But when they have a fight and he takes off, you will be left watching the olives rot on the trees and left figuring out what to do to keep yourself busy. Conversely, you might be asked to scramble to help with dinner service after working a full day, because she got in a fight with the chef and he bailed on making dinner. To be fair, Giulia usually doesn’t ask anyone to do more work than what is agreed upon, but she evokes sympathy for her situation and/or uses her charm to get people to bend over backward for her and/or let things slide. The whole scene can be extremely manipulative. 

I can’t rate my experience on a scale from 1-10 or give it an amount of stars for any particular category, because everything was consistently inconsistent. Some days were a 10, others went into the negative. And it could vary from moment to moment. What was consistent is the astounding natural beauty of Southern Italy and the Ionian coastline — a few minute drive away. A mode of transportation to explore said coastline may not or may not be available. If you can secure a room, your accommodations will be very comfortable. If the bed and breakfast is booked out, you might be sleeping in a tent, and this could change from day to day. 

You might be asked to serve breakfast, clean rooms, take care of Giulia’s children, work on the farm, listen to stories of failed relationships, cook dinner for clients, teach a yoga class, throw a party or play tour guide for paying clients for a week. I’m not saying I was asked to do all these things, I’m just saying anything is possible at Casa Giulia.

Obviously, I am having some big feelings around my experience. To be fair, Giulia and the world she has created were amazing to be a part of. As you can see from my past posts, I’ve had a wildly fun time. Giulia herself is beautiful and charismatic, and creates an aura around herself that is toxically intoxicating. She makes friends and opens her life to people easily, but she can ice people out just as easily. I have a lot of respect for Giulia in that whatever she does, she absolutely goes for it. I might not agree with her business management style (or lack thereof) or her parenting style, but she throws herself into things with a reckless abandon that I — who tend to hem and haw at every crossroad — find admirable. Granted, being a part of the whole scene felt a bit unstable, but it was a wild and fun ride.”

Whew. That was cathartic. Now: eastward and onward.