All the weird jobs you do as a camp counselor

With summer approaching, camp is just around the corner – so all of us camp counselors are reminiscing about the many exciting, adventurous, and of course, weird jobs that we are about to take on.

Here are a few of the weird camp jobs I’ve had to take on as a counselor at Stone Ridge Summer CampUs in Maryland.

Ant-squasher

When a box of popsicles fall over in the fridge, attracting a swarm of ants, what do you have to do? You have to kill those dang ants. Put a hose to them, squash them with a paper towel, clean it up until no evidence is left behind.

Firefighter

In the bathroom at our camp, the girls think that the trash goes into the metal flap opening next to the sink. What is the flap really? Oh, just a way to adjust the heater, no big deal. My job this past summer was to clear out the bundle of paper towels from the heater to make sure the trash didn’t (possibly) catch on fire.

Camp tradition protector

One of the greatest camp traditions we have is our shaving cream fight. My job every year is to go to Giant and buy about 300 cans for the discounted camp price and not leave until they give it all to us. It was the weirdest thing to roll out of Giant with two carts filled with solely shaving cream. But, hey, got to preserve those fun camp traditions.

Nothing like getting the job with three other counselors of folding a gigantic tarp that was used as a slip-n-slide. Not only was it still wet, but it was also windy outside, so we were being whipped around and splashed with the remaining water left while trying to control the tarp.

Arts and crafts master

Kids at our camp love to sew and stitch and make all kinds of pillows, blankets, and other cool crafts with fabric. But, the weirdest part of this class was the clean up. There were five boxes in which we had to sort fabric by type and size. After a few hours of cleaning it up, we finally had organized it.

Public transport specialist 

People looked at us funny as we stood by the Metro Card machine and loaded 30 cards with more money. Best part was there was only two of us and a small line starting to form behind us. Though this wasn’t the weirdest camp job I’ve done, it definitely caused annoyance as we quickly tried to reload them all.

Bathing suit wrangler

You’d think that getting kids in bathing suits would be an easy job. But it was probably one of the hardest and strangest jobs I’ve encountered. And I’ve learned that though little kids are good at undressing to put on their bathing suits, they cannot put on their swimsuits by themselves and they also have a short attention span. So while I took out their bathing suit, I had to also run around looking for where the kid went.

Emergency popsicle provider

I scream, you scream, we don’t have popsicles, just ice cream! A few times during camp, I would have to make the “Oh shoot we don’t have popsicles for the lactose intolerant kids” popsicle run. It was great to drive to Costco, jump out of the car and run into the grocery store, and come out with about 200 popsicles under my arms.

Obstacle course creator

Who doesn’t love those mini powdered donuts? Well, how do you like eating them with no hands in a relay race? It’s one of the funniest things to watch the campers do at camp. But, someone needs to set up the course. I had to sit at home with 100 powdered donuts and tie a string on each one of them. Not as easy as it sounds. It was super easy to tie it too tight and watch it break in half in your hands.

Babysitter

One day when we were practicing an emergency drill, a majority of the counselors were needed to monitor doors, herd the campers into one room, and help out the camp director with any job she needed them to do. And my job? I had to watch the 200+ campers and entertain them as the director worked with head staff on logistics. Luckily I had a few counselors to help me lead the camp in Simon Says, coloring, and any random games or crafts we could do in the downtime. Babysitting to the extreme.