We saw Elizabeth for a few days; her camp had a half-week off. She showed us around the camp for 20 minutes or so when we picked her up, and in that brief time I got four bug bites, and smacked/killed a dozen additional bugs who were trying to bite me. Bugs were actively trying to fly into my mouth. Elizabeth was entirely unfazed. She said the best way is to ignore the bugs and also the bites. Okay but. Like. They’re biting me, and trying to fly into my mouth. I can’t just let that go.
It was lovely to see her, and she was utterly bored. She said on the way home that she could not WAIT to have more than an hour off (she’s on duty 24 hours a day except for a one-hour daily break, which is the only time she’s allowed to shower, and she gets one day off per week; the going rate for doing the Lord’s work in this way is $50 per 23-hour workday), and then after about three hours at home she was restless. She likes to BE BUSY ALL THE TIME, she just THINKS she wants to rest. If I hadn’t definitely birthed her myself, I would not be entirely confident of the maternity. I don’t like to have more than one thing happening per day. I’m pissy about the pay, but this camp job is perfect for her otherwise.
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I will tell you a dumb thing I did. Here is what it is: I went to three months of pelvic floor therapy, which was not only time-consuming but fairly expensive ($30 copay/week x 14 weeks = $420—which was a HUGE insurance discount, because before insurance it was over $300 per session), and I got into the habit of doing my little daily exercises, and I graduated at about 75% resolution of issues with more at-home progress to be made by continuing the daily exercises; and then two weeks later, I had knee surgery, and I COMPLETELY STOPPED DOING ALL MY AT-HOME EXERCISES AND OVER THE FOLLOWING SIX MONTHS I LOST ALMOST ALL OF MY PROGRESS.
Luckily, as the physical therapist says, I get to keep the educational tool kit. And whenever you work a muscle, it is easier to get it back than before you worked it. So I am starting over, and making MUCH more rapid progress now that I know what I’m doing. I’ve rebuilt some of the little daily exercises into my daily routine. I’m being Mindful in the ways she taught me to be Mindful. I am doing my little Bladder Training things, where I try to delay peeing after I arrive home and so on. I will have to dig into the piles of paper on my desk to find all the worksheets I saved.
This is my son’s second year as a counselor at the camp where he was a camper for 5 years. I think he makes less than 50/day, but has half the nights off (between probably 9pm and 1am). Plus one day off a week and one hour during the day. But the food is great and there aren’t bug swarms! I’m hoping that next year, if he chooses to go back, the pay will be higher because he will be a senior counselor.
How are 23-hour workdays LEGAL? AND paying someone $50 for 23 hours of work? Genuinely flabbergasted and genuinely curious, also about what the summer job landscape looks like in general, since Elizabeth picked this as her best option (of, what I assume, was a big bad bunch of alternatives). When I got a summer job as a student almost 25 years ago here in Germany, I worked at a VW plant and made $$$$ and had all the protections in terms of breaks, shift times, and other workers’ rights. (Also, now I want to investigate what current students here do given that car and other manufacturing plants are not looking for temp workers.)
From Elizabeth’s point of view, this was experience she wanted to acquire (seeing if she likes working with kids), and she’d been looking into even unpaid internships; plus, it’s giving her first-aid training, boat training, and other interesting experiences. The camp can justify it because it’s seasonal work, which apparently is not regulated the way other work is, and they say part of her pay is her room and board. The “room” is a cot in a wooden cabin with no electricity, shared by eight 13-year-olds, so it’s a little hard to place a value on that. The food is good, she says, but she doesn’t cost us much to feed at home, so it doesn’t benefit us much. Meanwhile, her younger brother is working only 8 hours a day, only 5 days a week, and is making more than twice what she makes!
Thank you, Swistle, that was very enlightening. I think Elizabeth is super cool, while her church employer’s ability to resolve cognitive dissonance is super impressive.
Just wanted to pop in to comment about the summer job situation in the U.S. I have two college kids, and we live in SoCal. This summer has (unsurprisingly) been the worst for finding seasonal work. One of my daughters (who had previously worked at Target and Universal Studios) finally got a job in July at the local movie theater. She had applied in early May (along with so many other places!). Minimum wage here is $17.50/hour, so at least she’ll still make some money before heading back to school in late August.
Swistle, were you more active when you were Elizabeth’s age? In college, I did So Many Things. Now, all I want is to be horizontal.
I was SOMEWHAT more active, especially I would do activities if Cute Boys were going to be there—but still pretty inclined to be indoorsy and not have too many things going on. I remember a friend complaining that I “never wanted to do anything”—though that was when we had done something every day for a week, so that might have been a Her issue!
Lol, I swell up and then get welts which turn into bruises from bug bites so I would die. My husband said something disparaging about all the “poison” I spray onto myself before I go walking in the morning (i.e., bug spray with deet) and I asked him if he would like living with someone resembling a leper instead? GIVE ME ALL THE BUG SPRAY.
Elizabeth sounds like my son Mark, who needs to be BUSY ALL THE TIME. He has two jobs this summer, one at the marina and then on his days off he works landscaping. When he has a full day off, he’s almost unbearable to be around.
North was a counselor at sleep-away camp last year and had similar hours and low pay. They decided to stay home at be a counselor at day camp this year instead (except for one week of work at a camp where they used to be a camper) but they have friends who are counselors at the camp where they worked last year and now they have some FOMO about it.
We just got back from a week at the beach with extended family and while it felt busy, I have been thinking a lot about the activities others did that I turned down (trivia night at a bar, karaoke, drag show, a movie, a trip to a waterpark), not with regret exactly, because those weren’t things I wanted to do, but I wish maybe I had suggested group activities that were more to my liking (like a visit to a nature preserve).
What? You made progress then let it go and slid backward? I’m MOST impressed that you started again! I just shrug and think — well, if they FIXED it it wouldn’t have MESSED up again (it being, you know, your body, in this case). Glad the progress is faster this time.
Vaguely related because it is set at a summer camp: have you read God of the Woods? It is stellar. Liz Moore is my new obsession. Everything by her is amazing.
I also like to only do one thing a day, and not even one thing sometimes. My 20 year old daughter is the total opposite of me and sounds just like Elizabeth – always on the go. She did the summer camp thing a couple of years ago and is now a firefighter and training to be a paramedic too. No idea how I ended up with a daughter like this!
She worked in the kitchen at camp, so it was fewer hours than the counselors. She had to mail out letters to raise money and it was considered more of a ministry than a job. She enjoyed it for the experience of living away, since she lives at home for college.
My parents and I were JUST having this discussion about how bugs bother some of us and not others. As a Bothered Type, I don’t understand how a person cannot be Intensely Bothered. My kid’s upcoming sleep away camp mentioned that there are often lots of bugs near camp, so I have loaded her up with bug spray, bug spray wipes, citronella bracelets, AfterBite, cortisone, and bug patches. I am not confident I won’t get a panicked phone call about a mosquito bite that has swelled to eighty times its normal size.
Re: the pelvic floor therapy, I have been using this app + device called Perifit. I’m usually not much for “gamification” but in this case the app with its silly little games has been really helpful to keep me on track with doing the exercises consistently. The exercises are also a bit more nuanced than just “do Kegels!” which I appreciate.
I’m not affiliated with them in any way, it’s just a product that I randomly ran across and have found helpful.