I left Mr. Hinnemann’s suddenly on a Monday evening last month. This is the true story of how it happened.

The day before I left was a day like every other, not notable in any way, except for two details. The first was that it was a Sunday. On Sundays the stable is half-staffed, which is brilliant when it’s my day off.

But that day I was working—and half the staff means twice the work. When my alarm went off that morning, my room was lit only by the few stars I could see through my skylight. Dawn would break, unseen by me, usually around the time I finished my 16th stall of the morning. I would not have breakfast until I had mucked out 10 more stalls, put in fresh straw, swept the barn aisles and swept the driveway.

The second event irritated and troubled me enough to note it down later.

Around the time I started my 20th stall, Mr. Hinnemann wandered out, dressed in a conservative dark suit with polished black leather shoes, and he made his way through the courtyard to his Audi. I had been up already for almost two hours, but my arms and shoulders were used to the work by now, and I felt fresh. With every day and every week, I told myself “stay positive. This will be the day when you finally start getting more help.”

I called out “good morning” to my boss. He looked at me—we made eye contact. And then he turned his fashionably clothed back to me and got into his new car. As he shut the door, I thought I heard a reluctant “morgen” before he drove off, but maybe I was just giving him the benefit of the doubt. As his car wound along the tree-lined drive out to the road, I stood still in the doorway of the barn, pitchfork in one hand, staring after him in disbelief.

What bothered me wasn’t that this was a surprise, but that this was the norm. I wasn’t happy, and although I tried to hide it, I knew it was only a matter of time before the establishment and I came to heads.

The rest of the day passed quietly, but monotonously, as did most of the following day. It wasn’t until Monday afternoon that my suspicions were confirmed. Mr. Hinnemann, his secretary and his head rider were having a meeting in his glass-fronted office that overlooked the indoor. I was riding a young horse, and I was taking plenty of walk breaks. I could see everything that happened. They were talking earnestly, hardly bothering to look into the indoor arena at all. Mr. Hinnemann glanced my way a couple times, but the other two studiously avoided looking at me at all. When they summoned me into the office after work, I wasn’t surprised.

For the last three weeks my motivation to work, without help or payment of any kind, was quickly reaching abysmal depths. I wasn’t there to volunteer my time for the charity of Mr. Hinnemann and his manor; rather I was there to learn, and in exchange, to work for him.

Well, it wasn’t going to work out; that much was obvious. I anticipated some sort of discussion, (dialogue, argument?) about my role there. Before I went to the meeting I took some time to organize my thoughts and put some of them on paper. This is what I wrote: “…I think I will have to quit. It’s all I can think about. I am going crazy here. Every minute of every day I think about leaving. Right now my motivation is so low…”

I wasn’t shocked to see that the meeting would be conducted without Mr. Hinnemann. I’m sure he had more important matters to attend to. There was just Mr. Hinnemann’s secretary, the head bereiter and me. The whole meeting lasted less time than it takes me to clean a stall, and with me talking just about as much. There was no preamble—Julia (the secretary) just jumped right in, like a knight into battle. She seemed to take no small amount of pleasure in telling me I wasn’t good enough to be there, and that I wasn’t improving.

“This is a professional stable” was what she wanted me to understand. And just to make her point crystal clear she added: “We can’t leave you alone on a horse for five minutes…It would be better if you left.” Then she magnanimously offered me the chance to work until the end of the week if I so chose.

I left within two hours. Only taking time to pack (not much stuff really), arrange a place to stay (with a friend in Holland), and say goodbye to a couple friends. I left disheartened and disillusioned, in the dark, on a train, with not much of an idea what I was going to do. I had stayed for 10 weeks out of stubbornness and a desire to see my plans through. And now I was leaving early and not on good terms—my plan and my story seemed prematurely over.

This article was originally published in Gaitpost magazine.