Every year many UVM students decide to stay in Burlington for the summer to enjoy the freedom of being away from home, to live in their apartments where the lease normally starts on June 1st, and/or to be in Burlington at a time when cold winds and the fear of frost bite are non-existent.
Staying in Burlington is not cheap, and with classes no longer monopolizing one’s time the extra time to kill can hurt your wallet. To occupy free time and to earn money most students look downtown for employment.
The Church Street Marketplace is home to over 100 retail shops and nearly as many restaurants and vendors, and is also Vermont’s fifth largest tourist attraction. For students who have waited until now to think about employment for the summer the opportunity for resume worthy internships/jobs that pay is now almost nonexistent. But, there is a plethora of food service and retail jobs available for students looking for work this summer.
To find a job downtown look toward what you have experience in, you may want to wait tables at a classy restaurant like the Trattoria Delia, but if you have only washed dishes before there is no chance. Another great source to finding jobs in retail and food service is through friends, ask around and see where your friends work, and ask them to put in a good words for you.
Believe it or not most people working downtown got the job where they currently work because they first knew someone there. But, don’t rely solely on friends to find a job, go downtown with resumes and be ready to fill out lots of applications, the more the better.
Food Service jobs include waiter, bar tenders, bar backs, dishwashers, cook, ect. The workingconditions for most of the jobs are fast paced and hectic, on a busy night or day the wait staff usually never has down time. For most of these jobs there are many hours available, it is not unheard of for even a dishwasher to work over 50 hours a week.
Waiters make well below minimum wage and rely heavily on tips for money, which can be very profitable. Some can make over $200 in tips on a busy night, at such restaurants like Coyote Caf?©, Bangkok Bistro and others in the same price range.
Food service in Burlington offers many varieties of cuisine and dining atmospheres, take-out restaurants like Kountry Kart Deli, New World Tortilla and Ali Babba’s Kabob Shop work with a minimal staff that can easily be overwhelmed by a rush of people. The atmosphere that people work in is dependent on the time of day.
During the lunch/afternoon shifts most places, even those with a more formal ambiance, are casual during the day. Many restaurants in Burlington take reservations for the evening and have a formal dining atmosphere; these include Five Spice Caf?©, Leunigs, and A Single Pebble.
Working retail is very different in any ways than working food service. The main difference is that most retailers in Burlington do not offer fulltime hours to anyone below management. But, retail jobs usually offer greater flexibility and a more stable air-conditioned environment.
The nice/bad thing about retail jobs is that employees get rather significant discounts on clothing, or whatever is being sold; but many people find that they can easily spend their earnings faster than they are aware of, for many businesses take the deduct purchases from pay checks.
A positive feature working retail is that most retailers offer bonuses for meeting and beating sales goals. Eddie Bauer, for example, pays sales associates an extra $.25 an hour for if a sales goal is beaten by 5-9.9 percent, an extra $.50 an hour when a sales goal is beaten by 10-14.99 percent, and an extra $.75 an hour for beating the sales goal by more than 15 percent. Last summer all associates earned an extra $.75 an hour for June, July and August.
Living in Burlington during the summer is not a profitable venture for most UVM students, but making a profit isn’t the reason most live in Burlington. The summertime in Burlington is far different than the rest of the year when Burlington becomes an occupied territory of UVM.
