A Summer in Yellowstone with Nicholas
The REAL DEAL is a blog series where we share testimonials written by past participants about their experience and takeaways from the WAT USA programme.
The experience of a lifetime - Work & Travel Summer 2018! I think I’ve said it almost a thousand times now.
My advice to students I meet these days is to save up some money for the Work & Travel (WAT) USA programme fee, apply for the programme, choose the jobs that you’re interested in, and take a leap of faith into the best experience of your life.
You’ll meet tons of new friends from the United States and the rest of the world, experience activities that might be rare in Malaysia like hitchhiking or camping out in the woods, and indulge yourself in cultures from all walks of life.
Hola, Ahoj, Zdravo, Dzień Dobry, สวัสดี, 你好 are some of the new words I learnt from my friends that I met in Yellowstone.
Me & my friends posing in our uniforms with Old Faithful Inn in the back
Some of my American friends I’ve met during my time in Yellowstone
Preparation tips before the US
In the weeks leading to D-Day, my mind was practically filled with thoughts about packing: what do I bring to the US- should I pack this jacket or just stick with that hoodie and heattech, how many packets of maggi do i bring over, what medicine should I pack with me (and how do I pack it to not make it look like I’m smuggling drugs HAHAHAH). My advice on packing for your 4 to 5 months abroad in the US is to PACK LIGHT, bring just enough clothes for your daily wear and other needs. You’ll definitely be shopping once you’re in the US - everything there is dirt cheap.
Do check on what’s the weather and temperature is going to be in your workplace, it helps you to plan what clothes to bring and what not to bring. My advice is to pack your essentials into 1 large luggage and other sustenance materials which are also essentials (at least for me) like maggi, milo, soaps or disposable items into a box. Also, keep a soft copy of all your documents in your phone in the unlikely event that it gets missing - at least you still have a scanned copy of proof for your documents.
Me and my buddy, Tony hard at work in pot station
Working in Yellowstone
I applied to Yellowstone National Park for my WAT and was assigned as their hospitality crew in the Old Faithful Village. I was part of the iconic Old Faithful Inn’s Dining Room kitchen crew, serving up to 1000 customers on peak periods.
I started as a dishwasher (everyone starts as a dishwasher by the way) for 6 weeks. Slowly, I got rotated around different roles in the kitchen. The role of a dishwasher is pretty simple, I either was in the dishpit or the pot station. I did other jobs such a pantry preparation crew - where you prepare the ingredients for the kitchen daily needs and a salad/sandwich/dessert cook, prepare food items ordered by customers and what you prepare depends on the shift you’re assigned to.
I finally got out of the dishpit (YASSS, celebration!! HAHAHA) and got transferred to be a buffet runner where I managed the buffet line in the restaurant and served customers as when needed. As a buffet runner, my task was to ensure there was always a supply of food on the buffet line and maintaining its cleanliness. Depending on the shift of the day, buffet runner might need to serve the customers such as slicing prime ribs for the customers in the dinner shift.
After some weeks as a buffet runner, the head chef promoted me to buffet cook and I was in charge of preparing hot food for the buffet line. My task was to prepare a bulk of the hot meals before the restaurant’s opening time for breakfast, lunch or dinner - pretty much working on a timer to get stuff done. My first few days in a new role was always challenging and I pretty much needed help from others to get some things done.
If you can’t manage what you’re handling, don’t be afraid to ask for help from your colleagues or manager - they will always help you out. Any concerns you have regarding work, just speak up and let your manager know about it.
For the kitchen crew, there were essentially 3 shifts: morning shifts 5AM-1PM or 7AM-3PM, day shifts 9AM-5PM or 12-8PM and the closing shift which starts from 2 PM or 3 PM till closing time of the restaurant which is usually around 12 AM or 1 AM - the earliest I’ve finished a closing shift is around 11:30 PM and the latest I’ve stayed on was close to 1:30 AM but I’ve heard that some colleagues whom have worked till 2 AM or 3 AM in the early season. Closing shift is the longest shift because we are responsible for cleaning up our stations for the day which we normally start doing after the restaurant closes - typically around 10 PM, hence why we work till so late.
For the duration of my season (my time spent in Yellowstone) I had mostly closing shifts for my workdays and sadly, I didn’t get the opportunity to celebrate much of the national holidays or special occasions. I missed out on 4th of July celebrations due to work :( but managed to get a nice meal in our employee dining room.
Life Outside of Work
In Yellowstone, our employers host quite a number of events to keep life entertaining for us employees. Some of the few that I managed to celebrate was Employee’s Talent Day - staff from different villages showcase their talents and a winner get a voucher to eat in one of the restaurants, Employee Appreciation Dinner - where our managers will prepare our dinner and serve us delicious meat and Christmas in Yellowstone which falls on 25th of August - employees will gather in the employee’s pub (yes, we have a pub just for employees, great pizza and cheap alcohol btw) and we party till they close. Our managers also organise events just for the people for who work under them, we had a BBQ party while others got to party in the pub or an auction Yellowstone. All in all, I enjoyed all the events that was organized for us.
Come September and it was time for me to depart from Yellowstone, a place I called home for the past 3 months. Time really flies when you’re enjoying yourself and having fun with your friends. One thing that I miss the most is definitely the friends that I met while I was there.
Without them, I wouldn’t have such a great time in Yellowstone and experience numerous adventures such as exploring Yellowstone, hitchhiking, spotting animals on hikes, camping and even bonfires (miss this the most T_T).
Not going to lie but when bidding my friends goodbye, tears flowed down. Waving to them as they drove off back to their homes in the US or catching the bus to leave Yellowstone was quite a sad feeling. All the off-days that we spent together hiking, chilling while sitting around bonfires or even something as simple as a lunch/dinner together as a group is now a thing of the past.
When it was my turn to leave Yellowstone, I boarded the bus with a heavy heart and shed a tear or two as I watched the village disappear into the horizon and nature. I’m ever so grateful for the opportunity to have met the people whom I call friends now, they made life in Yellowstone filled with fun and joy.
I am glad I took that leap of faith because WAT Summer turned out to be amazing; it truly is an experience that I will remember for life.