The slog of looking for a new job pays off! Autocamp!

After pretending I was retired for five months, but most of those with a knee too painful to walk on for very long and thus confined to self-imposed house arrest, it is time to get a job. Being on the dole only lasts so long and that length is about to end. Thus began the depressing and demoralizing slog of looking for work.

Yes, the economy is great! Yes, there are jobs out there! But no, they still don't pay decently and they are all part time.  Part time is fine with me but not at $12.50 an hour.  I did not want to go back into the hospitality world, kissing butts, hauling luggage, working under the thumb of either a corporate master or a privileged hotel owner.  But it's the world I know and it's the job I am good at and it's the one place I knew I could get hired.

In Guerneville exists Autocamp.  (autocamp.com)  It's a sort of hotel but the rooms are completely tricked out Airstream trailers.  They are made to order at the factory in Ohio and then driven to the West Coast. Autocamp began in Santa Barbara and their second location is in Guerneville with a third location to follow later this year, location unknown for now.  It is a very cool spot, surrounded by redwood trees, a huge common room with tables, chairs, an indoor firepit, a buffet where they have a continental breakfast and a little market where guests can buy wine, cheese, crackers, S'mores, hot dogs, hotel swag.  And bags of charcoal because each trailer area has its own little firepit.  In April they put up and opened ten tents that sleep two and which use a communal bathroom/shower area.  It is quite the compound. These trailers are not cheap, the rate hovers between $350 to $425 a night for the Airstreams, less for the tents.

Last September I answered an ad for a part time swing shift position.  I didn't want the shift but I wanted to see the property and they invited me over for a chat. The manager and I sat for more than an hour, just talking about the hospitality industry, the strangeness of the guests, the idiosyncrasies of different lodging properties.  I told her I would call her in the early spring.  I did just that.

Autocamp offered me a job which I will take. Probably three days a week, which is just fine for now. Benefits after 90 days if I work enough hours, which is also fine for now.  I swore I wouldn't get back into the hospitality mode but there is something about the setting of this property and the feeling you get when you walk onto the property that I like. And bottom line, I am really good at this and they recognized that and they wanted me.  There you have it.

Training starts next Monday.  Another chapter waiting to be written.

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