Austrian mandatory “Gap Year”

So Tenerife was amazing, my last year at the tourism college fabulous and now it was time to get real. But hold on, Austrian law at that time, and think still to date, required every male citizen to either do mandatory 8 months of military service or 12 months of alternative service but there was no way around. I had to put my “job hunt” to conquer the world of hotels on ice for a year. As I was and still am against weapons, I chose the longer alternative service.

In the process I had to select three areas of civil service I would be interested in and one would be chosen. My first choice was working in a retirement home also because it was closer to home and it wouldn’t require me to also find accommodation. So I was “recruited” in a retirement home about 15 minutes from my family house. I always had respect of the older generation, and in particular at that time everyone at the age for retirement home was from the time of the Second World War or earlier. There were lots of stories to be told and most of them were repeated every day the same way but I didn’t mind. I thoroughly enjoyed giving back to the older generation some love and care, in particular as in most cases they were just put into the home because their families just didn’t want them at home anymore.

I had super cool colleagues as well. We were all working in shifts and during the first weeks I was always with someone when looking after the older people. My duties included to entertain them during breakfast, lunch and dinner, play games with them and take them for walks. But of course, there was also the other side of the job, where I had to get them ready in the morning and before bed, which meant washing them and dressing them, and also bathe them. Those were actually as strange as it’s sounds the most amazing moments, the moments when the best stories were being told about their lives and their sadness, their experiences in the war and in love, the losses they had to cope with but also the gratitude of surviving. It was mind blowing and therefore I didn’t mind once cleaning them or having to completely strip the beds after some accidents happened, or someone just wanted to showcase chocolate they found in their bed.(I know my apologies if this is to graphic but that’s a moment I will never forget and how normal I did and had to react to the situation in order not to cause embarrassment. The other thing I did have to do which probably shaped me for the rest of my life and gave me a different outlook on life and death, I had to wash and prepare people who passed away for the morgue. In my time I had to deal with 15 deaths and all of which I can to this day say I provided some experiences in their last months of their life and prepared them for there transition in the most ethical and human way possible. I would never look at the death the same way as I had looked at it in my youth, and it did help me over many personal situations where I was confronted with sickness and ultimately death of close people.

We had a lot of fun or at least I tried to bring fun into the crowds as they deserved it. Of course not everyone was in good shape or mentally still here but everyone deserved the same attention and care. I still to this date when someone asks me, what my best job was, I would always refer to this one year, as I absolutely loved every single day.

In a way you have to think about a retirement like a hotel, not just because of check in and check out, my apologies again for the graphic reference, but a retirement home is about providing experiences and managing a day to day operation. I do have to say though it’s not apparent straight away but that one year I learned more about hospitality management than I did at school, from cost control, stock and par levels, cleaning protocols, food preparation and food waste, and administrative tasks like accounting and, medication which helped me to react super quick in so,r instances throughout my career where some life’s were at risk or even passed. (More later on this!)