I suppose some of you came to the oil patch as a first foray into the world of fulltiming. Hopefully, most of you had some experience making ends meet performing some other type of endeavor. Especially those of you that have neither retirement/pension, social security or some other form of supplemental income. I say this because it has been the experience of many a workamper that the opportunities to make a decent living on the road are few and far between. It was that experience that has made us forever grateful for having stumbled into the world of gate guarding. Our first two years on the road were fraught with misery, watching every penny we spent and making agonizing decisions over what we could and couldn't afford. It was a no brainer; despite the challenges, to immerse ourselves full time into gate guarding. We take the occasional break, but otherwise treat this as a full time job. With the oil glut casting a gloomy outlook on gate guard work, it behooves all of us to explore other opportunities and to ensure we have the finances to transition back out into the workamping world. It never fails to befuddle me how employers expect workampers to make a decent living; especially with more and more resorts and campgrounds expecting part of your pay to go towards lot/site rent. It would seem to be a double edged sword-they want healthy, hard working folks; yet the vast majority of workampers are elderly or somewhat to fully disabled. I guess I might be wrong about that, since its based on anecdotal evidence, but you get my gist. They do; however, unfortunately have a captive audience, willing to perform just about any task. It wasn't my intent to come across as "Debbie downer", but a sad truth awaits most workampers seeking to make a living on the road.
This is another reason why we're building our businesses, so won't have to work camp and deal with what you've dealt with. I hope gate guarding will still be an option by the time we can buy our camper.
ReplyDeleteSummer will tell the state of gate guarding in S Texas. Every year has gotten worse since we've been down here. That said, we have always needed guards at that time. Let's hope that both summer and full time gate guarding continue to flourish. As I have repeatedly said no one should come to South Texas unless they know for sure they have a gate available for them.
DeleteHow will you know you have a gate? We're already in san antonio and trying to buy a truck and camper. Could you maybe give a time line on when to put in our notice at our current job, when to apply and get paperwork done. Everything I've read says you need to be in the area and ready to head to a gate when you apply.
ReplyDeleteSince you are already in the San Antonio area, you can call some guard companies and get the paperwork started. It may be difficult right now, since no one I know is hiring. A very few companies have put some "feeler" ads out for anticipated summer work. No one is sure what is going to happen because of the oil glut, events overseas, OPEC and available candidates-to name a few. As I have repeatedly said every year has gotten slower and slower; we are definitely ramping down. I would not pay for a site and wait for guard work. If a company says they'll put you up; then that's a different story. Either way be prepared to wait. Let's hope things settle down and we don't have ten or more candidates available per opening this coming summer.
DeleteHopefully this makes it clearer. It used to be that the guard companies could anticipate openings fairly accurately. This was due to both the regularity and quantity of work. Now with the slowdown and tons of candidates that is no longer possible. When we reverse the candidate pool and things (hopefully) pick up, there won't be such uncertainty and lengthy wait periods.
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