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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Not to be a Viking slave?

68 replies

Newusernameaug · 04/09/2022 11:16

This weekend I volunteered at a Viking Festival. Tickets were £20 daily. The deal was supposed to be volunteering in exchange for entrance fee.

9am Saturday I was told I’d be on until 9pm doing shifts every hour for an hour with a 1 hr break each time and duties were to clean all the toilets and do gate duty.
I was also told that if I wanted to join the Viking reenactment group I would have to work as a ‘space’ for the group for around one year until I have proved myself and then am upgraded to a ‘free man’.

I told them no thanks - I did 4 hours work which I felt was more than equitable and then left as the organisers were being rude and off with me because I refused to work as their slave!

And they actually used the terms slave and free man. Not sure if this is normal for the reenactment camps but I saw another volunteer working non stop, they so desperate to fit in and belong, it made me worry vulnerable people were being used tbh as they’re were very pushy with it and it’s a bit intimidating when you’re all there in a field in the middle of nowhere and everyone has giant axes!!

AIBU for telling them to get stuffed (but doing a fair shift)
YABU - I should give myself as a slave to the Vikings (for the weekend!)

OP posts:

ErrolTheDragon · 04/09/2022 11:47

YANBU to leave as they were being rude despite you having done the work fairly till then.

And YANBU to worry that this setup could become abusive. Maybe it's all fine and fair, but there's certainly scope for it not to be in practice.

Blueeyedgirl21 · 04/09/2022 11:48

Honestly wtaf

Thelnebriati · 04/09/2022 11:51

YANBU. Sounds like they watched too many episodes of Sons of Anarchy.

pictish · 04/09/2022 12:11

Ha ha….12 hours on and off cleaning toilets for a £20 ticket? Climb in your longboat and get in the sea.
As fucking if.

Alondra · 04/09/2022 12:34

Let me see if I get this straight. You volunteer for a festival to work instead of paying 20 pounds for a ticket. You worked 4 hours but they wanted you to work toilets and gates on a Saturday for 6 hours (9am to 9pm, 1 hour work, 1 hour break).

It's beyond "slave". I'll pay the ticket or stay home. If the executives of the festival want to make money, they can clean the fucking toilets themselves. 😡

Original poster

Newusernameaug · 04/09/2022 12:38

Haha your responses are cracking me up!!

glad I’m not the only one who thought WTF!

it was actually a bit scary and intimidating but really glad I held my own and stood my boundaries.
shame as there was lots of hot Vikings - but think most of these had red flags waving from their shields!

OP posts:

Alondra · 04/09/2022 12:46

You didn't stand your boundaries. You worked 4 hours for a 20 pound ticket, which made your work 5 pounds an hour. Far less than what many workers are getting in Indonesia or India.

Value your work much more next time. If you can't pay for a ticket, don't go and be exploited.

Original poster

Newusernameaug · 04/09/2022 13:01

I was happy with 4 hours - I’d arrived the day before so that was 1 night of camping too, and they’d fed me dinner so the exchange I was happy with was 4 hours.

OP posts:

Alondra · 04/09/2022 13:09

Newusernameaug · 04/09/2022 13:01

I was happy with 4 hours - I’d arrived the day before so that was 1 night of camping too, and they’d fed me dinner so the exchange I was happy with was 4 hours.

That's different. You had a free night camping and dinner which together with the fun, compensates the 4 hours work you provided for your ticket.

You did great not engaging with the "extra" work. I can't believe they wanted you to clean toilets for crap money.

KettrickenSmiled · 04/09/2022 13:13

And they actually used the terms slave and free man. Not sure if this is normal for the reenactment camps

I don't think you understand how first-person interpretation works OP.
Maybe get a handle on that before you volunteer again?

KettrickenSmiled · 04/09/2022 13:16

Apl · 04/09/2022 11:34

Yanbu for not wanting to work for free.

Yabu for not understanding the way the group works by asking more questions before volunteering. I’m not in any community like this but from friends I know for medieval groups it’s standard for new people to start at the bottom of the social order and work their way up. So you can’t just turn up as a king or a knight you have to first me a knight’s squire etc etc. It’s to make it feel more realistic and also prevent having 100s of knights and no squire.

Beginners usually just don't know enough yet to accurately portray the 'higher' end of the society they are re-enacting. It can be a LOT of work & swotting. Quite often those roles are taken by history buffs.

Maireas · 04/09/2022 13:21

Get a double headed axe and run around shouting "destiny is all!"
That'll make them treat you with respect.

FindingMeno · 04/09/2022 13:25

I'd dress up and play vikings for free, and no doubt love it.
But I don't clean no toilets for less than the minimum wage.
Piss takers.

BlossomsOnATree · 04/09/2022 13:26

Since it's officially volunteering, I think you have to accept you might not make minimum wage (or equivalent). It's a free festival, in exchange for some work (which should be light work and not taking the piss) - for a lot of people that's a fair swap on both sides and how a lot of festivals manage to exist. Whether that's OK or not in itself is a different question, but I don't think it's OK to sign up to "volunteer" and then complain if you didn't make minimum wage (not that OP is doing that).

Iamthewombat · 04/09/2022 13:30

Yes to the battleaxe. After eating some fly agaric (‘berserker’ mushrooms).

LeavesOnTrees · 04/09/2022 13:34

That shampoo ad is hilarious. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

CaptainThe95thRifles · 04/09/2022 13:45

All re-enactors are (in my limited experience) pretty eccentric, but this lot seem to be rather on the extreme end of that scale. I would not have been happy with that either, and I think the "slave" business, as the OP describes it, is really dodgy ground in the modern world.

Less peculiar re-enactment groups are available

CPL593H · 04/09/2022 13:48

Maireas · 04/09/2022 13:21

Get a double headed axe and run around shouting "destiny is all!"
That'll make them treat you with respect.

😂

Time to channel your inner Skade. Can't see her on loo duty.

StaunchMomma · 04/09/2022 13:56

Nobody in their right mind would clean public toilets all day for a few free hours at a re-enactment day, surely?!!

DimplesToadfoot · 04/09/2022 13:58

Be careful for what you sign up to. I volunteered to be a slave for the vikings, they put me in the fucking stocks! It beats cleaning toilets but never again lol

BlossomsOnATree · 04/09/2022 13:59

Nobody in their right mind would clean public toilets all day for a few free hours at a re-enactment day, surely?!!

No - so this is an example of piss-taking. But more normally it might be a few hours of gate work, stewarding, staffing merch shop etc.

GnomeDePlume · 04/09/2022 14:00

DH used to do a bit of Dark Age re-enactment. He gave up when the group started to get a bit cliquey. They werent wearing blazers but he detected a few Yacht Club Commodore types

LadyEloise1 · 04/09/2022 14:01

There was a great programme on RTE ( Irish television) recently on the Vikings in Ireland and also in Britain - particularly York.
So many were taken as slaves by the Vikings to be traded and used, many to Iceland.
Our ancestors could tell us some tales no doubt.

BorsetshireBanality · 04/09/2022 14:05

i looked into volunteering at a local historic site - but at the new volunteers meeting we were told at a forthcoming event they wanted us all to dress up as and wander about in character during a Civil War re-enactment and I just knew I would end up as a peasant wench so I decided to pass.

StarCourt · 04/09/2022 14:36

One of my exes was into re enactment all his life. Started off as a Viking and ended up in his 50's in mediaeval times as an Earl! They take it very seriously and stay in character all weekend at festivals etc

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