Pros
Made a lot of good relationships with other staff - it's really cool to meet and work with people from all over the world Specialty and elective time is fun and you get to learn new things Off site housing for nights off Great location, beautiful place to be Usually a 5:1 ratio for counselors and campers in a cabin which is nice Some of the campers stay for weeks and weeks and its nice to have to be able to get to know them over that time Some campers are genuinely the sweetest kids ever and made my heart so happy Memories to last a lifetime
Cons
Very discriminatory policies regarding gender identification (not allowed to tell campers what gender you are, even if they are calling you by your incorrect pronouns you can't correct them) Did not care when a third or more of the staff was out with COVID and continued to let sick people expose others - somewhat stingy on COVID tests as well Long hours - only off two nights during the week (either Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday) from about 7pm-7am and then mid Saturday afternoon to early Sunday morning, the rest of the time you are working nonstop - no off time during day Pay is extremely low considering you work around 100 hours a week Expected to be healthy and energetic sleeping around only 6 hours at night while working (campers bedtime is 11pm and first wake up is 6am and have to shower and get yourself ready somewhere in that time, campers can also will wake you up in the middle of the night or delay going to sleep keeping you awake longer) Management genuinely does not care about the mental health strain they put on counselors leading to about 15% staff quitting in the same weekend halfway through the summer Food is not great and on a cycle that gets tiring very quickly Cabins for females are outdated, male cabins are much nicer and newer Some of upper management is so mean and consistently insults and puts down staff and treats them like children just because they can Little to no encouragement or positive feedback from management Most of the staff complained nonstop about the working conditions and most people seemed completely miserable the whole summer even though a camp counselor is supposed to have fun and radiate that energy to the campers Management cares more about making money than staff - for the weeks we were there for training prior to campers arriving we had to stay off site half an hour away and eat all meals outside (even when it was 40 degrees in the early morning and evening) because the cabins and dining hall were booked Some staff were downright bullies and when this was brought to management they said "that's just part of the job" Limited things to do on off nights if you were without a car or didn't have a a friend with one Laundry was not great, on average about 2 of the 6 machines were broken at any given time so it was usually a fight for them, machines are also not that great or efficient at cleaning clothes which is rough for a job where you are dirty all the time
