PROS AND CONS OF SEASONAL JOBS
The heading of this blog post could also be, the pros and cons of an unstable life. I am longing to write about it and I look forward to find out if arguments in support outweigh the cons. Maybe I am doing this as a kind of sincere summary for myself. Soon I will join the tribe of thirty-year-olds and try to answer myself a question whether I really like this lifestyle? And if so, is it something really convenient at this time of my life ? Let’s see.
CONS
1. You can never be sure of what next
If you take up a decision to go abroad and work temporarily, be prepared that reality will verify all expectations you’ve had. When planning the future, we always have some desirable image of it in our mind. But as you know it, things in life turn out the other way around pretty often. The work can turn out to be hard, the colleagues unfriendly, or the accommodation creepy. That’s why it’s worth to anticipate simply nothing. The safest thing is to stay optimistic, calm and focus on the real purpose that guides us during the trip.
2. Accommodation
As for the conditions in which I lived, I experienced the disappointment only during my winter stay in France. Usually I have a lot of luck with housing conditions. However my observations show that mostly they’re either poor or very average. If you take up a job, e.g. in a hotel or restaurant, it’s rather certain that you will share a room with someone you don’t know (as long as you travel alone). If you’re kind of person with own routine and habits you may be forced to change or stop them drastically. It rather appears difficult to do some activities if you live with twenty people under the same roof. Sometimes in the room you may not even have space to unfold the yoga mat, like you see on the pictures below. If you like clean, tidy space sometimes you will have to accept that there are people who do not like it and the view of unwashed dishes does not bother them at all ever for a week or longer. Another thing is rent. It happens that you get a room for free, for a reasonable or excessive amount. In the last case, it’s like paying yourself part of your salary. While signing the contract don’t check only your hourly wage but check your accommodation fee also. It may turn out that is as high as 1/4 of you monthly income. Unfortunately, hotels and restaurants are often just like big corporations, and the good of the employee is less important than the good of the business.
You can end up living in really good conditions like:
Or it can turn out the other way like…:
3. Constant change of surroundings
It may happen that our first seasonal job will be a hit and that we have found a place to which we want to return next years. Then we provide ourselves with some form of stability. Work and environment are the same. An example of such a place is the Geirangerfjord (my summer working spot). I know the people who come back for the season to Geiranger for twenty years in a row now. They come back for a money making reason but also cause of the people who became like their family and as they often come from the same countries, they continue their friendship after returning home. However, sometimes we end up at the wrong place and it forces us to change. Sometimes we just want to try something different or we wish experiencing a living in another country. Then we exposed ourselves to constant changes and unknowns. And as it can be fascinated at the beginning, so later it begins to tire.
4. Insurance
However strange it may sound, it is one of the “issues” to which we have to grow into. How important it is to have an insurance, only an adult know. Most of us young people are not worried about tomorrow or the consequences of our deeds. A few years ago I wasn’t worried about it. What to worry about! Nothing bad will ever happen! Yeah… certainly… If you stay in a foreign country for a longer time like one year or more, things are less complicated e.g I had lived for a year in England and later on I moved straight to Canada for one year also without changing a country in between. Then, in both cases I didn’t have to bother with insurance for a longer time. It all goes fiddly once you start moving from one country to another every few months… You can have a travel insurance for a reasonable price abroad but when you’re back your home country and you aren’t hired somewhere, to get insurance you have to register as an unemployed in the Employment Office and how many times you can do it… it’s simply tiring. But this is an effort you must undertake to be insured and to sleep tight. A private insurance can be an alternative but they usually work well only when comes to basic health issues. What if you need outpatient support or you get pregnant and need financial help? Well as you see it’s more complex than it seems…
[Of course this problem doesn’t exist if you’re a millionaire.]
5. Bureaucratism
When we work in another country, there are several official matters to carry about. Taking up a job for the season in Norway is quite easy because everyone who works less than 6 months per year only must have a D-number and that’s uncomplicated and quick to obtain. All the officer will ask you is to bring: a copy of your contract and passport. However, in England or France it’s more difficult to become a full-fledged emigrant even for a moment and the steps to obtain a legal working status take much more effort and time. What’s more, now the law in Poland also changes and as soon as you have here a resident status you must declare here all income you got from each country you’ve worked at. But what means resident status and to which country your affairs really belong… Well this is another story…
In brief, those are disadvantages of a nomad’s life (whatever you call it). It looks like that once you can’t carry your job with you. I mean in case when you are not a programmer or graphic designer etc.
In part two of the article we’ll find out about the good sides of being a seasonal worker.
Stay tuned and see you in a couple of days!
