Sleepaway camp demanding son to work 14 hour days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They hired him as a hybrid position (singular) of maintenance/counselor. They are trying to have him work maintenance 7:30-4 and then 5-10:30 as a counselor (presumably relieving the fulltime counselors). Yeah. Not cool.

Those are the exact working hours I had when I taught at a boarding school. I was so exhausted that I spent my days off in bed all day. It is not sustainable and I will never understand why anyone thinks it is safe or healthy to have people caring for children stretched like this. Your son will be exhausted, and if something happens to one of the kids, he will feel terrible. Not safe, not fair, and not something that is going to be ultimately fulfilling for him. Have him quit and learn that his time is valuable now.

What boarding school was that? Both of my kids went to boarding schools and that was definitely not the case there. They graduated last year and four years ago. Both went to one of the HADES.

I taught boarding school - a decently respected one but not HADES. The lower down in the ranking you go, the more they grind you. At the decent one I had dorm duty one night a week, activity duty one weekend a month, dorm duty one weekend a month, taught Saturday classes three saturdays a month, coached two sports. When in season I’d be teaching from 8-2, though it was typically 3 classes a day, coaching 3:30- 5:30, headed to required formal dinner from 6-7 3x a week, and then would be done if I didn’t have dorm duty or wasn’t traveling for a game. It’s exhausting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They hired him as a hybrid position (singular) of maintenance/counselor. They are trying to have him work maintenance 7:30-4 and then 5-10:30 as a counselor (presumably relieving the fulltime counselors). Yeah. Not cool.

How is he supposed to have any energy for counselor duties after working maintenance for 8+ hours? That's insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is he getting room and board for the summer? That will probably make up the difference between his pay and minimum wage.

This. Everyone’s acting like this is comparable to a min wage job. It’s not. He should push back on the hours, but don’t forget what else his compensation includes.

[Anonymous]

My son doesn't care about the money for those of you having your sidebar arguments about whether or not he is earning minimum wage. He cares about his health and mental health. And "room and board" is hilarious. I helped move him in to the most barebones, ramshackle cabin shared with 9 other staffers that all I could do was laugh. and the food is public elementary school quality. So quite literally nothing to write home about! Whatever he works out for himself, I support.

[Anonymous]

Sleepover camp is its own weird world. My kids worked from wake up time till campers bed time with some evenings off and 24 hours off each week. Free food and lodging. I am not sure if I think counslering or maintenance is harder. No kids in maintenance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By comparison, my son works at a STEM day camp in Bethesda for $17-something an hour, 7:50 to 4:20, and during the week of pre-training and clean-up, about 9 to 4.

I think your son's situation isn't right - either he should work less or be paid more. If he doesn't get what he wants, he leaves politely. That way the camp understands that they cannot keep exploiting young people. He'll be doing future counselors a favor.

Your son isn’t also getting room and board, which I’m assuming OP’s son is.

Depending on location, people may not want to live away from family at this camp-so it’s not necessarily a plus. Lots of jobs pay extra to get people to live onsite rather than at home.

Yes for many adults free housing and meals is a plus but but OP’s kid is 18 and has a home and it doesn’t compensate for paying him 5$/hr when minimum wage is triple that in a lot of states.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, this is normal for a sleep away camp? I worked at one throughout college. Great experience. If he doesn’t want to do it then don’t have him go. What did he think when he got a job as a counselor? Did he ever go as a camper?

Agree, we were with campers from wakeup between 7 and 8 to bedtime between 8 and 9, so normally a 13-14 hour day. and we got 1 hour off a day and one 6-hour long break per week and every other Saturday off. And got paid NOTHING because room and board was technically included.

I don't mean literally nothing, I mean it felt like nothing. Less than minimum wage, definitely.

Room and board is not nothing. Its over half of my expenses.

Perhaps, but the provided "room" isn't decreasing your overall living expenses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never heard of camp counsellors who only work 8 hours and are off the other 16. If they changed what they hired him to do, then that is the issue but most camp counsellors work the camp sessions. I haven’t heard of any that have three full and separate shifts of counsellors. And that includes non religious camps.

I know lots of people working at summer camps. While many work more than 40 hours per week, they certainly all have off-duty hours each day. I'm not sure what sort of camps you're dealing with, but that sounds very, very strange.

And I am not sure what sort of camps you are dealing with! My teens all worked at camps for multiple summers and they seemed like pretty standard camps. Yours were much richer ones than mine if they have 3 full sets of everyone. Where do they keep them all to have three full rotating shifts? They would have two full rotations of everyone off at any given time. That is a lot of extra dorms and places to be while the other shifts are working. I would think the camp Counsellors would get bored being at camp with nothing to do for 16 hours a day.

Your teens were working at strange camps if they maintained the same active staffing level 24/7.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son doesn't care about the money for those of you having your sidebar arguments about whether or not he is earning minimum wage. He cares about his health and mental health. And "room and board" is hilarious. I helped move him in to the most barebones, ramshackle cabin shared with 9 other staffers that all I could do was laugh. and the food is public elementary school quality. So quite literally nothing to write home about! Whatever he works out for himself, I support.

It’s summer camp, not the Ritz. Did he ever go to summer camp?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son doesn't care about the money for those of you having your sidebar arguments about whether or not he is earning minimum wage. He cares about his health and mental health. And "room and board" is hilarious. I helped move him in to the most barebones, ramshackle cabin shared with 9 other staffers that all I could do was laugh. and the food is public elementary school quality. So quite literally nothing to write home about! Whatever he works out for himself, I support.

It’s summer camp, not the Ritz. Did he ever go to summer camp?

I think OP was reacting to the posts suggesting that there was substantial value in the "room and board" being provided by the camp, which was obviously ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

When I was a counselor we were only totally off duty 1.5 hours a day on most days. We had 1 off period a day plus every other night off from 7:30pm to 7am (though most nights we would not stay out until 7am!). On nights we were on duty we could hang out in the mess hall or the office after lights out for a couple hours unless we were called back to the cabin for some reason. Once a week, we had an afternoon off. Seemed pretty typical.

Best summers of my life!

[Anonymous]

The problem is that he's being asked to do facility maintenance. Facility maintenance is a real job, completely different from being a camp counselor. Shouldn't they hire out contractors for that kind of work and only ask teenagers to take care of campers?

[Anonymous]

You should teach him to have some self respect and leave. That is not minimum wage, even without overtime. So it is illegal. He doesn't need to speak up. He needs to leave and report them to DLLR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should teach him to have some self respect and leave. That is not minimum wage, even without overtime. So it is illegal. He doesn't need to speak up. He needs to leave and report them to DLLR.

Sleepover camps are not covered by OT rules

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never heard of camp counsellors who only work 8 hours and are off the other 16. If they changed what they hired him to do, then that is the issue but most camp counsellors work the camp sessions. I haven’t heard of any that have three full and separate shifts of counsellors. And that includes non religious camps.

I know lots of people working at summer camps. While many work more than 40 hours per week, they certainly all have off-duty hours each day. I'm not sure what sort of camps you're dealing with, but that sounds very, very strange.

And I am not sure what sort of camps you are dealing with! My teens all worked at camps for multiple summers and they seemed like pretty standard camps. Yours were much richer ones than mine if they have 3 full sets of everyone. Where do they keep them all to have three full rotating shifts? They would have two full rotations of everyone off at any given time. That is a lot of extra dorms and places to be while the other shifts are working. I would think the camp Counsellors would get bored being at camp with nothing to do for 16 hours a day.

Your teens were working at strange camps if they maintained the same active staffing level 24/7.

+1. Maybe some of the religious ones are very low cost, but I’ve never seen a camp that has staff working 16 hours a day. That’s unsafe over a period of weeks.