Jaimee Eat World

I’ve had to make the difficult decision not to work for my beloved Toronto Blue Jays this season.

With the Quiet Face

I’d applied to work for the Jays a couple times when I was younger and still living downtown, but it’s weirdly tough to even make it to the interview stage for those jobs. When I applied last year, I had zero expectations of getting in.

The interviews were pretty fun because you get to do them right on the field and if you’re a fan of the game who has never had a chance to do that before, it’s a pretty cool experience.

I did three rapid-fire interviews that day and was offered a position within the Ushering team, which I was happy to take for the experience of working for a MLB team, but also because I was worried about how many hours I’d be getting doing freelance A/V work – it’s been a slow climb back to some sort of normalcy in the events space ever since the pandemic.

Ushering has to be one of the best gigs you can get at the Rogers Centre/Skydome because you’re pretty much just getting paid to watch the game and it’s really hard to complain about that if you’re a fan of it. But when you sign on to work for an MLB team, you sign on for the full season and need to commit to at least 80% of all the games and in our case here in Toronto, you also are expected to work any of the concerts taking place that season.

The nice part about that is you know your schedule for the next 7 months. The not so great part about that is it makes it tough to work any other jobs outside of it, and with your barely-above-minimum-wage salary and less than part-time hours, that’s really tough to survive on if you don’t have a good support system.

Jobs like this prey on the fact that most people will do them for the experience of working for a fun team (like me) despite the challenges that come with it. They’re otherwise best suited for students or retiree’s who have other commitments or don’t want full time employment for whatever reason. Nonetheless, last year I decided to stick it out to take full advantage of the opportunity that was offered to me.

Nothing New To See

At some point during the season I was offered to interview for the Premium Lounge ushering team instead and I went for it because there is virtually no other way someone like me will ever be able to watch professional baseball from Premium seats behind home plate.

I was fortunate to get the job because frankly working in the Premium spaces is easier than being an usher in the normal seats. Most of the people there are season ticket holders so they know the drill as far as rules and conduct are concerned so you don’t have to worry as much about people vaping or sneaking in liquor or starting fights. You also have way more of your own team members within arms reach, so if you have an actual issue it’s easy to grab someone to assist – compared to being up in the other sections where you can go the whole game without seeing or speaking to anyone else, this is a pretty big perk.

Now, I definitely lucked out on being part of the team during last years big World Series run. On the last game I was lucky enough to be stationed in a field-facing role (sometimes you’re stuck inside watching the game on TV instead) and that alone was a crazy experience that was worth sticking out the season for. Some people paid literally over $10,000 to be in attendance to that game – your girl right here got paid a cool $160 CAD to be there instead just a few feet from the action.

That, coupled with my brief encounters casually chatting with occasional acquaintance Eugene Levy (THE Eugene Levy!) and walking by but never once speaking to Geddy Lee (he’s from a Canadian band called Rush), made for some pretty fun stories and an overall positive reflection on working for the Jays.

And I got to watch a lot of great concerts (Metallica! Cool!), sometimes even from right on floor level right by the stage (what’s up The Weeknd!), and catch moments that are really cool and special to me like My Chemical Romance finishing up soundcheck before their monstrous performance.

All of that went through my mind real quick when the Jays invited me to work for them again this year. Training is supposed to start this week, but I know I have to decline.

I Think About Us Dancing

There are 81 home games in a season of baseball. For each of those, I have to arrive a couple hours ahead of the game depending on promotions and giveaways and then stay at least an hour past it’s ending. It doesn’t sound like a huge commitment, but it eats up more than you’d think.

It’s a relatively short shift, usually no more than 5 and a half hours, but once you factor in the commute you’re putting in a minimum 9 hour day for each of those and you’re only making about $100/shift. Taking the TTC is about $3.50 each way and from where I travel from, you’re also looking at paying for commuter parking ($7/day) until the weather gets good enough for you to make the hour walk to the subway station instead (and save that $7). I’m sure you can do the math on that – getting paid to watch baseball is great, being able to afford your rent and car payments is better.

And there were a lot of times last year where I’d find myself having to turn down a better paying gig or opportunity in favour of keeping my Jays attendance in good enough standings to not get fired – I was constantly questioning if it was all worthwhile.

Beyond the money and all of that, the reality is that professional baseball doesn’t really align with my actual goals and passions.

Dont get me wrong, I love to watch a great team play especially on a hot summer day, but most of the time at those games I would have rather been home slugging it out on these covers, rearranging these songs and seeing what kind of interesting productions I can come up with. I never question if this is worthwhile.

Hell, if I was making $86/day to do THIS, I’d be laughing. That’d be a real dream come true – World Series finals be damned.