hooo boy
Last summer I worked as a camp counselor. If you weren't aware, camp owners have negotiated with their local governments so that there is no minimum wage requirement. I was to be paid $1800 with a $600 bonus upon completing the 10 week summer. With one day off per week, and watching the kids from 7 am to 11 pm every day, that works out to being paid around $3 an hour. That was fine, I was doing the work primarily to have a fun summer break before going back to school. I did not have a fun summer break.
First off, during interviews and training, the camp owners (a husband and wife) stressed the importance of making time for yourself during the summer. We had one activity period off per day, every other night off, and the night off before our day off, making our day off something like 30 hours away from camp. In reality, the activity period off was usually spent showering (as we're usually too busy getting the kids showered to do so ourselves at night) and then waiting in line to make a phone call, as there was no phone service and the wifi they promised us would go out for weeks at a time with no sense of urgency from the camp owners, who had their own private wifi that they periodically changed the password to just in case any of the staff had connected to it.
Our nights off we were allowed- wait for it- to go to one of two buildings that the kids weren't allowed in. One had wifi (sometimes) and the other a single wired phone. We weren't allowed to go into town where there was phone service. We couldn't go out to eat a real meal, and if we wanted to drink we had to buy one of two IPAs the camp would sell us. On our days off, we were allowed to leave at sunrise, but needed to be back at camp by 5pm. Again, no chance to have a real dinner, and definitely not drinks, out. Every day off I had was a test of willpower- 4pm on my only day off during a 70 hour work week was NOT when I wanted to be heading back. I knew I would be stuck at camp for the next six days when I got back. Not allowed to run to a convenience store, not allowed to go into town to get phone service and talk to my family or see how my pets were doing at home. God, I wanted to go home.
I'm vegan, which means every morning I ate the same oatmeal, for lunch a peanut butter + jelly or a salad, and while we actually had awesome dinners, I was starving throughout the day. Walking multiple miles through the hills and keeping up with children takes a lot out of you!! On my first day off I bought snacks I could actually eat, trail mix, peanut butter and bananas, etc, to keep myself fed during the day. My roommate/co-counselor was a swim instructor and spent all day in the lake, so she asked me to get her some food as well. We had about four well-fed days before a head counselor took the food out of our cabin and said we weren't allowed to have our food in there and that we should thank them for keeping mice away. We were not thankful, we were hungry.
As if this wasn't enough, one day during a free period, where the kids split up and go to the areas that interest them, I dropped my girls off at the meetup/breakout point and ran to my cabin to use the restroom. When I came back, my head counselor was sitting with one of my kids and yelled at me in front of her for abandoning a kid (by leaving my bunk with him and with every other counselor in my age group??) because my kid wanted to go to an activity and didn't have a chaperone. After recovering from being yelled at for pooping, I walked my kid to the woodshop, where she wanted to go, only to find it was locked and not even an option for that day's free period. So no, I really wasn't needed there.
This was about 4 weeks in, and coming up on the 5th week midsession, where the kids go home, the bunks are reorganized, and new kids join, I was seriously reconsidering staying. I let my head counselor know this, and he apologized for yelling at me. I told him I know, and that I forgave him, this place was stressful for all of us, but that I really wasn't getting out of it what I expected to, and it was taking so much out of me. He asked what I would need to stay, and I told him I didn't want my co-counselor to be shuffled when they reorganized bunks. I told him I would not have made it this far without her. He told me he would talk to the owners, and then later told me that they “couldn't make that arrangement work” so I was going home.
On the day the bunks were to be shuffled, I was working until 11am when parents picked up their kids. I went to talk to the owner, and asked if I could get a check before I left, as I had to drive from Vermont to Florida to get home. He blew up at me. He asked why I thought he would have a check ready for me when I was the one who decided to quit. I stared at him blankly before going “YOUR head counselor told me YOU had decided that I couldn't stay with my co?” he said “That's right. Employees don't get to make demands here.” I said cool okay, so can I get my check or what? While filling it out he told me over and over again how nobody at the camp liked me anyway, how I was so irresponsible- coming back to camp past curfew or sleeping in (both of which happened one time in 5 weeks, and I regret neither), and that I should have talked to him, my employer, if I really had a problem. I said “I don't think you're as approachable as you think you are,” and left with my $900, 5 weeks of work check.
At first I struggled to understand why the owners would treat us so badly when they only had to pay us $3 an hour. I soon realized they treated us like shit BECAUSE we had already signed a contract saying we weren't worth anything more.