Getting rich quick may be easier and more fun than you think

Wednesday, 5/21/97 Getting rich quick may be easier and more fun
than you think Besides a little fish odor, summer jobs in Alaska
are worthwhile

Looking for an adventurous summer job? Ever wonder what those
"get rich over the summer in Alaska" jobs are all about? Don’t want
to go home to the parents? Can’t afford to live in Westwood
flipping burgers over the summer? Looking for something cool to do?
This might be the job for you. Maybe I can put some of your
curiosities aside regarding all of the "get rich in Alaska" job ads
hanging around. Most importantly, can you really make $5000-$10,000
over the summer? Yes. Will you bring all of that money home?
Probably not. Your starting pay can be anywhere from $6-$9 an hour,
depending on the village, town and company you end up in. The real
money is made in overtime hours. Forget about the 40-hour week
idea, if you’re looking to work from 9 to 5, this isn’t the place
for you. After eight hours a day and 40 hours for the week, your
pay rate will be reasonable, at time and a half. Working so many
hours will also ensure that your raises will come a lot faster.
Raises are achieved merely by putting in hours, not by job
performance. If you can’t do the job, they won’t keep you on. If
you do a good job, you can expect to come in the next day and do
the same thing week after week. Fifty cents to $1.50 per hour
raises can be expected usually after each 250 hours on the clock.
The potential of making a lot of money is there, but there are a
few reasons why all of that money might not be in your pocket when
you come home. First is housing. Where are you going to live? Most
employees stay in bunkhouses provided by the employer. What are you
going to eat? Most of these people eat whatever the bunkhouse cook
puts on the table. So you don’t have to cook or worry about finding
a place to live. But if you take this route, you can cut those
paychecks in half now. Most employers will have you sign a contract
to guarantee that you will stay with the company for so long and
they can pull these living expenses out of your checks. Cash is
also needed at the start to buy your rubber uniform of boots, pants
and gloves. Still, the money is there, and depending on how much
time you are putting in, these monthly expenses could be a small or
significant portion of your paycheck. How much overtime can you put
in? That isn’t totally up to you. It depends on how much work is
available. Did I forget to mention that you will be in a cold fish
processing plant, standing in one place sliming fish for all of
these hours? The amount of time you can put in depends on how many
fish are brought in. If there is work to do, they will work you.
The most frequent questions that I hear are: Is it hard? Does it
smell? It is not hard. It is rather easy, actually. But it’s a
little chilly – that can be managed by dressing properly. The hours
are long and the days usually start early. The plant is up and
running by 6 or 7 in the morning. The work is monotonous, (but most
jobs are). You won’t be sitting on your butt all day pushing paper
or be forced to use a pretty phone voice all day and bother people
who do not care to talk to you. The smell is not as bad as you
might think. For most it is not bad at all. Fish that have only
been out of the water for a few hours don’t smell that bad. But if
you are repulsed by sushi and do not like seafood, this probably
isn’t a good place to spend the summer. You will be working with
salmon, crab, cod, halibut, maybe scallops and more salmon. I can
eat just about anything that comes out of the ocean, so I don’t
even recognize an odor. If you are adventurous and brave, you can
save a little of that money by taking a tent, sleeping bag and some
camping gear. This is probably not encouraged by the
fish-processing companies or the local communities, but it is a way
to bring home more of that paycheck. It may not be feasible in all
of the communities, but it is worth consideration. The weather is
cool, but not cold during the summer. High temperatures are usually
in the 60s and lows in the upper 40s. Occasionally, there will be a
beach day in the upper 70s. But for the most part, be prepared for
more rain than you have ever seen. My experience is unique and
limited to my home town of Yakutat. I was raised as a gillnet
salmon fisherman, but I worked in one of these fish processing
plants for a few seasons. I wouldn’t normally offer the name of my
village to a broad audience as an invitation. But I am assuming
that this readership is educated and would be very respectful of
the local community. If not, my relatives have been known to be
able to hold their own and take care of unwanted people. In 1805,
we extinguished a fort of Russians who thought that they could
tread on our land. And as recently as a few years ago, I met a
young obnoxious kid down here in Southern California who said that
the locals beat him up and scared him out of town when he wandered
into my village to work. After five minutes with him I understood
why. If this is an invitation, I would send it out to all of the
adventurous young women in the audience. Many of the workers in
these plants are female, a lot of them college students from all
across the country, and others are young local people. My
invitation to women is in consideration of the lack of a gender
balance across the state, especially in the summer. This really is
not a warm place for big-headed types who think that they want to
conquer nature or go back to the wild. If you do go to Alaska for
this experience, or any other trip, do not expect to see polar
bears or igloos. But you should be prepared to fall in love with
the place. Many seasonal workers make the trip up there and never
come back. Joe Nelson Nelson is an American Indian studies graduate
student. Previous Daily Bruin stories: Clinton must face heat for
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