Workamper Rumors

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For about 5 years, my wife and I have been making a living workamping around the country. We have shared many of our experiences on our website. Most of our experiences that we share are of a technical nature. We talk about job pay, hours and duties. One thing we don’t share often are stories of the people we meet along the way. One such story that comes to mind happens to be of a person who we worked with on our first workamping job.

Our first job was at an RV park in northern Nevada. We were park hosts for the summer along with one other couple, a local worker, and a permanent resident of the park. The owner of the park lived several hours away so running the park pretty much fell to the staff.

Meeting The Devil
Upon arrival and the initial orientation of the park, we were told about the permanent resident. His name was Alex (The name was changed to protect the innocent.) We were told that this Alex fellow liked to run the office a certain way and had quite a temper if the paperwork was wrong or the receipts weren’t stapled a particular way. Apparently he made a worker cry once. I can’t imagine crying over staples to be honest. We were also told that Alex’s wife would watch the outside crew and report any lollygagging to the owner. I don’t think they used the term lollygagging but you get the idea.

Needless to say, we were worried about working with this character. We decided that we would be cautious and pay attention to where the staple should go on the reciepts on the first day. When we arrived in the office that first morning I was expecting some sort of ill tempered demon from the depths of hell itself to come forth from the floor and greet us with a sinister smile. 

“Here comes Alex,” the local worker said to us as she looked out the windows of the office. I slowly pivoted my head to see the abomination that headed toward me. I had a fleeting thought that I should have gotten a hold of some holy water or something. My wife and I peered out the window and saw him.

He was scary… if you find garden gnomes scary.

Instead of a mythical creature of nightmares, we saw a short, thin, kind-looking old man. He had a beard and wore a genuine smile on his face. He walked into the office and greeted us both. After a little small talk and pleasantries, he took me out and showed me how to pump propane.

At one point, Alex told us that he had a history of people not liking him because he was a bit particular when it came to the paperwork. He also said that he suffers from mania and has a prescription for it. “If I look flustered and I walk away for a while, it’s because I’m manic. I’ll take my meds and calm down. Don’t take it personally,” he said.

For about a day, we thought we were going to work with the devil himself. It turns out, the rumors were mostly hype. He was just a guy who wanted to make sure the staples were in the top corner and to manage a condition that people in the past found difficult to understand.

New Friends and Lasting Memories

In the months we worked at that park, we got to know both Alex and his wife. Alex loved feeding birds out of his many bird feeders. His wife spent a lot of time in their rig which had a big window in the front. She generally had better things to do than watch the outside workers all day though.

We had a potluck with Alex and his wife and went out to eat with them another time. They both loved sharing stories about living in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. On the days I worked, Alex would offer to mop the floor while I cleaned the bathrooms in order to get some exercise.

Sometimes he would notice a staple out of place and pull the offending piece of metal out and restaple it. He was never angry about it; he never yelled about it. It was just “his thing.” We learned to just accept that it wasn’t our fault on occasions when he would get into work and leave 30 minutes later exclaiming, “I have to take a pill, I’m manic!” At the same time, he accepted that the stapes weren’t always going to be in the right spot.

Don’t Judge a Person by the Rumors

It’s all too often that we arrive at a workplace to find that the people there have made their judgments and opinions about others. We like to think that we’ve learned rather quickly that you can’t always take those rumors to heart. If we had not given Alex a chance, we would’ve never gotten to know him and his wife.  We would have missed the opportunity to have such great friends. 

Workamping gives us a unique opportunity to work with and learn from so many different people throughout the country. Sometimes the good parts of those people rub off on us or stick with us in the form of a happy memory. We are glad that in cases like Alex, we didn’t judge a workamper by the rumors.

If workamping to fund your travels is something that interests you, be sure to check out Full Time Freedom Week. It’s a 4-day online mega-event talking about everything from buying an RV to RVing in other countries. My wife and I will be discussing 5 jobs that we use to keep ourselves employed year-round. This event is like an encyclopedia of RV knowledge in one place. Click here to learn more and sign up!