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Trading Places: Dream Job Vacations Working at a Little New England Inn Before this trip, I'd stayed at an inn only once. It was on my honeymoon, and my husband and I smoked out most of the other guests while trying to light our fireplace. Still, the romance writer in me couldn't resist being the queen of a country inn. (Nor can most of you: Innkeeping is one of the most popular vocations chosen by women over 40.) I envisioned myself welcoming couples with sherry. And while they were happily wandering the grounds, I'd write sexy novels, the silence of the New England woods all around me. Lesson number two: If you select a career that requires hard labor, dress accordingly. I reported to the kitchen of the Colby Hill Inn at six a.m. and realized seconds after being handed a grease-spattering pan that my Armani blouse wasn't meant for kitchen duty. My mentors were Cyndi and Mason Cobb, who opened Colby Hill in 2000 after leaving corporate jobs in New York City. I wrapped a chef's jacket around my gossamer-thin shirt while Cyndi leafed through a cookbook for a braided strudel recipe. It would have been fun to braid dough, except that we were supposed to be making Grand Marnier French toast and white-chocolate-and-cranberry scones at the same time. I quickly learned how to dodge the puff of scalding steam that leaps out of an industrial dishwasher and how to work the complicated mechanics of an eight-burner stove. By 7:45 a.m., I was ready for a nap. Cyndi saw my face and started to laugh. "Lots of people think that innkeeping is about handing out cocktails and wearing a green velvet dress," she said, eerily echoing my fantasy vision of her life. In fact, the first inn that Cyndi and Mason almost bought had irreparable foundation problems, which they discovered just as they were about to close on the property. "It's the trip with the most criers," VocationVacations founder Brian Kurth later told me. "People will call and wail, 'My dream job is a nightmare!'" That afternoon, Mason took me out into the barn to chop wood. He swung the ax in a perfect arc over his head, and a huge log fell apart like an Easter egg. "After this, I'm going to repair some drywall. Would you like to give it a shot?" he asked. "Drywall!" I gasped as I finally managed to split part of a log. "Last week, I was running a blow-dryer over a wall I'd just repaired when guests started to arrive," he said. "Never a dull moment!" After filling what seemed like a dozen bird feeders, I did the unthinkable for the doyenne of a country inn: I fled to the village nearby, where I gladly ate food prepared and served by someone else. I was exhausted, and -- as my family can attest -- that makes me irritable. Innkeepers may hand out sherry, but as they're smiling and chatting, the sink in room six has sprung a leak, there's a mouse nibbling from the bird feeder in clear sight of guests, and the chef has left in an indignant cloud of marijuana smoke. Guess who's cooking dinner -- and breakfast? You. It stood to reason that I wasn't going to have a lot of spare time for writing those sexy novels. Cyndi also has dreams of writing, but if you ask me, she'll need a job tryout with a novelist -- and a third career. From: www.more.com
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