I Have the Best Office View for a Corporate Job

And dare you to prove me different

I look out of the window and see the deep blue of Lake Hāwea on the right and the popular Lake Wānaka nestled between the endless hills and peninsulas of the Southern Alps. On the other side, the Clutha River winds its way down through countless meanders and shines in the brightest turquoise blue.

Then I remember I am here to work and look at my client who just contemplates all the life choices made and questions the very decision that made him sign up for this.

“Let’s talk about the jump again” I pull the guy out of his thoughts who dares to respond to me with “no”. Well, I don’t care if you want to or not but if I am going to strap you to my body and jump with you out of this plane, I am going to make you listen to the instructions one more time.

And so I repeat the same things over again which come out of my mouth like a recorder after you’ve pressed the play button for the hundred’s time.

It’s routine, of course. As everything flying-related, routine is what keeps us safe up in the skies. And while everything I do is a repetitive movement, nothing about the stranger I attach to my body has anything to do with routine. He thinks he’s going to die (for reasons I don’t understand) and will do his best to do the exact opposite of what I told him to do.

Yes, I am one of the few crazy people in this world who not only jump out of planes for fun but do it for a living and attach strangers to their bodies multiple times a day to serve them the thrill of their life (that’s at least what they tell me afterward).

I am a skydiving instructor.

And in case you were wondering whether or not one can do this as a job, yes you can because there is no way in the world I’d strap a smelly, sweaty and panicky customer to my body and jump out of a plane with him — for free. I get paid to do this.

I don’t know what you thought about that but many people are surprised to hear I get paid for what I do. Honestly, I think we get paid too little for what we go through but hey, I could change my profession if I’m not happy with it, right?

Either way, what was I talking about?

Right, about the business of skydiving and a profession I certainly did not dream of pursuing when growing up. It is something that just happened during my time living in Namibia and being surrounded by friends who were either pilots or skydivers themselves.

The business of skydiving

But I wanted to go into the background of the business. For years, skydivers, like many other adventure guides, were not employed by businesses but rather worked as contractors and as you know, being a freelancer comes with many advantages, mostly on the sides of freedom but also with a lot of negative sides such as health insurance one needs to cover and the lack of securities.

And somewhere over the years, tax offices came in trying to charge more tax money out of the little bit that would be left at the end of the month and sue businesses who used skydiving instructors exclusively for their company but didn’t employ them and just used them as contractors avoiding to pay health insurance or social security for them.

And that was where slowly but surely the shift happened and all of a sudden many skydiving instructors would leave their jobs and work in McDonald’s instead as they’d receive much better benefits without the hassle of dealing with annoying, sweaty and ignorant passengers in the skies.

While this happened in the States, where the skydiving economy is still the largest in the world, it slowly shifted over to other countries as well. Last summer, I signed my first contract as a skydiving instructor and was paid a basic salary each month including health insurance, social security and pension while still getting on top of the money I worked over the normal contract hours.

It was different and of course, would bring me in fewer dollars (or euros in that case) in my account but also offered a lot more securities which never bothered me as I secured my future and health through different channels but certainly calmed family and friends who always worry about this lost child in the dangerous business.

While I was suddenly an employee, I was part of a very small business where I was surprised how much I was included in the decision-making from basics from if we jump in that weather to how we can improve our product and when we should open or close on additional days.

And then everything changed when I signed the next contract. Like many other nomads around the world, I sign papers online, as I’m rarely ever in front of the person I make an agreement with, mostly not even in the same country.

And so it happened when I signed the contract for another season as an employee for a different company, I was yet to learn what a difference it would be even though both contracts were similar in the wording.

Becoming an employee of Skydive Australia

On November 1st, I arrived in New Zealand and started to work for a company I denied a contract a year prior as they offered me a job outside of Melbourne but I had and still have no desire to work in Australia and only applied with them as they have two branches on the South Island of New Zealand.

The beginning was frustrating as it took an entire day to complete all necessary paperwork on site and another few days before I could begin jumping for the company.

However, within the first few days, I picked up the vibe of it being a corporate company listening to the boys (yes, this is a very male-dominated profession) whenever they complained about something.

I was beginning to think of all the corporate jobs I had heard of, the corporate ladder people climbed and the corporate world everyone wanted to get out of or profited in.

Was it possible I was having a corporate job while jumping out of planes for a living?

As a non-native speaker, I needed to dig a little deeper until I found my answer. The definition of a corporate company goes deep into business language about entities, share- and stockholders and the separation between its owners with the purpose of earning profit.

And yes, my employer is indeed a corporate company and while I couldn’t find any similar numbers, I believe Skydive Australia might be the biggest corporate skydiving business in the world.

With 16 dropzones, alias branches, across Australia and New Zealand, it is certainly a large corporate entity with all its advantages and downsides.

The biggest struggle we have in being on the other side of the ocean is that many decisions made by the directors and whoever else is in charge of them, is that they often don’t make sense at our New Zealand locations but we need to follow them regardless.

My very corporate job

So here we go. This is me, in my very different corporate job and while my employer might be telling me when to show up for work and what clothes to wear (no, I am not allowed to wear my favorite color yellow), they cannot control or restrict how I talk to my passengers to calm them down, my flying style or angle I use when I film.

A little bit of freedom is still left and that is why I smile when I look around in my office. Between deep blue lakes, snow-covered mountain peaks of the Southern Alps and meandering rivers down below, there is always something to smile at.

While falling through the sky at 200kph.

And this is why I believe I have the best office view for a corporate job. But please prove me different…

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