This article originally appeared on VICE UK.Summer jobs suck when you're young. Either you work at a suburban supermarket, getting paid $10 an hour to stack endless cans of soup only to blow it all on a few Friday-night tequila shots, or you wait tables at a chain restaurant, taking lukewarm plates of gravy 'n' food from kitchen to table and occasionally getting tipped with a wrinkled bill. (Tipping in England never quite caught on.) Those are the only two options, both horrible.
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Not working is even worse, though. Months of unfettered freedom are spent marking time, watching Seinfeld reruns, and playing Call of Duty until you're obliged to go back to school. Such are the heady days of your youth.One summer several years ago, I decided I wanted to break that cycle and applied for a job at Buckingham Palace. Not for anything important, like king—it was an opening for a warden, one of the 300 dogsbodies employed from July to September, serving the slavering Queen Lizzie–loving punters when a small section of Buckingham Palace opens its doors each summer.Here's what it was like working at the world's most renowned royal home, dealing with feckless tourists, driving golf buggies around the grounds, and getting wasted after (and sometimes during) work.The hardest part of the "Bucky Pally" interview process is being expected to recount genuine instances of customer service, because the breadth of most people's experience at this point in their lives extends to mastering the speedy refill at Yates's Wine Lodge.Here's a tip: I didn't mention that I was a staunch republican. You don't go to an Amazon job interview and say Jeff Bezos is a dick or that Netflix is better than Prime. You just say something along the lines of, "My corporate morals are good, and I really like packing things." Done.Any preconceptions of looking like a spunky, medallion-wearing Prince William are dispelled, rather swiftly, by the outfit fitting. The starchy navy uniform makes everyone walk around like they're breathing through their belly button—a bit like Shane Warne post–Liz Hurley makeover. You've got a name tag, too, so tourists can mispronounce your name when posing their inane, driveling questions.Everyone is assigned to a section; this decides which cliques you hang out in all summer. There are ones like security, audio guides, the garden, ticket sales, and the shop: all different but similarly menial, chipping away at the soul without ever quite destroying it. You may be working at Buckingham Palace, but it's essentially customer service on a grand scale. You can't go wrong, either—wherever you're put, you'll find like-minded students up for a good bloody laugh.
PASSING THE INTERVIEW
YOU DRESS LIKE A DOUCHE ALL SUMMER
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PARTYING LIKE A PRINCE
YOU DON'T ACTUALLY MEET THE QUEEN
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Probably for the best, though. Imagine Prince Phillip around the ethnic employees ("Golly, that's an interesting accent!"). Buckingham Palace's HR team can only process so many complaints.There are people everywhere. So many people. Four hundred thousand people visit the palace over the two-month opening period. This is Disneyland for militant monarchists.One day a week, you're off the regular section and assigned to the main Buckingham Palace State Rooms beat, watching the merry, gasping masses shuffle through. Standing behind the red ropes, you have the dubious power of answering their questions and radioing for permission if they really need to use the secret toilet. You're basically a glorified primary school supply teacher, policing people's bladders and colons.It's hard to be earnest after repeating the same directions to slack-jawed visitors a thousand times a day, though. Soon, you develop your own anxiety trigger: mine was an American accent saying, "Excuse me, Sir"—grating, obnoxious, and wafting strongly out of the throng like a potent fart. Whatever the comment, I ground my teeth, grinned, and answered it politely. You just have to stand there and think of the money.$10 an hour might not sound like much, but bear in mind the long hours, generous overtime, and the era—this was several years ago. To a 19-year-old, this was wild riches. Never mind that half of it got blown at the local Wetherspoons. Curry Clubs all round!Caravaggio there, Vermeer here, Canova statues everywhere: Brian Sewell would have a screaming artgasm. The state rooms are like a rococo IKEA: once a tourist is through one section, they can't turn back. The difference is that nobody can afford a single chair here.Bravo to the Royal Family for stealing and borrowing—gotta love playing imperial finders keepers—a shit-ton of priceless culture. It is, hands down, the finest "office" to work in on earth.
YOU END UP HATING PEOPLE
IT PAYS WELL FOR A STUDENT JOB
YOU GET IMMUNE TO SPLENDOR
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