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Job update: I’m a tour guide

I’ve been pretty good about not bitching about being broke on this blog, though I’m sure some would disagree. The hunt for jobs as been an ongoing process, ever since I lost that research assistant position, and I’m still working at the O2 store. But as I don’t get nearly enough hours there, I definitely needed something else to supplement that kind of income—at least for all values of “need” which include “being able to buy copious amounts of beer.” Understood?

So one day while working in the O2 store, it’s pretty busy, and a coworker comes up to me and asks whether I can help her customer, whom she just sold a phone card to, load that credit onto his phone. She asked if I knew how to do it, and I smiled, because I of course have a prepaid phone, too, whereas all the other people at O2 make sweet cash and only have contracts, so they’re a little lost when it comes to the nuances of the prepaid life.

I take the phone and the card from her, and start talking to the customer, asking if maybe he has a coin I can bum to scratch off the code on the card. He fumbles in his pocket for a minute, then his buddy whips out a 1-cent piece and hands it to me. I liked this, because sometimes scratching off that lottery-paint crap with a clunkier €2 piece can result in damage, whether to the card or my hand, or even any bystanders. As we’re chatting, he interrupts me and asks if we could maybe do this in English. That, of all things, is not difficult for me. I said of course, and kept going.

He interrupts me again and asks where I studied in the U.S., because my American English was perfect. I explain my situation as an American student living in Munich, how I lost my internship, just need some sidejobs to pay the bills, and we laugh for a while. Then he’s quiet for a moment, and says, “You know… I’m hiring right now, actually.” I hand the penny back to his friend, who greets the gesture with a beaming smile.

Turns out this guy is an American who’s lived in Munich for the past six years, and he runs a bike tour company. He markets it exclusively to English speakers, and he likes to hire college-age native English speakers to give the tours. “I need someone who knows how to swear with young people, you know? Like really fuck with them. This isn’t really your typical tour, you see.”

We chat a bit more, and I take his card, promising to get in touch. Before he leaves, he turns and asks his friend what he thinks of me. The friend has been a tour guide for the past five years, apparently, so his initial reaction on my character is important. The friend smiles this crazily happy smile again, and says in the thickest of Irish accents, while looking at my nametag, “Conor. That’s a right good Irish name ya got yourself there, boy.”

They hired me.

As of yet, I haven’t made any money from this job, because I’m still in training. Understandably, there is a ton of reading and researching about the city to do before I’ll be able to give my own tours. So far I’ve tagged along on several tours to watch how they do it, and it’s done me well. I have their route through the city memorized, and now I just need to fill in the gaps in my knowledge for each stop we make. Was the Neues Rathaus completed in 1908 or 1909? Did Duke Wilhelm the V order the construction of the Hofbräuhaus before or after issuing his famous edict of the Beer Purity Law? It’s this kind of crap that I can really get into, especially as my knowledge of European medieval history was rather abysmal. (I’m much stronger in Scandinavian history!) Now I finally have stories about Barbarossa that weren’t written by Umberto Eco.

In that vein, by far my favorite aspect of this kind of research is there are several conflicting historical accounts for every building, sculpture, and historical event in this city. I’m reading books, scholarly papers, reading plaques, everything I can to get a decent understand of what happened when and who was there, or at least who said they were when writing about it.

But enough talk. Meet the boss, Lenny of Lenny’s Bike Tours.

Looks like a champ, eh? And those are the sweet bikes we cruise around on. Overall, I’m sure this job sounds pretty sweet, but there are yet more perks to it. One of the stops on the tour is the Chinese Tower, the second-largest beer garden in Munich, and there I get beer and food for free. Not bad, eh? And after the tour, people are encouraged to come with us over to Sausalito’s, by far the best cocktail bar in town, where I got two knock-you-on-your-ass cocktails, free. A related perk is that I meet people like Monk, who then invite me out for yet more drinking on someone else’s tab. God damn those Scots were fun guys!

OK, and now the downside. The tours are canceled during bad weather. Lenny claims this is only in the spring, as it’s still cold, and that during the summer people will be wearing ponchos and riding around in the rain and having a blast. We’ll see. But for now, it’s not a reliable job, because if I say, for example, “OK, I’ll see you on Tuesday” and then it ends up raining on Tuesday, I’m out a day’s work. Not cool.

Still, this financial instability may yet be made worthwhile by the shot at free cocktails with the right crowd.

These girls dug me even more than they dug Daniel the Irishman and his adorable accent, and that’s saying a lot. I suppose I’ll just have to play it by ear.