Seasonal Work Nomads

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ChaosReignsOnSomeSaturday

ChaosReignsOnSomeSaturday

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Oct 31, 2020
I recently landed a job at a ski resort that will keep me occupied for 6 months. Said job offers housing with employment and even some food offerings. The money isn't awful so if I'm just smart about saving I should be able to build up the beginnings of a nest egg.

This led me into looking more at "Seasonal Positions" in the frame of Holiday Season but in terms of Winter/Summer. In doing so I found that actually a decent number of resorts offer employee housing or lodging options. This has me asking, "Is the semi-nomadic style of working here and there 4 to 6 months at a time then moving on to somewhere completely different the ideal set up to both save money as well as either get room/board free or at greatly reduced cost?"

There's always turn over at these establishments so there's also usually always Positions available.

What do you think?
 
Schwarzwald said:
I'll be honest, you really caught me off guard on this one. My rant about Mexican migrant workers was already half-written in my head as I opened this thread.
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my halloween carny rant was nearly finished too
 
That's time you could spend learning a useful skill people will want to keep you around for longer than a couple months. It's cool to save money on room and board and shit, but is that time spent going to pay you more in the future? What is your exit plan if something goes sideways?

Edit: I'm not trying to discourage you, enjoy the job you got, just wanted to give you some food for thought.
 
It's good as a temporary thing when you're young and going to study later.
Otherwise, it's not that useful
 
My grandmother was a school teacher in south New Jersey from the 70's to the 2000's. There were still plenty of kids with parents who moved when the amusement parks and casinos opened to staff them before moving south towards October to do the same there when the summer crowds were gone. Said it always meant the kids were messed up and barely learned anything. Carnie kids she called them.

I'll go off her experience and say not a good idea in general. Bad pay and no one to live as a family. Maybe if you're free and single, but having a permanent lifestyle around it? Not a chance.
 
David Brown said:
That's time you could spend learning a useful skill people will want to keep you around for longer than a couple months.
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I do appreciate you viewpoint and it is good food for thought. I've personally worked a lot of different jobs to the point and amassed a decent varied skill set, but it's very jack of all trades master of none. Push comes to shove I suppose I could always attempt to learn welding as it might be the least taxing on the body in terms if trade skills, save for your lungs possibly, but besides that I'm not seeing much in terms of "skills" I might learn. I was wholly unable to grasp coding.
JamusActimus said:
It's good as a temporary thing when you're young and going to study later.
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I wouldn't say I'm young but I'm definitely too old at this point to fuck around without a care. I'm unsure which meaning of "study" you're referring to but I tried my hand in the collegiate field and failed both times.
Claude Sigma said:
I think it's fun and viable when you're young and just want to work different jobs and learn skills.
Once you're looking for a wife and want to have children, it's obviously not a great idea anymore.
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I'd think moving around and interacting with a wide variety of people and especially women would help my chances of actually meeting someone rather than the stagnant point in which you meet no one new and are in a bad dating pool. I doubt you're implying that you think simply staying where I/whoever is will be the best opportunity to find someone but I did want to put forth my optimistic perspective.
 
Seasonal jobs are good, specially if your housing, food, and other expenses are covered, how much a job pays is not only determined by how much money you get, it's determined by all the benefits you get, it is a good way of saving money but the nomad lifestyle won't be appealing once you feel the need to settle down and start a family, until that happens it's better than other jobs that pay equal, plenty of people are working for the same amount of money that you are (while not having a family) but are not getting those additional benefits.

Also moving around won't help you meet women nor is your dating pool bad, if you live in a small town with 10.000 people that means you have around 700 women between the ages of 18 to 30, are none of those 700 women good enough for you? And that doesn't discard dating above 30 nor does it discard getting on your car and driving to the nearest town to date another 700 women in that age group.

I also don't agree with the guy saying that the time working could be used learning a skill for your future, that assumes working is not necessary and you can just learn skills instead of having a job, because living doesn't cost money apparently.
 
It's not a bad idea per se, especially if you don't have any responsibilities (no place of your own, no family etc.) and no long-term prospects in the near future. However, in my experience and the experience of a lot of people I know who held seasonal jobs at least once in their lifetimes, the ones where you have food and board can either be comfy or the worst fucking nightmare possible, depending on how shit the owners/managers are. They may put your lodgings on-site... or you may be thrown into some far off town and have to take a 1 hour bus ride to and from work every day. You may get a roommate situation where everyone has their own rooms or even your own studio apartment... or you may be crammed into some small bedroom with multiple people and the chance of all of them not being insufferable is really low. You may get reasonable hours... or you may be exploited worse than the darkest nigger with no paid overtime all because the owner or managers have "good relations" with the local government which let them get away with it. You may get 3 meal a day... or you may just get a pathetic discount in the resort's overpriced restaurant.

In short, one piece of advice I can give you is to always, always, do research on a particular seasonal job - the employer, the reality of your lodging situation, etc. rather than just taking them blindly just because you see that you have free room and board.
 
Anime Waifu NFT collector said:
Also moving around won't help you meet women nor is your dating pool bad, if you live in a small town with 10.000 people that means you have around 700 women between the ages of 18 to 30, are none of those 700 women good enough for you? And that doesn't discard dating above 30 nor does it discard getting on your car and driving to the nearest town to date another 700 women in that age group.
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This is a cope. This "statistical" basis is a gross over generalization. Personally I've got no issue dating above 30, but meeting those types in any situation is a very unusual. The "700" overweight single mothers of 3 and or tatted up burnouts while maybe not good enough for me, but I think settling to that degree is just asking for a headache.
 
I'd echo a lot of what people have said here already that it can be a really cool thing to do when you're young, but when you're older it becomes impractical not only when it comes to setting roots, but also when it comes to maintaining the relationships you already had. You might already know this, but people forget just how fast everyone ages, mainly their parents but also other family members, friends, and acquaintances. For the majority of people, by the time they hit 25, their parents are already in their 50s, and by 30-35, when people are reaching the prime of their lives, their parents are entering retirement. The ideal to me is as you age you want to have the ability to simplify your life so that you can spend more time with your loved ones, and that means while you might have been able to travel around and always be on the go while you were young, you'd want to eventually settle back down in a place where you can see your people on a regular basis.

Then there's also the financial/life planning aspect, and while I can respect someone's decision to want a different/more free-form life, we, too, will eventually age. People might have a great time living in the moment without a plan in their 20's, 30's, 40's, and maybe even 50's, but at a certain point health and lifestyle factors become a larger risk, and if someone doesn't have a plan on how they would handle them, they can get into a really dangerous place. The reason this is a big deal to me is that my work has brought me to some interesting places, some of which were retirement homes, and of those, I have seen regular state homes, and the way up to luxury retirement homes in the richest parts of CA, I'm talking the kind millionaires, and celebrities end up at, and all I can say is, the thought of ending up at even the best of those places, fills me with dread.
 
Cool position and all but I'd shit it when that 6 months is coming to an end and nothing new is lined up and it becomes a rush. Plus if you come across dick employers and they want you to start for them earlier but you can't because you're dedicated to the current position. They will spit their dummy out and find someone else, even if that other person turns out to be no good.

I've prayed for a job similar to The Shinning so I can be locked away by myself in a hotel for months.
 
One of my brothers has been bouncing between working at a ski slope (snow cat duty) during the winter months and working for a tree service in the summer. I wanna say he's been at it for around five years now (he's 27). He makes decent money for what is ultimately unskilled work and his costs of living are low. It certainly can work but it'll take its toll.

List of stuff he's had issues with over the years:
  • Employee housing is always shit. He only did that the first year and just bit the bullet and found an apartment after they tried to house him in a room in a single wide barely large enough for the bed that was in it the following year
  • The beginning of the season is slow with hours and they always want you there, even if it's for a measly amount of time
  • End of season is rough for hours too, though I'd imagine this depends on location
  • Working third shift was hard on his girlfriend and the only times he could see friends was on days off
He much prefers the tree service job as he can live in his camping trailer. Somehow his girlfriend hasn't left him.
 
Did you ever consider something like cruise ship work? It's something I have been looking at on and off for a while, but I doubt it is worth it for someone like me who isn't third world. Unless you have some kind of degree or experience in something that could get you a decent position like retail or casino work, which I don't. They work long hours, but it seems like everything would be a clean and pleasant environment to work in. I don't think I'd cope well with shared bathrooms, but who knows?

God I should have stayed in school.
It wasn't really my fault... I don't think.
 
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