Holiday Jobs

Save to My Favourites

I wanted to earn some money last summer, so I got a job as an au pair. It was with a family from Greece who had three young children. Actually, I didn’t earn much money, au pairs don’t, but I didn’t have to pay for food or rent or anything, so it was fine. The family lived in London, but they travelled a lot because the parents both had well-paid jobs in banking, so I travelled with the family. It was fun. We stayed in some beautiful hotels. The kids were lovely too, but it was hard work looking after them. I was exhausted by the end of each day.

I really wanted to work outdoors over the summer, so when I saw the advertisement for a job as a gardener, I applied for it. I did it for five weeks and to be honest, I didn’t really enjoy it very much. I was unlucky with the weather, it was a very rainy summer. But the main problem was, I had to do the same thing every day. It got really boring because there was no variety. At least the hours weren’t too long. I started at ten in the morning and finished at four in the afternoon. Then I went home. Most days I didn’t see another person all the time I was there. I didn’t like that either, really. I prefer working with other people.

I really enjoyed my job at a summer camp. It was seven days a week so hard work but that was fine. The children had lessons in the morning, then every afternoon I’d do sports with them. Football, volleyball, athletics, lots of different things. There were five of us working as sports coaches. We all got on really well which was great and we helped each other to plan the afternoon. We arranged matches and competitions for the evenings too so we usually had to work really late but we didn’t mind. Seeing the children enjoying themselves and learning new activities was great. I loved it.

Over the summer, I spent four weeks at a call centre, working as a charity fundraiser. I hated it. From nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, I had to phone people and basically ask for money. OK, so it was money for charity, a wildlife charity. But people didn’t want to talk to me, and sometimes they were quite rude. I got very anxious about making the calls, and I didn’t like being indoors all the time in a small room with about twenty other people. That made me even more anxious. I felt trapped. I mean, the money was quite good, but I didn’t enjoy the work at all. Never again.