Armed only with German from an English University, where "spoken proficiency was neither thought necessary nor encouraged", the author arrives in Innsbruck at the age of 21 to take up a posting as the English language assistant in an Austrian school. All he knows about his home for the next year is that the men wear funny leather shorts and you can ski there. Unfortunately the school is closed, he has nowhere to live and no money.Assisted, and sometimes hindered, by a cast of colourful characters, In Need of Assistants describes his journey from student to teacher as he adapts to life in the mountains in the capital of the Tyrol.