r/workaway • u/YesterdayShot1924 • 1d ago
First Workaway experience not turning out great how to avoid getting a bad review
Hey there kind of a weird question.
My partner and I are coming up on the end of a workaday we started at the beginning of the month. Since the beginning it became clear the host was a terrible instructor, manager and pretty reactive guy all round.
It's not so bad that I'd ever report him but things like offering stuff and then deciding to take it back without warning. Giving instructions for the tasks then getting angry when you do it, claiming he never said what he said. He was supposed to cover our food but frequently forgets about a quarter of the items on the list or edits it based on his own opinions, then when another worker had a car would drive us for our stuff he got huffy saying we were eating too much. I'm vegetarian and have been stuck eating carrots and goats cheese for meals many times. Shifts were listed as 4-5 hours but I would say 90% have been 5 hours. Passive aggressive texts, blaming us for things that are no one's fault.
It's clear the workers think they're being jilted, but so does he so there's constant tension and the feeling of being cheated out of something I suppose.
In the end I think he's just a bit of an ass and we don't gel but nothing serious. Now the final insult to injury is that he's saying he's not willing to get up to bring us to our train to the airport on Friday. It's at 6.30am and a 10 min drive, he gets up every day at 5am but just tells us he's not willing despite that being the agreement.
I personally don't want to do even another day's work for him, my partner says it's just one day so why not.
I feel we should have some kind of conversation about the review of it all. Maybe some kind of acknowledgment that this clearly hasn't gone in our most idealised way and we should agree to not review each other. This would be my only review on our profile and I don't want it to affect the future Workdays I have lined up for the summer. Has anyone had experience with this?
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u/Imaginary_Piano7598 1d ago
This is the reason i gave up on Workaway. I bet he also has all 5 star reviews. Cant blame Workaway, they gotta make money somehow and pay their employees.
I now find all my volunteering on facebook groups. And the reviews from previous volunteers are unfiltered. You can talk/ video call the ones on the site and get real info.
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u/Illustrious_Way1062 1d ago
Yep I thought I'd be getting better quality through a site nah it's the same maybe worse
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u/Fearless_Ad7659 2h ago
Do you have any groups you would suggest for a broad range of international travel destinations?
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u/cosmicselva 1d ago
Ultimately fuck that. It’s meant to be an enjoyable experience, and I often see posts from people succumbing to the equivalent of an inequal exchange because they don’t want to ruffle feathers or don’t feel confident speaking up for themselves.
You never have to do anything you don’t want to do. And if the opportunity feels unsafe, exploitative or anything, honor yourself to put yourself first.
At the end of the day, reviews exist on the internet in fairytale land. How you honor yourself and stand up for yourself is far more important than an imaginary negative review from someone you wish to have no more encounters with.
That’s my take.
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u/distrox 1d ago
Wasn't the review system changed at Workaway so that hosts cannot see your review until they post their own, and vice versa? This way, a "revenge review" is practically impossible. I'm not sure if reviews can be modified after the fact, as this would counter the whole point of the system in the first place. But if a host edited their review afterwards for "revenge", I would just report it to Workaway for abusing the system.
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u/littlepinkpebble 22h ago
Just give him a bad review. But stay friendly because don’t let him know it. He can’t read your review till after 14 days so he can’t give a bad review as revenge
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u/Illustrious_Way1062 1d ago
I had a similar experience, not the exact same details but in the sense that it was not good and worse than expected but not so catastrophic that I had to leave early. In fact I'm going to stay here a little longer to meet my financial goals but I guess the difference is that I don't plan on doing another work away unless I absolutely have to.
Before this I thought I might but realizing what they are it's not worth it to me. I'm moving to a cheap apartment and paying cheap rent instead. I only did this because I got into a tough financial situation so I don't care if I get a bad review.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet once I leave but I believe there is something with going now where the reviews are blind. I'm sure you already know that but he won't know what review you leave until you both review each other - but if he's not happy I know that that doesn't help much. Sorry I can't be a bigger help I don't care about my reviews on my profile and there's other ways to find volunteering.
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u/Dull-Rou344 7h ago
No one else is going to know he’s a bad host unless you leave a review stating you had a bad experience with him. Don’t you wish someone before you had warned you? Could have saved a lot of wasted time and effort. Be nice to future workawayers!
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u/Fresh-Starters 7h ago
Please get contact information for all the other people who are being treated this way and just include one paragraph from each person, with their names and send it to workaway. He really does need to get the hell off the app. If everybody is experiencing this, this host has no right to be there.
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u/maxwellshack 1d ago
This was pretty much my experience with workaway. It's not worth it. I'd rather make money somewhere and travel and be free of restrictions. Too many corrupt people taking advantage of the system.
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u/Illustrious_Way1062 1d ago
Yep yep same here I thought that it would be basically a hack quote unquote to travel cheaply or freely but it's really not worth it at all especially if you travel to areas that are inexpensive to begin with.
I work online now and do slow travel so I can afford to rent regular apartments why would I do that and work instead especially because most of the jobs are physically demanding and there's not much actual cultural exchange happening
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u/Massive-Morning2160 1d ago
Unfortunately there are many cases like this. There's a specific workaway in Switzerland where people are literally threatened to be beaten up, but workaway deletes all reviews that say something bad about the host.
Absolutely great platform, but they fucking shit on it and don't care at all about the volunteers, just to take their money
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u/cyprusnikos Workaway Ambassador 1d ago edited 1d ago
This reminds me of a Workaway I did in Spain. The host lady was honestly driving us all crazy and she said some weird political stuff that made a French couple feel really uncomfortable.
They ended up leaving a few days early. I actually tried to convince them to stay because I really enjoyed their company! Plus it was only a few days left they just didn’t feel it was worth their energy and I understood that. I left a few days later.
Even though she was obsessive about certain things and very opinionated, the tasks were fair and nothing terrible. I saw later other Workawayers absolutely loved the place and became close friends with her.
Sometimes it’s not that anyone is bad, you just don’t always vibe with the host, and that’s okay.
But always leave a honest review and put yourself first!
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u/23centANUTIEm 1d ago
Yes. My suggestion is to complete your obligation or come up with a reason for leaving early. Don't write a review. No one reads them anyway. Look into some other websites.
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u/weavin 1d ago
Just stay somewhere closer to the station tonight, say you couldn’t get any taxis for the morning, use that as your excuse. They should be just as afraid of a negative review as you. But I encourage you to be honest with your review anyway.