Glacier Onboarding 2025: Four Nights In A Bangkok Youth Hostel

I think it would be a universally accepted statement across all seasonal workers to say that the housing you are assigned (and often times the roommate) can make or break your season. I’ve shared some of my experience over the last couple of years.

Most of it is funny, but this one….. Wow. This one will leave tears in your eyes because you will either laugh with me, at me, or, most likely, for me.

Remember how I told you I onboarded later in the week this year to avoid an unnecessary weekend stay while just missing a couple of hours of training on Monday morning? Well, that had consequences when it came to finding a place to rest my head.

The arrival put me behind a large lot of J1 Students from Thailand, for starters. And since so many drivers were being stared early, there was literally no room at the proverbial inn.

Which is how I ended up in the proverbial stable and the top bunk of an infested manger. But I get ahead of myself.

After class (in the shop this season), they finally sent me up to Lake McDonald Lodge. Now, accommodations have varied there in the past. Since I’m older, they will typically assign me to someone like the front desk manager.

Or maybe even the accounts payable comptroller. You know, someone mature and responsible. An adult like myself who picks up after themselves and shows mutual respect.

Of course, once they did stick me in what I would call an homage to a medium security small town jail, but that was for a week, and I had the pseudo cell room to myself. I can tolerate an 8×8 box as long as I’m not on top of someone.

I just needed four nights. When I learned the location manager I’ve worked with for the last three seasons was off on Monday, I grew concerned.

When his backup person expressed she didn’t know how the system really worked, and all of her face piercings kept jingling, and I knew she didn’t have a 401k, my confidence waned.

When she walked me out to an old dormitory from the 1930s that had been moved and put on new foundations instead of being burned down, I knew I was in for the longest four nights of my life. But I had no idea there would be a cultural element.

So when Jingle Face Girl turns the key of a three-box shotgun shack with an external bathroom and says, “Well, here you go. Find a place to sleep,” I know that I am in for the challenge of my life—mentally, emotionally, and, as I found out by the end of the week, physically (yes, COVID is still real).

Yeah. I’m in a 1930s box, on the top bunk, with a J1 Student from Thailand. He clearly works in the kitchen and uses the bottom drawer of his half of the armoire for dirty laundry.

And hangs the rest on the door of my armoire. It would be nice to have a little floor space to stand. God forbid I will have to find a way to balance on one foot and change my clothes. Maybe I could throw a mattress in the common room?  

Except that it appears to be an old stage set from any of the Quentin Tarantino movies. It must be a cultural thing, but what with all of the foot and skin lotions and magazine? I don’t want to know what happens here when the light goes off.

Christ, you have to be kidding me. I would complain to the property manager and get moved, but by then, I would be down to only a night or two. It is simply ridiculous to even think of throwing anyone to the wolves like this.

To be honest, it is the thought of THIS kind of employee housing that makes people who would enjoy seasonal work NEVER EVER attempt it. Shame, Jingle Face Girl, Shame.

I tell myself it’s only for a few nights. I’d be up early, to class all day, and hang out in the common areas until 9 to 10 a.m., then straight to bed. I could make this work. Keep my eye on the prize. I will be a Beargrass in four short nights, and my cabin for the summer is awaiting my arrival.

And so begins four nights in a Bangkok Youth Hostel.

When I moved my stuff (sheet, blanket, carry-on suitcase) in, it was 6 pm and lower bunk boy wasn’t in his nest of filth. When I came back at 9 pm to sleep, the room appeared empty and I flipped on the light.

Then this little creature that was a cross between Bruce Lee and Gollum started screaming at me from the lower bunk: You tough punk?! You tough punk?!  

What? You tough punk?! What? You tough punk?! What? You tough punk?! This exchange went on and on, and I was thinking I was going to be in my first middle school fight in over forty years. Along with an international incident, and what I’m sure is going to be interpreted as a hate crime.

Finally, I deciphered the fighting words to: “You top bunk?” Which seems like a stupid question, given I have a key and was climbing up there when this verbal assault took place. Yeah, we tried to talk for a couple of minutes, but no dice.

Little Somchai here (my name for him, no idea of the actual) did not speak a word of English. I let him rattle on, smiled, donned my earplugs and sleeping mask, and rolled over. Not even sure if he turned out the lights.

Up at 6 am. Zero sleep. Why? Because it was unseasonably chilly for mid-May at Lake McD (40s), and it seems that people from Thailand are not mammals like the rest of us and can’t generate heat.

The heater was on the entire night, and the top bunk felt like 120F, leaving me to toss and turn for hours on end in a malaria nightmare. And why is my throat so sore?

I climb down the bunk, shaking the entire bed assembly so hard it bangs against the wall like a bucking bronco. I walk outside to the bath/shower room. Guess what? It’s out of order. The sign says to use one from another cabin. So, eight guys sharing two showers?

So I walk over, and there is another Thai kid. Let’s call him Somsak. Somsak is alone in a tepid, humid, steamy bathroom jungle, wrapped around an electric heater like a stripper on a dancing pole. He looks at me in my shorts and tee and asks: You no cold? Me sooooo cold.

This is where I learned my first Thai. “Me so cold” is Thai for saying: I just drained all 50 gallons out of the hot water tank, and since I didn’t tuck in the curtain, there is an inch of standing water on this bacteria-laden floor you have to walk thru. Enjoy.

Ok. I tried to cut Somchai some slack. He didn’t know he was getting a roommate. I don’t know his culture or upbringing. But now that I’m there, not only doesn’t he make any attempt to get his shit out of the way and try to share a tight space with consideration, he ups the ante.

I’ve tolerated the open drawer of dirty laundry. His hanging daily wear kitchen scrubs are clearly reused. All the shit scattered on the floor I can’t walk thru it. A room that feels like a Turkish bath house, and smells like some kind of stale cheese appetizer with a misting of matted armpit hair. Let’s add open boxes of unrefrigerated take-out food from the cafeteria. And let them sit for a few days? WTF?

Time for sleep. This time I checked the corners of the lower bunk to make sure Kung Fu Panda wasn’t going to ambush me when I came into the room at 9 am. Square my stuff away for the next day so I can rise and get the hell out of there. Ears in. Eyes on. I’m starting to get a sniffle in my sinus. My throat feels like I’ve been eating glass.

I heard (or rather felt the vibration) of Somchai stumbling in at 3 am. No biggie. My alarm is set for 6 am to ensure I can beat seven guys to a shower. And then you know what this mini A-hole pulls? A 5:30 a.m. alarm that is set to volume 11. It’s some Japanese anime screaming in a high-pitched voice: “GEEEEEEEETTTTTT UUUUUUUPPPPP. GEEEETTTTTTT UUUUUUUPPPPPP.” Followed by those sirens you hear on European ambulances.

It cuts through my earplugs like butter. I sit straight up and almost crack my head on a ceiling rafter. My heart goes from 54 beats to 100 in an instant. At least, that’s what Garmy told me. And what does shithead Somchai do? Hits the snooze. Weirdest part? Why was ‘Get Up’ in English?

I am at my end. Zero deep sleep. What little REM I was able to manage was consumed with dreams of me being suspended from the ceiling of the cabin and beaten like a Thai piñata while being force fed Moo Ping and bathed in warm Khanom Krok.

I can feel a horrible cold coming on (which later I learned was the current version of Covid, and it put me in bed for two days). I’ve got a burning between the toes – I haven’t had athlete’s foot since early high school. All the clothes in my suitcase have a smell that is not from me. And I’m suddenly wondering why they spent so much time on bed bug infestation identification during orientation.

I set my alarm for 5 am. Somchai was not going to get the upper hand on my grand exit. Turned all the lights on. Packed my bag as loudly as I could. And with my last smiling sneer, I wanted to give that little a-hole a parting goodbye with my middle finger. Hmmm… lower bunk empty. It’s hard to tell when you are sleeping in a dumpster fire.

I could only smile. What stories is Somchai telling about he old white guy that hovered above his bed? Wearing his war mask and earpieces. How would he describe his Four Nights with GoatBoy? With respect? Praise? Fear? Do they see me for who I really am?

Only time will tell. Let the legend I have created flow across the continents and the oceans, becoming one with time everlasting.

Goatboy ออกไปแต่ไม่เคยนอนกับครัวสกปรกช่วยอีก!

Goatboy xxk pị tæ̀ mị̀ khey nxn kạb khrạw s̄kprk ch̀wy xīk!

And Patrick sucks.