Late last year a friend sent me an email about a great short-term job, suggesting that I should apply. With long service leave due, it sounded like an ideal opportunity to take the family on a new adventure and have a sabbatical from work. Even the job application process was novel: I had to shoot and submit a one minute video extolling my virtues.
Just to give some background, it is a position with Tourism Queensland advertised as “The Best Job in the World” – a six-month paid sojourn on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef. TQ’s promotion has been incredibly successful, with my video and more than 34,000 others submitted from around the world.
With so many people applying I didn’t hold out much hope of being selected in the shortlist of 50. Also, the sound mix on my video was a little dodgy, and I wish I had spent more time on the script and edit. What I did have that was different to most of the applications was experience and a family with three young, adventurous, nature-loving boys. Maybe TQ might buck the stereotype, I thought, and consider a family for the job?
But no. With the except for a token “old” Canadian (late 30s), the shortlist is made up of pretty, bubbly young things. Sure – looking good in a cossie is an important consideration, but isn’t the idea to promote the Great Barrier Reef, not someone’s career? It all has the stench of Big Brother about it. In amongst the 50, there’s a selection of TV and video presenters, newsreaders and aspiring actors. And there was even an alleged porn star! (since withdrawn)
Is the young crowd the one that TQ really wants to attract to the Reef? If 20-somethings are anything like I was when I was travelling at that age, they’re a self-centred bunch and they don’t spend any money. It’s all about ‘finding yourself’ and scrounging free food and accommodation. On my first trip overseas, I slept on a friend’s brother’s couch in Vancouver for a week, then spent two weeks drifting around Canada surviving on an almond Mars Bar a day – and that was for two of us!
While I’m having a go at this younger generation, what happened to the idea of doing your own work? Most of the videos that made it through are slickly-produced numbers that show the signs of professional help. What’s going to happen when you get to the Reef and it’s just you and a camera? Maybe they’re planning to fill the island lodgings with all their freeloader mates.
Sour grapes, you say? No, not at all. But if there is a family-friendly island out there that needs my services, I’m listening to offers.
