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I got paid to live in Antarctica
- tokai 3y agoIsn't almost everyone on Antarctica payed to be there?
- jraph 3y agoFrom the article: > While there are a select handful of tourist expeditions that offer overnight experiences in Antarctica, the only people who actually live on the ice are those working at research facilities.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoKind of. Many are military. When my coworker (in Iowa) was there in the 80s, he was the only non-military over-winter person there. He worked for the weather service.
- doctorwho42 3y agoMilitary personnel get paid to be where they are, they don't do it for free... and they get some of the best social benefits of any citizens in the US.
- fragmede 3y agoIt's the US' proof that socialism works!
- edgyquant 3y agoHave you ever met an enlisted person? They usually have nothing good to say about the government.
- WHYLEE1991 3y agoSure, but I've definitely never met one who was angry about their government pay, paid college, or allmost fully government sponosered healthcare, they're angry about HOW these things are enacted more than anything else for the most part not that they're being offered to them in general like the majority of the public would benefit from as well.
- seanw444 3y agoThe point is that it's never executed well. Socialism sounds great on paper when people are perfect. But they are not. They never will be. It will therefore never be "done the right way this time" and we will keep using it as an excuse to worsen peoples' livelihoods equally, decrease peoples' income with which they decide what they want to use to pay for, and to put down dissidents. As it always has. Capitalism is the worst type of economic strategy, except for all the others. "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
- abid786 3y agoTo someone poor who is dying of a curable illness, healthcare that isn't executed well is infinitely better than care they can't afford. It's great to make decisions about how to spend your income, unless... you have no income.
- hooverd 3y agoHere's an explainer about what socialism actually is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgiC8YfytDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgiC8YfytDw
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pard68 3y agoThe military get paid too.
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoSure, but the same whatever they do. Do they get lured into a post at the earth's armpit by better pay? I don't imagine they do. So they aren't strictly 'paid to live in Antarctica'. They are 'paid to be a soldier and do whatever shit work is their lot'.
- pard68 3y agoI assume it's the Navy doing the work, maybe the Army. If either branch is like the Air Force then they'd get some nice additional money for working there. You get a nice pay bump for working in Alaska and the North Pole. I assume it's the same, plus this would be out of country, so tax break. But yes I get your meaning. Military is assigned work, they go where they are told.
- cozzyd 3y agowell, not the tourists. They pay handsomely. there's a tourist camp just next to South Pole Station. When I was at Pole in summer '19-20 the tourist camp staff invited us over for Christmas (when I guess they had no tourists). The awkward thing is that the research station is supported out of McMurdo which is supported out of Christchurch, so follows NZ time, but the tourist camp is supported out of Punta Arenas, so follows Chilean time... I met some of the tourists on New Year's during the ceremony where the geographical pole marker is moved (the ice moves a bit every year, so the pole marker has to be moved relative to the station so that it remains over the real pole). One guy apparently had kept applying to be a winterover for some experiments and wasn't selected so he just paid to go visit Pole anyway. And then there are the adventurers, who randomly show up on skis or in an Arctic Truck..
- alistairSH 3y agoAnd then there are the adventurers, who randomly show up on skis or in an Arctic Truck. Really? That's a bit of a surprise (the random part). Like, if you have the means, you can charter a ship out of Christchurch, sail to Antartica, and go skiing without permits or notifying any of the bases? Wild.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mschuster91 3y agoGiven how remote the area is... if you end up with issues and don't have a permit, you'll most likely die.
- rqtwteye 3y ago“And then there are the adventurers, who randomly show up on skis or in an Arctic Truck..” That’s an interesting point. A while ago I had a discussion with a flat earther who claimed that the military won’t allow anyone close to Antarctica. I told him I am pretty sure that people have crossed Antarctica by foot or even bicycle (heard this on a podcast). But I wasn’t sure how the permit process works and if there are limitations. I know flat earth is stupid but it’s a good exercise to refute these people with knowledge you have. Turns out this is quite difficult because often you have only very vague knowledge of the details.
- lostlogin 3y agoIt’s a funny turn of phrase to say ‘on’ and it’s probably accurate as it conveys that it’s temporary. I was on Europe a few times.
- outside1234 3y agoWow, I never noticed that before. It is probably because to the English brain Antarctica sort of has the feel of a mile high platform of ice, but it is certainly interesting that we use "on" vs. "at"
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- digging 3y agoOr "in"
- vikingerik 3y agoIt's common for islands, and Antarctica is somewhat island-ish. For Long Island (New York), you say "on" it, and anyone who says "in Long Island" gets laughed at. I think the same goes for the Hawaiian islands and places like Key West. Although, funnily, we do say "in Manhattan", not "on" for that one.
- pimlottc 3y agoThere are now over 100,000 tourists visiting Antartica per year [0], while the working population maxes out at around 5,000 [1]. So, in fact, the overwhelming majority of visitors to Antartica pay for the privilege. 0: https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/tourism-numbers-in-antarctica-have-risen-to-over-100000-per-year https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/tourism-numbe... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica
- CuriousCosmic 3y agoThis is true however very few tourists who visit Antarctica actually ever do more than step out onto the ice or the shore for a fairly short amount of time, often not even at all (just cruising along the coast). Those that actually venture inland are few and far between. If you can get a slot with one of the contractors for the USAP, you'll almost certainly get a chance to do a lot more than the average tourist.
- tyingq 3y agoThere's a lot of good info in the article, but it's kind of disappointing she didn't cover how she actually got the job. It's mentioned that the jobs are quite competitive and that people are wait-listed for years sometimes.
- Semaphor 3y agoWhile it would have been nice, as she was an American working in the cafeteria, it was probably simply by applying at GSC.
- tyingq 3y agoPresumably those positions are competitive also, given the unique experience. So, knowing if she was wait-listed, for how long, or if she found some way around that, etc...would have been interesting.
- CuriousCosmic 3y agoThey definitely are competitive. Basically every resource gives the same advice which is: - Apply to every position you can apply to and are willing to work if you get selected (which if you really want to get down there should be essentially all of them). - Apply as early as you can (jobs get posted in the fall to early spring). - Keep applying year after year because most of the time it'll take you several years before you even get a slot.
- notpushkin 3y agoThere's a nice bit on brr just about that: https://brr.fyi/about https://brr.fyi/about > How did you get this job? > I’ve been applying since 2017! It took 1,792 days since my first application until I heard back. (Not sure if them applying for an IT job and not cafeteria made things better or worse.)
- l0b0 3y agoOh wut? I got an interview from the first application, back in (checks bookmarks) 2012 (edit: It looks like they applied for McMurdo, not the South Pole). It was an odd one - the first question was what to do first when entering the server room. I'd actually read up on a few things, and the correct answer was to ground yourself to get rid of the ridiculous amounts of static electricity which builds up in a super-dry environment. Static discharge has killed a whole bunch of their equipment. Another question was what I'd do if one of my family members had a medical emergency and could only be saved by an organ donation by me. In case of bad timing there next flight out would be in almost a year, so there would be nothing I could do. That one … was a bit harder to answer.
- KingOfCoders 3y agoAnd of course, the author is paid for doing a job not for (just) living there. It's like me saying "I got paid to live in Berlin".
- steele 3y agoThat's almost entirely what the post is about.
- KingOfCoders 3y agoI didn't want to imply that the author is lying, more that "I got paid to live in Antarctica" is clickbait.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fragmede 3y agoAntarctica is what makes it interesting though. Dog bites man doesn't make headlines, but man bites dog does.
- bitpow 3y agoDog bites man in Antarctica might also make headlines
- quickthrower2 3y agoI remember seeing a web dev (!) job for the Antarctic Survey years ago where you stay there, probably in summer.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y agoBah, I got paid once to live in Bakersfield CA for about three months... now that's a real extreme environment!!
- hvmonk 3y agohah, the armpit! Hows was that? :)
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y agoStupidly I accepted a DB admin job in a cowboy real estate firm there, that mostly took care of all the abandoned strip malls and some former strip-malls-now-crack-dens. Knew I'd made a bad mistake on minute one, day one of that job.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- phrotoma 3y agoI had a colleague once who worked in antarctica for a while. She told me that according to a long standing tradition, every year after the last supply plane left for the winter and the base was buttoned up for a long dark wait until spring, the whole crew would gather in the lounge together to watch The Thing. That's all I got, I just love this story and mention it every chance I get.
- arrowsmith 3y agoAs a huge fan of that movie: this story brings me joy.
- sidlls 3y agoThey had a betamax version of the original movie when I was there. Didn't get a chance to make use of the lounge to watch it, though.
- beanjuiceII 3y agoand then the vampires arrived, that's all you ever heard again :( didn't they make a movie about this?
- mrbonner 3y ago“7 days of night” is about Alaska from the North Pole mate.
- at_a_remove 3y ago30 Days of Night.
- CuriousCosmic 3y agoYeah this is a thing at the South Pole Station however it's normally in the gym. They drag all the recliners, couches, and mattresses they can into the gym and settle in to watch all three versions of The Thing on the projector back to back. https://icecube.wisc.edu/news/life-at-the-pole/2016/03/2016-week-7-at-pole/ https://icecube.wisc.edu/news/life-at-the-pole/2016/03/2016-...
- dwighttk 3y agoOutside of tourists is anyone paying to live in Antarctica? I assumed everyone was paid there
- jcranmer 3y agoChile and Argentina have ostensible towns on the peninsula (basically one each), in which even a few children have been born, but I'm not sure the degree to which it's possible for someone to actually get up and move down there purely on their own whim.
- madcaptenor 3y agoThey do sound like they're basically just remote small towns. See for example https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/world/americas/chile-antarctica-villa-las-estrellas.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/world/americas/chile-anta... which describes the Chilean one. Honestly it sounds like Chile and Argentina are both doing this to spite each other.
- dwighttk 3y agoThanks that was a fun read
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- vGPU 3y agoI don’t think anyone is particularly raring to go live on a continent where the warmest month is December. With perks like “in December and January the monthly average high temperature may occasionally rise above freezing” - doesn’t that just make you instantly fall in love? If you want to live somewhere cold alaska is probably the better choice, since you get to enjoy all the lovely things in life like Amazon delivery.
- digging 3y ago> I don’t think anyone is particularly raring to go live on a continent where the warmest month is December Um... you know that December is summer in the entire southern hemisphere? > If you want to live somewhere cold alaska is probably the better choice, since you get to enjoy all the lovely things in life like Amazon delivery. The remoteness is a draw for some.
- intotheabyss 3y agoBecome an aircraft mechanic. You can support research planes or helicopters for organizations like BAS or similiar.
- notsurenymore 3y agoI thought about it at one point, but then I saw the pricing for the training you need and my jaw dropped.
- notsurenymore 3y agoJust to expand a bit since I didn’t have the time when I posted, I’m looking for a new career and aircraft mechanics are moderately in demand in my area. There are two Part 147 AMTS schools nearby, one is a program for high schoolers exclusively and the other plainly states the program is $35000 in total. For comparison. In state tuition costs for an Aerospace engineering degree at a nearby university are around $27000 for four years. You could learn to design aircraft cheaper than to repair them. Even worse is the mechanic jobs don’t pay so great. I see a lot starting around $18/h.
- gentleman11 3y agoBut what about Canadians? Do we not have a chance to live in the land of The Thing?
- idlewords 3y agoYou have barren frozen wasteland at home.
- idlewords 3y agoA much more fun and less SEO/smarmy take on this topic is Nicholas Johnson's "Big Dead Place", originally a blog and later a book. It gives the flavor of working in the U.S. Antarctic program like nothing else does.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoAgree, this really shouldn't be on the front page, the SEO'ed writing is more likely to repulse curious readers about the topic.
- theonlybutlet 3y agoAnd the need to discuss everyone's race, wtf.
- dmuth 3y agoDefinitely. This is one of my favorite books due to both the writing style and the "behind the scenes" aspect of living and working in Antarctica.
- thedrbrian 3y ago[flagged]
- seanw444 3y agoCan't even read about Antarctica without an agenda. Ugh.
- vkou 3y agoI'm very sympathetic to your discomfort as a reader, but it seems odd to air it in a subthread that discusses how ~50% of the population can't even be in Antarctica as a worker without experiencing a lot of discomfort.
- gnrlst 3y agoSame. I'm sure there ARE some mediocre men there, but turning this into a "women good men bad post" really ruined it for me.
- BurningPenguin 3y agoDid you guys actually read that article, or only the pretty colorful boxes? Because the text right before that fancy box explains why that phrase came into existence.
- vGPU 3y ago> dealing with misogynistic comments and just overall disappointing behavior from quite a few less than stellar men was a regular occurrence at work for me and my female coworkers. Subjective judgements on behavior, from someone who complains that there are too many white scientists. Pardon me if I take their judgement with a grain of salt. The entire article is incredibly poorly written, to boot. I was expecting to see a credit card advertisement any second. “Use my referral code and you too can fly to Antarctica for free!”. Actually - the majority of points/credit card referral sites have higher quality writing.
- langsoul-com 3y agoWish she went over the life there in more detail. It's a very isolated place, surely you'd go mad constantly being stuck with the same people. Or other interactions like that. More on the uniqueness of the location, and difficulty of travel or getting stuff.
- focusedone 3y agoIf you haven't already, check out https://brr.fyi https://brr.fyi
- InTheArena 3y agoThere is a lot of great youtube videos on both McMurdo and the station at the pole. I know the plan to rebuild McMurdo was delayed by covid - https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/antarcticas-aging-mcmurdo-station-is-getting-a-major-overhaul https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/antarcticas-agi... I'd love to hear what the plan is now. Are they moving ahead with the project?
- owenwil 3y agoThis was an interesting post, but it’s very transparently written for search engine optimization rather than readability. There are some great stories in there but the formatting was really hard to read as a human all broken into obviously search-friendly questions rather than an an actual flow—just makes it come across as robotic. It’s a bummer that blogging is in this state.
- Pete-Codes 3y agoNice read - It never occurred to me you'd need catering staff there
- momirlan 3y agobest blog about working in Antarctica, with fabulous photography by Mike Krzysztofowicz: https://antarcti.co https://antarcti.co