Today I found out that UT RecSports is currently unable to hire me as a paid adventure trip guide since I'm already employed by the computer science department as a graduate research assistant. I can still work as a volunteer guide, which means I can work trips for free but not get paid.
I'm pretty frusterated about the situation, since when I signed up for guide school and took wilderness first aid, I expected to eventually earn back the costs of these. It's also hard to be willing to work trips for free when you know everyone else is getting paid.
I opted to back out of the backpacking trip February 28-March 2, since Explore UT is on Saturday March 1st and the ANTS deadline is on March 2nd. I had felt guilty for a while about missing Explore UT (since my lab runs a huge robot soccer demo), so this was a good execuse to back out of the trip and help my lab out at Explore UT.
I did decide to keep my other four trips this semester - Grand Canyon, the stand up paddle board day trip, the tubing and hiking weekend trip, and the end of semester Santa Elena canyon canoeing trip. I'm pretty excited about all of these trips, so they will be cool to go on even if I'm not getting paid.
