In Camp Shifts
Running the camp takes a lot of work, which we estimate to be about 12 hours per person during the week.
An Idea for Shifts in 2026
As a turtle in 2026, you will be in one of these categories:
| How many? | What? | What you will do |
| 32 | Grunts | Two shifts during the week: one LNT+interactivity shift and one food shift. |
| 4 | Chefs | Two food shifts during the week. |
| 4 | Mayor of the Day | Two Mayor of the Day shifts during the week. |
(If we have more than 40 turtles, extra turtles will be added in the "Grunts" category).
Grunts
As a Grunt you will be assigned to a Pod with a group of people that we hope will become your friends. There are 8 pods of 4 people. Your pod will work together once on a food shift, and once on an LNT+interactivity shift.
Chefs
Chefs are from the food team and have been working with that team in advance to figure out and plan meals on playa. As a Chef you will lead two of the food shifts during the week. When you get to your shift, you will be joined by a Pod of 4 grunts who will help you execute your meal plans.
Mayor of the Day
Mayors are from the build or infrastructure team. As a mayor, you run the whole camp for a day, starting at 9am when you have to be up and on the job. After lunch, you will be joined by a Pod of 4 grunts who will do LNT and run the café.
What is a Food Shift?
Food shifts officially go from about 10am - 6pm, but they may take longer. They are led by a chef and include a pod of 4 grunts to help. The Mayor of the Day helps make sure that everyone in the pod shows up to the shift. Normal food shifts happen on 8 days (Sunday through Sunday). Here's a typical Food Shift plan:
- 10 am start!
- Prepare kitchen
- Make lunch
- Serve lunch (12pm)
- Lunch break
- Completely clean kitchen and serving area
- Prepare for dinner (pre-made meals) (probably 2pm - 4pm)
- Once dinner is in the fridge and all set up, rest time / nap
- If dinner involves any late set up like setting up a buffet, shifters may come back as required
What is an LNT+Interactivity Shift?
This shift combines cleaning up the camp, preparing the Café, and serving cold drinks all afternoon. It officially goes from 12:30pm to 6pm, but may take longer if there has been a disaster in camp. There are 7 LNT+interactivity shifts, Sunday through Saturday. Each is done with a pod of 4 grunts, with some supervision from the Mayor. Here is a typical LNT+interactivity shift:
- 12:30pm report to the Mayor of the Day
- Mayor gives you a list of things to clean / straighten / prepare / organize around the camp.
- This always includes cleaning the portopotties, the shower, cleaning and straightening up the café and other public areas, checking the Pillow Fort, and a MOOP sweep, dealing with lost and found - whatever the Mayor tells you to do
- Someone will also take the bike trailer and go get ice
- Team will also get all the camp trash sorted and under control
- Once the camp is in tip-top shape you prepare drinks in the Café and open it to the public
- During the afternoon you serve drinks, interact with burners, and keep the cafe tidy.
- Around 6pm as the café closes, you clean up, wash any containers, etc.
There is also one special LNT+Interactivity Shift for the welcome party. One pod will be responsible for serving drinks at the party, directing bikes to keep them out of the street, and any decorations.
Mayor of the Day
This is a new thing in 2026. There are 4 people qualified to be Mayor of the Day and each will do two days.
Qualifications: Generator, Water, OSS deliveries, and being fully briefed on everything about running the camp.
- Start at 9am. Bonus: make coffee for the camp
- Inspect the camp and make a list of things that need to be cleaned up or fixed up
- Be visibly available for OSS deliveries
- Do morning and afternoon generator maintenance (we will have some help for this from village camps)
- Track water usage, fill out water logs, change tanks as necessary, empty grey water from the food fort and shower
- At 10am, make sure the food team has all reported to work. If anyone is missing wake them up; if they are AWOL try to find a replacement.
- Lunch at 12
- After lunch, gather the day's LNT+Interactivity Pod. If anyone is missing wake them up; if they are AWOL try to find a replacement.
- Give the LNT+Interactivity Pod directions on camp cleanup and inspect it when it's done
- Make sure the LNT+Interactivity Pod has opened the café and everything is going well
- Once the last OSS delivery of the day has been done and all the infrastructure is nominal, you can take off.
Some Rationale for this System
- Brings back Pods, which people liked as a way to make friends
- Fewer, longer shifts. That means the number of "shift enforcement moments" is minimized -- the Mayor of the Day can reasonably enforce people showing up for shifts in two batches at 10am and 12:30pm -- which hopefully means absenteeism is reduced, relative to a system with everybody having multiple shorter shifts throughout the week
- Smooth equitable system where almost everyone has exactly the same burden of work
- Mayor-of-the-Day so OSS deliveries go smoothly, people show up to their shifts, and things actually get done
History of Shifts with the Turtles
The way shifts have been scheduled has been different from year to year. We're always trying to learn from experience.
2022 Pod Shifts
Camp was divided into pods of three campers and each pod was assigned four shifts to do during the week. Possible shifts were LNT, Lunch, Dinner, Desert HiiT, Party (first 3 hours), Party (second 3 hours), and Pillow Fort.
Food team (3 people) were not in pods.
Motivation:
- Put people in a pod with people they didn't know before the burn so they could make new friends working alongside them throughout the week
- Create accountability so that each pod would have motivation to get their own members to show up for work
Pros:
- People liked the pod concept and making friends
Cons:
- Accountability did not actually happen -- no shows were just no shows
- BORG's Arctica meltdown meant ice shifts took hours and the work balance didn't feel fair
2023 Signups
Huge change from 2022. There was a long list of potential work shifts that anyone could sign up for on a first-come, first-served basis.
Each shift got you a certain number of points based on how fun/hard they were: 3 points for food, 2 points for LNT, 2 points for Ice, 2 points for porto/shower cleanup, 2 points for keeping ice water and coffee and electrolytes stocked, 1 point for leading HIIT, 1 point for bartending or Ürkish Coffee, 2 points for camp infra, and 0 points for DJing.
You had to sign up for 11-12 points. Only returning campers had access to the sign up sheet; newbies had to work with a returning camper who helped them sign up and understand the commitment.
Pros:
- Point system felt super fair; we saw people sign up for shifts evenly instead of mobbing one category so there were no "good deals" or "bad deals"
- A sense of commitment since people signed themselves up
- Restricting sign up access to returning campers helped acculturation
Cons:
- No shows sometimes resulted in entire things not getting done
- Campers got to shifts and did not know what to do
2024 Work Teams
Huge change. Instead of signing up for shifts you joined a team that took responsibility for:
Food - 20 people
Dining Tent - 5 people
Drinks - 4 people
Gayflower - 4 people
LNT - 4 people
Infrastructure - 5 people
Each team then had it's own responsibility to just get everything in their area done. Each team had its own plan for who did what when. Staffing parties (DJing, bartending, etc) was thought to be "fun" and managed completely separately.
Pros:
- People identified with a team
- Team leaders had real ownership and always planned and brought cool things for their department in advance
Cons:
- Some chronic no-shows, so for example LNT was usually done by 1-2 people out of 4
- Some imbalance (food was felt to be too hard)
2025 Volunteer Shifts
We repeated the 2024 system, but merged Dining Tent and Food. An attempt was made to reduce the amount of work at food shifts by splitting up meals into "before" and "after".
Food - 26 people
Drinks - 4 people
Gayflower - 4 people
LNT - 3 people
Infrastructure - 5 people
Pros:
- Still mostly worked
Cons:
- Lots of no-shows. Small food team shifts meant a no show was a big burden (If you had a shift of 2 and one person doesn't show up, it sucks)