After writing about the couple who were offered a workcamping position in Branson, Missouri that was far from equitable, I received some questions from blog readers about workamping. One was how hard is it to find workcamping jobs, and where do you look for them?
One of the best resources around is Workamper News. In addition to job listings from coast to coast, they also have articles about workampers and resources available to help you create a resume that will get you just the right job. Another very good source of jobs for RVers is Workers on Wheels. And here is an interesting article on Mobile Jobs from the Escapees RV Club. An excellent guide to every aspect of workamping is John and Kathy Huggins’ book So, You Want to be a Workamper? which is available on Amazon.
Another question was what happens if you get to a workcamping position and find out it wasn’t all that was promised? This has come up many times in my seminars on working on the road at RV rallies. A lot depends on how far off the actual job description is from what was advertised, and how much you are willing to compromise. I always tell people that if you made a commitment and find that you just don’t care for the job, you owe it to the employer to stick it out. It’s not like you have to be there forever, and who knows, you might even learn a thing or two that will come in handy later on.
On the other hand, if you were promised a full hookup RV site in exchange for X number of hours per week doing specified duties and arrive to discover that the site is not full hookup or is substandard, or are informed that you will need to work longer hours or do things that are not part of the job description you agreed upon and you find the working conditions intolerable, you have wheels under your house. Leave and go someplace else!
At the same time, I believe flexibility is important. We knew one workamping couple who were told they would be on duty Tuesday through Thursday in the daytime, and their duties would be limited to checking in new arrivals, getting them parked, and working in the campground store. As it turned out, another workamping couple at the park had a death in the family and had to leave suddenly. The manager asked them to work two extra days per week for two weeks until replacements arrived. That wasn’t part of the deal, but they went along with it, given the situation. They said that when the new workampers got there, the manager gave them a nice bonus check and presented them with a stainless steel portable barbecue grill for helping out. So everybody came out ahead. Like they say, it’s nice to be nice, and it’s nice to be appreciated.
Assuming the light I see at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train, I should be able to wrap up the March – April issue of the Gypsy Journal today, print it out for Terry to proof in the morning, make the necessary corrections, and hopefully have it sent out to our subscribers within a couple of days.
I think we’ve got a great mix of stories in this issue that I have been hanging onto from our past travels, just waiting for the opportunity to share them with our readers. They include features on Cave-In-Rock State Park in Illinois, the Railroad Museum of Oklahoma, Leila’s Hair Museum in Missouri, the Judy Garland Museum in Minnesota, New York’s Six Nations Indian Museum, the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas in Montana, the Cleveland Roller Mill Museum in New Mexico, and Florida’s Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. And I’ve still got a couple more to go, as space permits.
Thought For The Day – Make your smile change the world, don’t let the world change your smile.
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Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!