We have workcamped for a long time now and have made a number of observations. First is that workcamping is not always easy and is not for everyone. Second is that the compensation for the time and effort put into the jobs is relative to what is desired and/or expected. Third is the job itself is not always what is initially promised. These are all based on indivdual expectations.
The fourth and last thing seems to be universal to all the workcampers we have known. Every workcamping job time frame can be broken down into four segments. As seasonal workers we are automatically "short-timers". We know when we start exactly when our time on the job will end. That being said the season, whether it be 4 or 5 or 6 months can be defined by the same attitudes that you will find in every career.
The first quarter is when you start a new adventure, the new job. There is excitement and enthusiasm. New people to meet, new skills to learn, and finding your place in a new work environment. Everyone is happy and enjoying the "new car smell" of a new job. After all new is good,right?
Somewhere around the beginning of the second quarter of your commitment you are getting comfortable. You are getting good at the new job and your skills now allow you to do the job effortlessly and you can enjoy the camaraderie of the new people you call your coworkers. You may even start to socialize with some of them whether they are fellow workcampers or seasonal locals or even year round employees. It all sounds great, doesn't it? But you are only half way through the workcamper experience.
In the second half the job starts to get routine. It feels like you are in a rut doing the same thing over and over again. I mean the job isn't that difficult. They hire people every year to do this and train new people each and every season so how hard could it be. Workcampers after all are just temps, people hired to do a job for a specific period of time and then they are done. You also have gotten to know your coworkers better. That can be a good thing, but who likes everybody? There will be that person who gets on your nerves for whatever reason and makes you wish you could work with someone else. Sometimes that can happen and sometimes it can't. But you made a commitment and a commitment is a commitment so just suck it up!
The last quarter is the toughest. This is the end of your time, some might call it their sentence depending on the job and everything that makes up the work place environment. This why many employers give a completion bonus. If you stay until the end of your commitment you may get extra money for each hour worked or part of your living expense may be reimbursed. I'm not talking about employers who hold back money just to give it to you later, I am talking about a real incentive to stay!
There is the knowing that at the end of your commitment you will once again be back out on the road looking for the next adventure. A new season, new people, even a new workcamping job. This is why we do what we do, for the adventure. Some of our friends don't understand why we do this but as I said before it is not for everyone. Needless to say it is the way we live our lives and we are happy doing it like this. If the job is good or bad or just down right intolerable we have ways of dealing with it. I look at some of the jobs I had before I retired and think "if I can do that for"X" number of years I can do anything for a few months", and if it is really that bad remember our house is on wheels and our plans are written in jello. We can leave at any time and seek out a new adventure.
Well I have to get ready for work. The season is coming to an end and things are slowing down. It is getting a little boring but after the hectic summer at KOA a little boredom is welcome. Our last quarter will go by and we will be out on the road looking for our next adventure. The game clock is ticking and counting down here in our home in Petaluma because.....
Home is where we park it,
Frank and Mary
Frank and Mary
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