A good job!
Work to live / Live to work. Do what you love!
I've had a few different jobs and but never really a profession or a professional job, but looking back I learned something from every single one and can look back happy that I've tried it and not been focused just on the money but always had some fun and found some friends in the jobs I did, which is worth more than money.
I started my career as a postman. I was all the time outside and got paid for walking/cycling around and giving people something to read and to say hello and on special days, like Christmas I got some extra money or gifts from the people. If I was too busy for school, my sister or my parents helped me sometimes. Exploring my neighbourhood and neighbours.
After this, I worked as a swim and triathlete trainer, teaching friends and kids and adults in a sport I love at that time and being creative with creating the best training I could imagine for them. Disadvantage was the short time, often one hour to work but effectively almost two hours to go there and back etc. and also to combine it into my own training.
Working as a climbing instructor in an adventure park was my longest job, I did it for almost 10 years beside other jobs and studying and looking back it was just a great job. I worked outside, in a forest, surrounded by an amazing team of friends, a boss, I could always talk to and who was open to new ideas and interested in bringing people together. We called our customers guests and just wanted to make their day a bit better. Most of our guests were families and kids and groups but also business groups, relaxed and friendly and just looking to have a good day together. As a trainer, I was just there to help, guide and maybe rescue them - just a friendly hero. What a job, getting paid for being, outside in the forest, being active and friendly to people. A special moment, I still remember was when Albi, my boss, was cleaning up after a long day for all of us of team coaching and BBQ. Colleagues filled out their worksheet and left to catch the train and go home. I felt a little bit sad for Albi, cleaning up all this alone and we managed to clean it up together in around half an hour instead of 1 hour or even more for him. I didn't get paid but most of our jobs don't really hurt and sometimes it is more fun to help as a friend than working for money. There are so many people in this world. Any of our jobs would be a small dream, giving them money and socialising and a small purpose. Behind every company stands the idea of an entrepreneur/owner who is taking all the financial risk and much more work to provide us with a job. I came to the adventure park in my free time to see my friends and climb with other friends and just have a good time outside. I got other jobs as a tree climber, climbing instructor and so on through that single job and the connections I got there, just by trust and humanity and I will be grateful forever, that I worked there with humans on a project to make the world a bit better and make some people smile. In the end, I worked there as an instructor for the new trainers. For me it didn't feel like work at all, because I could teach what I like to interested new friends, active and outside. In the end, Albi and I shared the money of the course. I didn't make a fixed price but we talked about how much is fair and ok to earn for both of us. Not sure if it was fair, because I did actually do all the fun parts, while he did the hard part of advertising and office work. Seeing projects and dreams and small businesses like that, trying to make the world a better place, struggling the most by Corona at the moment is breaking my heart. It's not a company to make a lot of money but a dream of a friend I was invited to be part of and being involved for some time.
I also worked as a self-employed arborist/tree climber. It's dangerous, physical and sometimes mentally hard and weatherwise unpredictable and every day is somehow different. A different team, a different project/tree, a different customer, a different rescue and work plan. Sometimes you get invited for a cake or a tea while working, other times the neighbour hates you for cutting down a branch or you have just no idea how to cut down the tree at all. For me it's still one of the best jobs in the world, sometimes missing the social aspect of trainer jobs a bit. Still, when I can climb a tree, I feel like a child again. I'm concentrated and in the moment, because I have to and it's fun.
Three short work examples:
When I started tree climbing and learned a bit, I got a call from an older lady, asking if we also could rescue a cat sitting in a tree for over three days, not her cat, just a stranger cat. We have never rescued a cat before but we tried our best and in the end the cat just fall ten meters down into a spanned bedsheet others were holding on the ground and through on the ground and was panicked running away. The women invited us for tea and cake and even gave us 50 €, just for doing something good.
Another time, a family in the climbing park was asking if someone can hang up a swing for their kid in their tree. A fun and short project, so I went. A few years later, they messaged me again if I could take it down again, the kids are grown and not using it anymore. I thought they could just cut it down and it's all good. At the time I was in Austria and it took me a while to come back home and to get my stuff together and come by. When I was there, the son, who was excited to see me climbing again was still visiting a friend but it started to rain anyways and so I went in to eat with them and we were talking about their and my travels in Colombia and Ecuador. When the rain was over, I took down the swing and let the kids climb a bit and swing in my harness. A twenty minute action took me over 3 hours but it was a really good time and I had all the time fun and in the end they still wanted to give me money to pay me.
Before I went to New Zealand, I got another job cutting down a really big spruce by rigging because there was a treehouse on the last part of the tree. The guy who asked, had just done a geocache course teached by a friend, I met in the climbing park and went tree climbing once. I haven't been in the trees for over half a year, just rafting all the summer, and only had a small chainsaw, too small for the tree and also couldn't find an experienced tree climber because I made the price too cheap again and it was the beginning of the season. In the end, I worked with a guy, Robin, who just finished his A-tree climbing course. I have never worked with him before and just met him once. He didn't know about all the stuff and neither how to really rescue me, so we thought a lot and I explained a lot and we figured out a plan B, I felt good with. However, it took almost double the time I calculated and I kept calculating that I wasn't coming on my normal hour wage and how much I can pay him and so one. But in the end a job always takes as long as it has to take and till it's done and you're happy with the result and you can't rush in the tree, safety first. After finishing that job, I felt super happy, everything was good, no one got hurt, the job was done. I was working with a great new friend and introduced him to tree climbing and he was just motivated and tried his best all the time instead of just seeing it as work, we have to finish to go home. In the end, I gave him 100€ and he was thankful, because he would be even happy to just learn something, that was his intention. The customer invited us for dinner and we talked about trees and other climbs. What a great day - just my job at that point!.
I worked as an instructor for wind turbine service technicians and got paid way better, working in the warm environment, drinking a cacao and teaching every day kind of the same at the same place for less hours. It was a good job too, still teaching other people and working with friends and people but it wasn't outside and with families and a friend, who worked with me before in the climbing park and now is working there all the time is always telling me the negative parts about this job and the positive ones of the adventure park. People went there for training, because they had to go, not because they wanted to go. Looking back, I still feel blessed to try and mix all these jobs and always have the free choice to do what I wanted.
Last summer, I worked as a raft guide in a holiday region of Tyrol. The payment was not really good and sometimes you feel like paddling a group of alcoholics down a river, washing their wetsuits afterward. From another perspective, you're outside at some of the most beautiful places on earth, sharing, teaching some groups to have fun on the river and respect nature. In my time off, I went for runs or with some colleges for rafting, kayaking or canyoning. Things for which our guests paid hundred of dollars. We all shared a house together, cooked together and for one week, even friends came by to try rafting and go climbing and mountaineering with me.
I feel pretty blessed looking back, able to have tried all these jobs and sometimes I forgot to appreciate it enough and I think most of us do, while doing the job!
It's hard to keep up with these jobs but I was focused on a career and doing something out of my year long studies. Looking for a career instead of happiness like we all are sometimes tending to do and getting lost in a job for years.
In Wanaka, NZ, I worked as a Camping ambassador in a paradise, surrounded by lakes, mountains and friends, getting a good payment for doing nothing. Sitting around and talking to people. I was unchallenged, bored and couldn't see the purpose of the job. Maybe my other jobs before were just too good and I was too lucky, maybe sometimes depression just hit us, maybe I was too worried about a future job and that I couldn't find one which looks like fun.
I quit three times and asked my boss three times if I can come back. He took me three times back and when I finally quit completely, he understood and also my work mates still accepted me as a friend and not as a complete confused guy and I'm more than thankful for that.
My last job was as a packer in the freezer section of a supermarket, New World. I never wanted to work in a grocery store but I'm happy for this experience as well.
I had to start at a specific time every morning, wearing my uniform, locking in with a fingerprint, not allowed to use my phone, have a 30 min break and doing boring packer things without much talking. On the other hand, I realized that I don't want to be a "slave". That I went outside in my 30 min break just to get some sun. That working without my phone makes me more happy and concentrated. That I'm happy when a customer recognizes me and asks me where he/she can find a product. That I'm happy when a workmate is saying something to me or I find a new cool product. That I appreciate my days off. That I'm getting crazy happy when my boss is coming by and asking me after reading my application, if I can help him to cut some branches outside on the trees, knowing that I'm a trained arborist. That I have time to explore all the cool products we have and that behind every product there is a company with a message sending with their product. That I would love to visit these companies and meet these entrepreneurs to hear about their vision, products and how it all works.
I asked for an extra day off to work for a tree company again. On the first day they greet me with a hug. I realized that it's good to work with people, I can call friends outside and in nature and do something for other people.
Always remember you can decide what you do. Don't blame someone for the job he /she created for you but be thankful to have this job and be part of someone else's dream or vision. If you don't like a job you can change or you have to be brave enough to create your own job. Even if a job is not defining you as a human, it's a part of what you believe in and spend your time for. It can suck some time and be fun other times but it should always be more worth than just the money you get because you're paying with your time. It's an exchange!
Time for Money - Jose Mujica (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GX6a2WEA1Q)
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