That's Camping

My resume is a perplexing piece of literature. It is filled with many a job, but almost all of which require some amount of explaining as to what I actually did for eight hours a day.

“During any given week, I’d say I do about 15 minutes of real, actual work. The rest of the time is spent trying to get people I’ve never met to laugh at me through an anonymous blog I keep.”

But in all seriousness, I’ve worked at obscure magazines, publishing houses and government organizations that often cause an inquirer to dig deeper to dissect my daily itinerary. This became abundantly clear to me the other day, when forced to explain my most recent role at a summer camp.

“Oh, that sounds like fun! So, what sports are you coaching?”

Damn! Even at a summer camp, the most self-explanatory job there is, short of “I pick apple trees or haul garbage,” do I have a complicated work title.

“Well, I don’t exactly coach anything,” I tried to explain. “See, I’m the site coordinator’s assistant, so I spend my days setting up the fields, coordinating the different camp schedules and filling in any necessary gaps.” And, oh yea, I get to dress up as this:
That would be the camp mascot, Gomer. Twice a week, I get in this sweat box that smells like it hasn’t seen a cleaner since it was purchased, dance around, and four-year olds giggle until their heads explode.

Fortunately for me, that is not the saddest thing about the camp. That would be the guy I report to (perhaps working below him is the saddest thing?), a self-nicknamed, mid-30s, slightly balding, unmarried, baseball burnout known as Devo. I have held many a shitty job, and have learned one unfailing truth: your boss will be an idiot and an asshole. Why? Because they too worked said shitty job, never graduated from it, are bitter about that fact, but have been finally promoted to the head position and feel a false sense of power and accomplishment.

Upon first meeting, Devo seemed like a nice enough guy with high energy for the camp. I was excited about working a summer camp, because it allowed me to be outdoors, figured to be pretty low stress, and would give me some experience working with kids, hopefully boosting a resume that one day will land me a teaching job. But as the week progressed, I realized this guy was not terribly bright or enjoyable to work under.

The camp is fairly well-known and respected throughout Metropolis (it was rated a few years ago by Sports Illustrated as the best sports camp in the city), and this marked the first time the camp had been held at this locale, and I quickly learned this was this guy’s first week at this particular job, so I gave him a break. But I began to sour on him when he debuted a giant, oversized, red fist that he wore during morning carpool.

See, the camp developed an asinine way to give a sign of acceptance to the campers, known as the first bump. Worst of all, camp protocol is to “bust the rock” upon making contact with the receiver of said fist bump. But Devo went a step further. He used a giant red fist (seen here at a Flyers game) to give each camper a fist bump, and then, as their parents were driving away, He fist bumped the parents! While I understand using the fist bump to avoid potential hugs that could lead to sexual assault trials, or high fives that miss and slap a kid in the face, where in God’s name is the professionalism? There is no reason to be fist bumping men in suits on their way to the office when you are in a red tee-shirt and gym shorts. Making the matter even more hilarious, I decided to inspect the red fist, because it had a circular hole on top of it that oddly seemed fit to hold a beverage, adult or otherwise. Sure enough, right there on the fist, in bold letters, said:

“This is not a toy. It is a beverage holder. If consuming alcoholic beverages from this, please drink responsibly.”

You can’t make this shit up. A mid-30s aged man was using a koozy to great five- and six-year olds each morning, and in order to reassure their parents they were in good hands, used it to send them off to work for good measure. The week went on like this; the guy scammed on the women who came in to set up the cooking camp for next week, would disappear for about an hour while I went about my work, rarely ate or sat still (leading me to believe and joke with the other counselors that he was bumping lines in a middle school bathroom stall) and was adamant that we follow the schedule, even when weather or other factors suggest we amend it. For example, one day a series of thunderstorms blew through the area, and more were in the forecast. But at the first sign of sunny skies, he had me head out to the field, lug the obnoxiously heavy pieces needed to assemble a dunk tank, and begin the long and tedious task of filling it to the brim with water. Needless to say, the storm blew through, and I got to take it down in a thunderstorm before enjoying a very damp drive home.

Yet, it pays pretty well ($400 tax free a week) and is all I have to get me through Europe in a few months. It is admittedly embarrassing as a college graduate, but I always liked camp as a kid, and it isn’t too bad of a way to make some spare change till I find something permanent.