Seasonal Work

“The last manager there went mental,” the current manager says.

I am sitting in a dining room with people I barely know.  Before me on the table is a menu I have never seen.  Each table has a number, and the empty chairs will soon be filled.  The season begins in a few days.

“That’s what this industry can do to you,” the manager says.  

She has prominent cheekbones and a southern accent of a country singer.  Her straight, blond hair brushes against her shoulders.  This isn’t the first audience she has spoken in front of.

“My husband and I ran a restaurant, and when our last daughter graduated from high school, I said, let’s sell the place. I want out. This is killing me.”

She vowed never to work in a restaurant again, and here she is leading one.  I have said those words before, but I am sitting here, too, about to start another restaurant job in some far-flung place where people need to eat. I am working at the Lodge at Bryce Canyon and living in a dormitory less than a hundred yards away from both the restaurant and the orange hoodoos of this desert mountain in southern Utah.

Most people I know don’t consider waiting tables to be a real job, but instead a form of purgatory.  From their view, I am a waiter waiting for my youth to end.

The job is easy.  I ask people what they want to eat, and I bring it to them.  In the process, I hit a few buttons on a computer, and I act nice to strangers so they give me their money.  Although each task is no more difficult than opening a bottle of wine, the process can get complicated. 

The rhythm of the shift is unpredictable, and the workload, crammed into a tight time-window, requires one to be level-headed and efficient at multi-tasking.  There is a physicality to it:  lifting trays, weaving through tables, kicking doors open.  And then there is the performance:  using a friendly tone with assholes and pretending to be sorry for something that isn’t your fault.  To deal with this, I compartmentalize my emotions and manage my expectations.

Among the public there is an endless deluge of the stupid, the needy, the ten percent tippers, and the guests who say they’re ready to order yet struggle to finalize the decision while you wait in agony. When I ask people why they work in housekeeping, most of them say they don’t like people.  When discussing the human race it is best to be more specific.  It’s not that I hate people.  There’s only a few that I like.

At resorts and national parks, waiters often make the most money of all the employees.  I cannot think of any other entry-level position that pays more than upper management.  I make more money than my boss, and I know that doesn’t make sense, but it’s a fact that should be taken advantage of.  There is no ladder worth climbing in the food and beverage industry.  Waiting tables can be a cause of shame for someone with a college degree, but making $200 in five hours, night after night, will quiet your mind.

 

With a little bit of flattery and exertion of the legs, you could save thousands of dollars each year, live in a beautiful wilderness, travel the world, and still have money to take month-long vacations. You may want to do more with your life, but for now this influx of cash and abundance of free time is enough to off-set the pressure of chasing that professional image that is expected of you. In this country we measure success in square footage, not in miles traveled unless they're attached to an airlines credit card.

The traditional trajectory leads toward a career that allows one to afford a house in which to shelter a family.  I want that someday, but when I make that choice I want to be ready to say goodbye to the possibilities my life could have been.  If I sign a lease and work my way up in a company, I am more than likely bound to one spot for a while.  I could take short weekend trips and plan a two-week vacation, but that could get expensive.  Seasonal work allows you to go wherever you want and to live in a place that most people can only afford to visit for a few days.  This is a job for the young, the empty-nesters, the divorced, and the middle-aged wanderers who don’t want to establish roots. 

For some, this is an escape from real-world responsibilities like doing your dishes or paying your electricity bill.  Certain companies deduct fees for accommodation and meals directly from your paycheck.  My coworkers cook my every meal, and the dishwashers clean up afterwards.  Each month I pay less than four hundred dollars for room and board——a price for rent that is hard to come by in most places worth living.

For others, this is a new experience akin to freshmen year in college where neighbors knock on each other’s doors to make plans.  The work is lucrative but, it can become mind-numbingly monotonous.  I refill my motivation by venturing far away from the job to a place so natural and remote that it knows no commodities.

For many, this becomes a way of life.  Drifters and travelers bounce from park to park for whatever reason impels them whether it is restlessness or wanderlust. 

I don’t have an enormous salary, a title that demands respect, or even a car with a functioning air-conditioner, but I know many places whose value remains only intrinsic.  The job is secondary to exploration.  So I am sitting here with a new menu in front of me and a trail of broken promises behind me. 

Even though I have told myself I want out of this industry, I will be taking orders, stacking entrée plates on a tray, and setting that food down in front of somebody who makes more money than me but with far less vacation time. I am waiting tables to hike into the canyons of the American Southwest, to gaze upon Anasazi ruins, to see the Milky Way with my naked eye, and to ensure that I can say to myself I tried to see as much as I could before it was too late.