Life - An Update!
So I guess I lied about not waiting 7 months to update again. I've waited a full year lol
I am still in Yellowstone! In March 2014 I left a job I hated where I kept getting passed over for promotion after promotion and moved to a job where it turns out they love me and I get promoted over and over again. Hah! Fuck you Tufts Health Plan, fuck you!
Last summer I worked as a "Residence Coordinator" which is a combination of dorm mom and custodian. It was the most perfect shift I've ever worked, a split shift from 1pm to 5pm and then 10pm to 2am. So I got to sleep in late every day and could spend four or so hours in the evening either out looking for grizzlies or playing video games or watching movies or sleeping or whatever. Often I was actually up until 3 or 4 in the morning because most of my friends also worked evening so they would be up half the night and we would hang out, watching movies and drinking bourbon after I got off duty at 2 in the morning.
For winter 2014 I had applied for jobs in Death Valley and Grand Canyon and was offered a position at Grand Canyon as a Front Desk agent, but then an HR Staff Assistant position opened up in Yellowstone so I applied for that and was offered the job. I started that job in December 2014 after about a two month break. On my break I took Mom to Vero Beach for a week and basically played a lot of video games and caught up on a lot of TV and doctor's visits and collected unemployment.
The HR Staff Assistant job was originally supposed to be a "long season" agreement. I would have been in the HR office in Gardiner, MT for 10 months straight, but when they opened up the Summer hiring for this season I decided to go ahead and apply for one of the Assistant Personnel Manager positions and was ultimately offered Assistant HR Manager at Old Faithful -- the largest location at Yellowstone.
So life has been good. I spent my winter in Gardiner, MT until the end of March and it was a very mild winter. I spent a lot of time in Lamar Valley looking for wolves and I was successful four different times although I don't have much to show for it because usually they are so far away that the camera I had at the time wasn't capable of showing them. I have some video I can upload though of the first time I saw one of the packs as they were reasonably close to the road.
In March I took a week to go to Park City and Las Vegas where I won over $900 so that paid for my Vegas trip. I drank a LOT of cocktails and ate a lot of amazing food and then visited one of my best friends in Salt Lake City before heading back to Yellowstone.
I'm currently at Old Faithful. Since Housing and HR is a split function here, I don't have to deal with any housing issues at all, which is great because that's super tedious. We do lots of investigations and I end up firing a lot of people which sometimes sucks and sometimes is "good riddance". We don't do a hell of a lot of screening before people arrive though so I guess it is not surprising that so many are just not suited to this lifestyle.
The great thing about being a Manager is I now get free room & board. I also now get medical coverage (I have an HSA) and I just qualified for "Core" status which means I get other benefits too. They have a 401K where the employer contribution vests on day 1 -- they only match 4%, but vesting on day 1 is amazing. And I was just able to add vision and dental. They use Blue Cross so when I go back to Boston on my break in October I can just see all the same doctors and dentists I used to see on my previous insurance. And now I get paid for holidays whether I work them or not (as long as I'm "checked in") and next year I'll get vacation pay too which they just pay you out at the end of each season and I can use that money to pay to continue my insurance during my breaks.
Basically I've finally fallen into my perfect lifestyle -- I can work 9-10 months out of the year and have benefits like someone working year round with two weeks vacation. Instead I get to spend two months doing whatever I want. So in October I'm going to Ireland with my mother for 10 days and then I'll spend a week at Epcot Food & Wine at Disney World. Pretty much the only thing that sucks is the internet here is brutally awful so I had to switch to Verizon and I usually have to buy extra data from them every month. I finally decided to bite the bullet and sign up for Netflix DVDs by mail for the first time in years because we can't stream for shit. I can barely load a text page or an image.
Right now I'm waiting to hear on what I'll be doing this winter. If I don't get offered one of the few manager slots available (only two locations are open in Winter so there are far fewer jobs available) then I'll hopefully be offered a Recruiting position back in Gardiner. I should know in a few weeks. Even if I end up in a non-manager role, I will likely still be able to get on a free room & board plan as they want their managers to stick around for summer so they offer that as an incentive to keep us.
And that's the news. I'm posting this one to friends only (editing 2016 to unlock) and I'll catch up with all kinds of media related stuff in a public post. I feel like I want to starting journaling more on a regular basis even if no one reads it lol Maybe I can actually stick to that (yeah, right!).
I hope everyone else who is STILL HERE is doing well :)
I am still in Yellowstone! In March 2014 I left a job I hated where I kept getting passed over for promotion after promotion and moved to a job where it turns out they love me and I get promoted over and over again. Hah! Fuck you Tufts Health Plan, fuck you!
Last summer I worked as a "Residence Coordinator" which is a combination of dorm mom and custodian. It was the most perfect shift I've ever worked, a split shift from 1pm to 5pm and then 10pm to 2am. So I got to sleep in late every day and could spend four or so hours in the evening either out looking for grizzlies or playing video games or watching movies or sleeping or whatever. Often I was actually up until 3 or 4 in the morning because most of my friends also worked evening so they would be up half the night and we would hang out, watching movies and drinking bourbon after I got off duty at 2 in the morning.
For winter 2014 I had applied for jobs in Death Valley and Grand Canyon and was offered a position at Grand Canyon as a Front Desk agent, but then an HR Staff Assistant position opened up in Yellowstone so I applied for that and was offered the job. I started that job in December 2014 after about a two month break. On my break I took Mom to Vero Beach for a week and basically played a lot of video games and caught up on a lot of TV and doctor's visits and collected unemployment.
The HR Staff Assistant job was originally supposed to be a "long season" agreement. I would have been in the HR office in Gardiner, MT for 10 months straight, but when they opened up the Summer hiring for this season I decided to go ahead and apply for one of the Assistant Personnel Manager positions and was ultimately offered Assistant HR Manager at Old Faithful -- the largest location at Yellowstone.
So life has been good. I spent my winter in Gardiner, MT until the end of March and it was a very mild winter. I spent a lot of time in Lamar Valley looking for wolves and I was successful four different times although I don't have much to show for it because usually they are so far away that the camera I had at the time wasn't capable of showing them. I have some video I can upload though of the first time I saw one of the packs as they were reasonably close to the road.
In March I took a week to go to Park City and Las Vegas where I won over $900 so that paid for my Vegas trip. I drank a LOT of cocktails and ate a lot of amazing food and then visited one of my best friends in Salt Lake City before heading back to Yellowstone.
I'm currently at Old Faithful. Since Housing and HR is a split function here, I don't have to deal with any housing issues at all, which is great because that's super tedious. We do lots of investigations and I end up firing a lot of people which sometimes sucks and sometimes is "good riddance". We don't do a hell of a lot of screening before people arrive though so I guess it is not surprising that so many are just not suited to this lifestyle.
The great thing about being a Manager is I now get free room & board. I also now get medical coverage (I have an HSA) and I just qualified for "Core" status which means I get other benefits too. They have a 401K where the employer contribution vests on day 1 -- they only match 4%, but vesting on day 1 is amazing. And I was just able to add vision and dental. They use Blue Cross so when I go back to Boston on my break in October I can just see all the same doctors and dentists I used to see on my previous insurance. And now I get paid for holidays whether I work them or not (as long as I'm "checked in") and next year I'll get vacation pay too which they just pay you out at the end of each season and I can use that money to pay to continue my insurance during my breaks.
Basically I've finally fallen into my perfect lifestyle -- I can work 9-10 months out of the year and have benefits like someone working year round with two weeks vacation. Instead I get to spend two months doing whatever I want. So in October I'm going to Ireland with my mother for 10 days and then I'll spend a week at Epcot Food & Wine at Disney World. Pretty much the only thing that sucks is the internet here is brutally awful so I had to switch to Verizon and I usually have to buy extra data from them every month. I finally decided to bite the bullet and sign up for Netflix DVDs by mail for the first time in years because we can't stream for shit. I can barely load a text page or an image.
Right now I'm waiting to hear on what I'll be doing this winter. If I don't get offered one of the few manager slots available (only two locations are open in Winter so there are far fewer jobs available) then I'll hopefully be offered a Recruiting position back in Gardiner. I should know in a few weeks. Even if I end up in a non-manager role, I will likely still be able to get on a free room & board plan as they want their managers to stick around for summer so they offer that as an incentive to keep us.
And that's the news. I'm posting this one to friends only (editing 2016 to unlock) and I'll catch up with all kinds of media related stuff in a public post. I feel like I want to starting journaling more on a regular basis even if no one reads it lol Maybe I can actually stick to that (yeah, right!).
I hope everyone else who is STILL HERE is doing well :)