Beware of turnover - werkgeversreview Dining Hall Staff bij Philmont Scout Ranch

Hours are brutal. You wake up at 05:30, and put on one of your two uniforms, which are probably dirty as you have to work four days a week minimum, and walk to the dining hall from the staff tents. Upon arrival you work in a desperately understaffed dining hall for hours. You eat your meals in between everyone else on staff. Management has many people who are completely unfamiliar with scouting and the idea of servant leadership in general thanks to the fact much of the dining hall leadership is culinary school students on an internship who seem to have zero experience doing what you're doing, and don't understand why you're not as excited to be there as the scouts. Get at most two thirty minute breaks throughout the day for what amounts to a fourteen to potentially sixteen hour shift depending on the day. Want more breaks? Pick up smoking. You'll be breaking your "trail of courage" promise you made the first time you came here, but on the bright side, you'll be able to have two or three additional fifteen minute smoke breaks. It sounds bad, but hey, i picked up smoking because of it even though my grandpa died of smoking-related heart attack. Trust me, you *need* that break to stay sane. Clock out at 20:00. Maybe 21:00. On a bad day? 22:00. On a good day? 19:30. March exhausted and delirious with the rest of the kitchen staff back to your tents. Lay down for an hour. Ask god why you decided to come here. Dissociate so hard you start talking to the rocks outside your tent. Get up. Go to the staff activities center (SAC) because it's the only place with wifi. Try to watch Youtube on what's basically dial up thanks to a thousand other people slamming Philmont's internet access all at the same time. Give up after you've spent ten minutes buffering a two minute video. Play pool or maybe foosball with a coworker. Both of you talk about how much you want to quit. Both of you know you won't because it'll make everyone have an even harder workload. Sit down and listen to music. Maybe sit next to the guy playing guitar. Do whatever laundry you can get the mental strength to do. Try your best to not look like staff while using the laundry next to scouts. You don't want them to know how much you hate working here. You don't want them to know you feel trapped. Get woken out of your nightmare for a moment by the dryer going off. Pack your stuff into a gym bag and toss it in your tent. Sit by the cold firepit as a you listen to the same guy play his guitar. Have a conversation about how you didn't think working here would be like this. Smell the air and feel at home for a bit. Listen to the guy play guitar until he leaves to go to bed at around midnight. The SAC closed an hour ago but you're not getting any sleep until people stop laughing and yelling around the outside of it because you sleep ten feet from it, and can listen in on their conversations. It finally quiets down at about 2am and you head to your tent. Your tentmate has been playing on their switch for the last two hours trying to calm themselves. They have extreme anxiety but they can't get help for it here. Do your best to help by talking to them. Fail. Try your best to smile and tell your coworker tomorrow will be easier than today, and you'll both get out early enough to go to chapel. You both know it's not true, but sometimes a small lie helps Crawl into your sleeping bag in your underwear. Remember you forgot to shower because they're a hundred meters from your tent. Tell yourself you'll shower in the morning. You won't, but it'll make you feel better for a little bit. Cry silently until you fall asleep just shy of 03:30. Your alarm wakes you up at 05:15, and then 05:30. You and your tentmate both sit up on your cots in your underwear and say nothing to each other as you stare at the tent door and each other, contemplating suicide for a moment as you remember you have two more days of this until your off days where you can try to mentally recover. Shake the thought of suicide off by reminding yourself it means your coworkers will have an even harder time working with one less person. Get dressed. Go to work. Repeat the process.