Seasonal Work in a Small Town

About one week after coming to New Zealand I got an offer to work as a seasonal worker in the small town of Franz Josef Glacier. I have now worked in Franz as a waitress in the hotel’s tour group restaurant--meaning my life consists of phrases like “Soup or Salad?” “Lamb or Fish?” “No, Hari Hari is a small town in New Zealand, not a type of farming,”--for seven weeks. Working at a hotel in a small town is like working at an even smaller town within the small town. Everyone works together in the 2 hotels and lives together in 3 different staff houses, so there is no such thing as separation. Since I have only lived in a large suburb and cities, when I first arrived, I was excited to try small town life. When I first got here, I felt very important because true to the small town, word got around I was coming before I arrived, and people were excited to meet me. Most people wanted to know everything about me. I quickly learned though that the downside of the small town is also true: anything you say or do is known by everyone instantly: dating habits, your past, that time you got way too drunk. And if you piss off the wrong people in the small town, you will very quickly feel excluded from everything.

Since Franz Josef Glacier is a tourist town that most tourists only stop in for one day and night--they see the glacier, have dinner, have breakfast the next morning, and they’re gone—it makes this small town feel even more prosaic. The majority of the businesses here are targeted toward those 1 day inhabitants: the gift shops, the adventure tour places, and the entire strip of hotels. No one in the world seems to think this town is worth spending more than one day of their lives in, and yet, we live here. When I first moved to Franz, I thought I would love talking to the tourists that came through about their adventures; after all, I am a fellow traveller. But I soon realized that talking to the people who come through here is awful because it’s the same routine every time. When I walk into one of the two bars in town, Monsoon or Blue Ice Café, and am immediately approached by at least one guy who wants to “hear your story.” They then launch into their story about backpacking around New Zealand and possibly a few other countries in Southeast Asia, or maybe they’re even on a “world tour” visiting some odd 15 countries or more. They wanted to see the world, do something different, or have an adventure. They are really missing everyone in their hometown or everyone at home is missing them. They’re just looking for a good time for their one night in Franz. But I live here now, and even if I was single, I wouldn’t want to be their good time for one night.

Living in a small town, there is no anonymity. I always know the people in the bar, not just the bartenders and bouncers but all of the patrons. One of the first weeks we were here, a few of my friends and I chatted up a waiter we thought was cute at The Landing, the more popular of the two restaurants in town, and in the next few days following we realized why you can never do that in a town the size of Franz. We saw him at the bar, Monsoon,  one of two bars young people go to in town, at the supermarket, and every time we wanted to go back to The Landing. A few weeks later we found out he also worked at the Kayaking Tour place, so we couldn’t go there anymore either.

When I first arrived in Franz Josef, the HR Coordinator at the hotel was conversationally telling me what kinds of cars people who worked here drove. I thought it was very odd at the time, but I quickly realized why she would recognize everyone’s car. Any time you walk anywhere in Franz Josef you will have at least one car pull over next to you to make sure you don’t need a ride somewhere. Even on a nice day when you want to walk or really don’t want to run into someone, there will always be a friendly face pulling up beside you to say hello, what you are doing and to find out if you need a lift.

I think what surprised me the most about working a seasonal job here was how close you can get to people. Since everyone who works at the hotel lives together and works together, I was expecting to be really sick of everyone here in a short amount of time. It seemed like too much exposure to each other. But I really found the reverse was true. Living in such close proximity to people allows you to form close relationships really quickly. You cannot live in the same place and work the same long hours with someone without finding out all of the weird intricacies of their personality. I quickly learned who liked the same music as me, who told great stories, and who made the best Chewbacca impression. I developed weird jokes that wouldn’t make sense to anyone not working in this hotel in this small town because you need to laugh a lot to work in a town this small and in the tourism industry.

My co-workers and I all joke that a person does not have to work here long to go crazy, and that “Everyone does go crazy eventually.. look at you, you were so normal when you arrived here,” my co-worker Luke teases me. But I think we all secretly love how crazy we’ve gotten. I have known the people here for less than two months, and we have no inhibitions with each other anymore. When else can you say that? Although I really miss the amenities—and the sunshine since this small town happens to be in the middle of the rain forest—of city life, I will miss the family that I have started to develop at the hotel in Franz Josef. I don’t think I could have hoped to get to know people this well on my vacation, but I’m so glad I do.

My town:

My people: