Perks and Irks of Seasonal Hospitality Work
(August 4, 2018)
Now that Angry August is amongst us, I thought that I’d remind myself of why I chose this lifestyle in the first place. Last year when I decided to move from suburban Tega Cay, South Carolina to hippy Talkeetna, Alaska for the summer, it was because I desperately wanted to get away from the heat of the south, I wanted to experience living in isolation, I needed to heal from past heartbreaks, and I wanted to be surrounded by wild Alaskan nature. I felt like moving back in with my parents after a breakup was a regression in my young adult life, so I needed to find a place that would give me cheap housing with a job.
It sounds like I’m an idealist looking for somewhere that would hire me and give me a place to live while working there, but to my surprise and delight, there are actually tons of these opportunities all over the United States which I found through a website called Coolworks.com. It has listings of hospitality jobs and odd jobs like working on a cattle ranch in Wyoming or trail crew jobs along the Appalachian trail. You pick a place, you apply to the jobs that interest you, and then hope they get back to you.
Different places have different standards of living for their employees. It’s not uncommon for you to have to pay anywhere from $200-$400 a month for your employee housing which could be anything from a dry-cabin with no electricity to an actual house with your own bathroom and kitchen. The only place I had to pay for housing was the hotel I worked at in Alaska which gave me the worst living situation. Two roommates, with six housemates total, shared kitchen and bathroom, and not all of us agreed on everything because that never happens with six different people in a trailer. The food was not provided for employees, and the nearest Walmart was 2 hours away which you needed a friend with a car for or you could sign up for the shuttle service but only 12 people could go each week. The closer option for groceries was the very expensive general store downtown or a store called “Cubby’s” which was still 13 miles away and still didn’t have everything you needed. I still considered myself lucky.
The next job I had was during the winter in Utah working at a ski-lodge in Alta. It was semi-isolating being up in the mountains, but I could still see Salt Lake City and could take a free bus down the canyon if I really wanted to. It was expected that I try out skiing while I was in one of the best places in the U.S.A for skiing conditions. I never really needed to go to the city except for the occasional fun night out because this time around, there were free employee meals. The only catch to working there was that we still had to pay for housing and had one roommate, but that was already better than my previous living situation.
Now I’m living in the most isolated place located 10 miles off the coast of Maine on a tiny island called Monhegan. Here I’ve got my own room and free employee meals. Nothing is subtracted from my paycheck at all, and I even have the privilege of living steps away from the ocean and have converted to a Vegan diet since our Vegan chef and pastry chef have made that so accessible to the staff.
So what’s the catch?
Your housing is cheap/free, but it’ll never be as clean as you want it to be because you’re sharing living spaces with other people.
You live/work/eat/and sometimes sleep with the same people you’re around for 5 or 6 months at a time. You get to know each other at an accelerated rate, but if you have any drama with your coworkers/neighbors you either have to suck it up and deal with the awkwardness the rest of the season or decide to leave. Either forgive or forget them because avoiding is impossible.
You subconsciously put an expiration date on any potential love interests (I deal with this by simply not dating anyone)
Some days you’ll probably just want to be alone but it’s hard to find a place other than your room to do that when there are tourists everywhere you go.
The wifi always sucks because of extremely limited internet.
All your friends eventually become internet friends if you want to stay in touch with them.
Saying goodbye is always hard when you’ve made so many good friends in such a condensed amount of time.
Despite all that irks me about this lifestyle, I’d still rather be living this way than living the standard, ordinary life that I lived back home. I’m appreciative of the living situation I have because I get to live in places that most people could only afford if they were rich. I’m appreciative of the friends that I make even when I’ll maybe only see them for 5 months and never again for the rest of our lives because at least they give me even more reasons to travel when my only chance of seeing them again is by plane.
As far as my non-existent love-life is concerned, I’ve put less emphasis on forming romantic bonds and much more on platonic friendships that will last so much longer and be more beneficial to my well-being not having to deal with heartbreak every 6 months. I’ve gotten more used to living in the moment with the lack of internet connection which is the way life should be anyways. Life is about making the most of where you are and who you’re with, so take those lemons that life gives you, squeeze the hell out of them and drink every last drop.