Last year my boyfriend and I decided to quit our jobs and try something different somewhere far away. We found a vacancy for a live-in position at a hotel / restaurant in the Scottish Highlands on gumtree and applied. Just weeks later, we found ourselves having the phone interview with the hotel owners in our car, parked in the middle of Nottingham, on a rainy and dark winter evening. Somehow we managed to get out of our rental contract and move out of our Nottingham suburb shared house as well as visiting my family in Germany within three weeks, before heading up to Scotland in early February, where we would spend the next six months. For those of you thinking about working abroad or doing seasonal hospitality work and wondering whether it’s for you or not, I am going to share my experience and list a few of the advantages of disadvantages.
THE PRO'S:
Live-in jobs are a great way to save money!
Having low living costs through provided accommodation (we still had to pay a small rent, but nothing compared to even living in a standard British houseshare) plus working an insane amount of hours quickly filled our pockets. Depending on the place you work at, the tips can be huge - in peak season we earned about £ 500 per person on top of our wage. This is a great option at least until we can all use cryptocurrencies in our daily lives ;)
You get to live in amazing places.
Basically, you get to live where most other people only come for their holiday. In our case, the remote Scottish Highlands were absolutely incredible and due to a general lack of housing and work, we would never have been able to live there, had it not been for our live-in job. You get to explore breathtaking places on your days off and experience different cultures and ways of living, which truly broadens one’s horizon.
It can be great fun!
Depending on the people you work with, obviously. Of course it’s very rare to get on perfectly with every single person, but in general, the teams tend to be quite close and the atmosphere can be very familiar, because your colleagues are also your housemates and you naturally spend most of your time with them.
THE CON'S:
Work is incredibly stressful.
This was our personal experience, and this is probably slightly different for each place, although in most live-in hospitality jobs there is a lot of pressure adding to the sheer amount of hours you work (sometimes 50 hours per week, and often more if you work in the kitchen). The balance between work and free time is quite unhealthy and sometimes for us there was hardly enough time to eat and sleep, resulting in us becoming underweight, stressed and overworked within just a couple of months. Again, this might not be the standard and since we didn’t live on site, we had long commuting times on top of long working days. Split shifts are also a common thing. Despite having worked in restaurants before, this one was by far the most stressful for me in terms of guest numbers and chaotic circumstances.
Lack of personal space.
If you, like us, are someone who values and needs their personal space, a live-in job could be tricky for you. We were lucky in the fact that we stayed in a separate staff house ten miles from our workplace. The house was huge, located in a lovely village and we shared with only three other colleagues. There was more staff accommodation on site, which was grimy and run down as a stark contrast to the modern, immaculate restaurant and hotel rooms. The staff apartment joined on to the restaurant kitchen, accessible by a dungeon-like corridor filled with fishy cooking smells and believe me, there’s better ways to be woken up on the morning of your day off than by the noise of banging pots and pans and furiously shouting chefs, who themselves have only had about four hours of sleep during the entire week. Not being able to ever get away from work, plus living door to door with your colleagues can be extra challenging! Some places have caravans for their staff to live in, it all very much varies and depends on where you end up, but the bottom line is: The customers are king, you’re the servant, so don’t expect any luxuries.
You’re gonna have to prove yourself.
This is the other side of the medal in terms of teamwork. Yes, your team can be great, but there’s also usually a fraction I call the ‘core-team’. These are usually people who have been sticking around for long enough to establish themselves and form strong bonds with eachother. They might look down on new seasonal staff and often not even make an effort to get to know or include you, because they know that you’ll be gone again very soon. It’s hard to prove these people wrong, but usually all it takes is time, if you’re determined. Whilst being close with your teammates can result in a great atmosphere, the lack of personal space and general stress can also quickly cause tensions - we’ve seen both sides of said medal.
So despite the list of cons being quite long, I would probably do a seasonal job again if I was in need of some funds. I would like to point out that everyone’s experience with these things is unique and it all depends on a variety of factors - what kind of person you are, how you’re being treated by your employers (there are always black sheep), et cetera. Whilst it was a super stressful six months for us, we’ve also lived in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen and our days off, despite only having one and a half days per week, were usually filled with adventure and heaps of fun.
If after all you’re still considering to apply for a similar position, I would say go for it! Be prepared and know that it’ll be hard, for being prepared is half the game. Happy travelling! :)