The "Penguin Post Office" is looking for five employees for the upcoming summer season (Credit: UK Antarctic Heritage Trust/ CC-BY-SA-4.0)

The United Kingdom (UK) Antarctic Heritage Trust is looking to hire five people — a base leader, a shop manager, and three general assistants — to work at the "Penguin Post Office" in Port Lockroy, Antarctica. The five-month stint is open to UK residents over the age of 18. It will begin in early November 2024 and last until March 2025.

Responsibilities will include sorting the over 80,000 letters and postcards sent by the 18,000 tourists who visit the world's southernmost post office each summer. Employees will also help sell postage stamps, run the small onsite gift shop, and look after the aging building. But their most important duty will be to keep track of Port Lockroy's colony of about 1,500 gentoo penguins.

The Postal employees will have to sort thousands of postcards and letters (Credit: UK Antarctic Heritage Trust/ CC-BY-SA 4.0)

Exciting as it may sound, the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust warns applicants that the jobs are not for the faint of heart. Even during summer, temperatures on the icy continent can dip as low as 23 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 5 degrees Celsius). Additionally, the five people will live in a single bedroom with a tiny gas-powered kitchen. There is no flushing toilet either. Instead, staffers will use a camping toilet, which must be emptied daily.

There is limited phone and Internet access and no running water. Visiting ships provide water in jerry cans and also offer staffers showers every few days. But in poor weather conditions, they may have to do without a shower for extended periods. With the closest hospital in Argentina, medical evacuations could take up to a week! However, the biggest challenge will be the smell of penguin poop that will engulf them for five months!

The employees will all live together in one bedroom (Credit: UK Antarctic Heritage Trust/ CC-BY-SA-4.0)

Despite these drawbacks, the positions, which open up every summer, receive thousands of applications each year. Camilla Nichol, the Trust's CEO, is not surprised. She believes that for the right individuals, the jobs provide "[a] unique opportunity to live in a landscape that makes you feel pure awe and wonder, where pioneering generations have gone before us, making groundbreaking discoveries about our planet."

Resources: NPR.com, NYpost.com, bas.ac.uk, CNN.com