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Work and Travel program (or, as professor Durst says, “Travel to Work”) was not something new for me since I have already spent three consecutive summers working in Alaska. But this year I decided to see something different from the biggest U.S. state. My initial plans, and even dreams, were for a job at an Atlantic City casino. Unfortunately, the agency could not arrange the so important Job Fair with the employer till the end of February and everything collapsed. It was too late to go back to Alaska because all good positions were filled. At the last Job Fair in Sofia, my friends and I met a human resources manager of a golf country club in Baltimore. I was impressed by his offer: positions with tips in whatever departments we choose. We signed contracts and thought we were prepared for the summer. However, the reality turned out to differ from our expectations. On the spot, I was forcibly moved away from my ideas to “get the best position in whatever department I feel like to work.” All the J1-visa Ukrainians and one of my friends were transferred to work in the pool café with a flat fee of $8 per hour. My other buddy and I were assigned to be bartenders. By becoming excellent bartenders with “the perfect Bulgarian pour” we received many compliments from the club members. Just like in professor Eastergard’s classes, I was cautiously doing the calculations for the gratuity that I was supposed to receive. Unfortunately, I did not get any tips for a whole month, and none of the managers gave me an adequate explanation for that. As professor Miree would say in her classes – “there is absolutely no reason why an employer would not pay its employees!” I am not sure whether it was illegal or not but it was definitely unprofessional and even discriminatory. Only when I let the HR manager know that I would leave the club if he did not give me an answer in a day, our tips were fixed. My other friend was stuck in the café department with his flat wage and insufficient hours. It took the management half of the summer to move him to another department. When you have a serious problem you might have to go through the whole management hierarchy arguing with everyone about things that do not cost much for the employer. At the end, he was so fed up that decided to move to upstate New York for a better position, and he succeeded. The money problem was chasing us like a headache in the final week. We were paying $115 for housing and transportation while our American counterparts or interns paid just $65 for the same apartments. There were numerous mistakes in our paychecks and especially the tips. It turned out to be a huge problem for the accounting department to split our tips, so once they decided not to pay us anything for a whole week. Finally, I managed to convince the club house manager – a big tall guy originally from England - that I and my fellow bartender will split the tips ourselves. To our money concerns he replied with “you are taking it too emotionally!” How wouldn’t you become emotional when you see that in an organization like this most of the managers do not care about your problems? If you go to a Job Fair, be very careful what your recruiter is promising. You can always do your own research by asking other students that have already gone through the maze of the Work and Travel experience. If you enjoy peace and stability, you may choose some quiet place on the outskirts of a city. However, in this case, you are dependent solely on your employer and the ways of transportation that are available around. If you want to make enough money to pay your tuition fees, I would advise going to a resort area. After four times on the WAT program, I suggest that if you decide to quit your initial job, first secure your new position and housing. Otherwise, you may have troubles with the U.S. sponsor organization.
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This is a true story of what can happen with you in USA.
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