It seems to me there are two ways of looking at employment.
The mindset of my parents,
“If it were fun, it wouldn't be called work,”
which—though
I'm certain in giving me this advice my parents hold my best intentions in mind—is a
genuinely awful way to view the world, and contrasts greatly with the
second,
“Do something you love and you'll never
have to work a day in your life.”
which I am going to go ahead and agree with, taking the measurable risk of revealing my naive and optimistic nature to all. But seriously...
There is no need to be miserable 40 hours a week.
Fortunately, finding something to do for that 40 hours in the
Vail Valley is easy. An hour ago I opened up the Vail Daily and perused through
no fewer 80 job postings, many I am qualified to fill just because I know how
to smile and can read, and despite the fact that we are headed into the off
season.
Granted, I make no promises about the quality of these jobs.
In fact, most are probably awful soul-sucking positions that pay only enough to
support an individual from paycheck to paycheck, but they are there, and they
are easy to get. Look a little harder (i.e. forget the paper and make some
friends…it’s not what you know after all…), and it is possible to find a few
real gems: work that doesn't steal your soul, and pays enough money to cover
rent, new skiis and Fireball shooters for free outdoor concerts.
What else do you need? #checkwithmeintenyears
I am certain these gems exist because I was employed in one
for the first year I lived here. I worked as a pastry cook and spent most
evenings enjoying limited responsibility, minor supervision and completing
tasks such as baking cookies, eating crème brulee, and decorating plates with
chocolate sauce. I often went home wondering,
“Am I really getting paid to do
this?”
For the hitch-hiking, dumpster diving traveler I was upon
arriving in this town, it was a pretty sweet gig.
Unfortunately, in the past two years my enthusiastic attitude
has seasoned into “good natured” kitchen bitterness and instead of heading into
work early to create new ice-cream flavors, I now put off the clock-in time for
as long as possible, even if all I'm doing is lying prone on the locker room
floor desperately working up the motivation to put on my chef coat and walk
upstairs.
This will not do, I decided.
I put in my two weeks, at which
point I will have plenty of time to research job potential in this town and
then post about it on the internets for all you readers (by which I mean, the
few friends who actually skim through these entries after they accidentally
click on them from my facebook updates).
So you have that to look forward to.
What else am I going to do? Well, follow dreams and stuff
writing America's best new cheap paperback novel to sell out of the trunk of my
car (actually, I can't afford a car, but just go with the imagery for a
moment).
I’ll also be teaching yoga, an equally profitable endeavor.
You're right, Dad, Vail is not the best place to be a starving writer
and yoga teacher...
...I know the odds, and
don't laugh when you see me pouring your coffee in two months, but I'm going to
go ahead and imagine it, some lucrative offer falling into my lap, along with
the opening,
“I read your blog, would you like a job?”
