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By Donna Douglas and Stoney McCart |
Beside the mammoth dishwasher in the hotel kitchen are six pairs of ski boots. Sitting beside the typewriter on Dorothy Gould's desk are ski boots, goggles and a toque.
Katie Scott looks out the windows of her log cabin office, eyeing new snow and sights, turning back to her personnel computer sheets.
Most of the people whose
talents produce the fun and frolic of a ski resort are
there for three reasons... they want to ski, they
enjoy people and they have a skill to learn or
share.
There are dozens of different jobs, from chefs to lift operators, from the millwrights who maintain the huge gondola operations to the people who drive enormous grooming 'cats' over sheer angles all night long to make sure ski trails are ready for the next day's traffic.
The Rockies, the Laurentians, and the ski terrain offered all across the Great Canadian Shield, make ski operations big business in Canada. They all demand the same enthusiastic, people-effort of their employees. The folks that are operating lifts, maintaining supplies, ensuring safety, teaching skiers are usually young - averaging in their early twenties - and they're there to ski.
There are many, many ski resorts in Canada, but to profile the jobs and the people in the industry, we take you to Sunshine Village, north of Banff, Alberta, where snow conditions are superb, the vertical drops terrific, and the lifestyle isolated.
Sunshine is built at the tree line, and half of the 400 staff live up in the mountain, in economical accommodation that affords little privacy and lots of skiing.
It's hard work. Lift operators start up the eight lifts, and are responsible for safety checks at beginning and end of day. They stand for hours in the snow, ensuring each skier boards safely, whether grumpy over the weather, annoyed with their kids, or just having a lousy day. The 'liftie' gets to deal with all kinds of personalities, and it's the 'lifties' whose own enthusiasm can make or break a ski resort's reputation.
It's hard work. Kitchen, bar, dining room and lodge staff work all day and all night (in shifts) preparing carloads of food for eager hotel or day guests who gobble it up. Over and over, dealing with people, putting up with pressure, working all day long when it's snowed all night and you're missing the best powder of the season.
For some, the ski resort is an interim job, a seasonal fling with the love of skiing. Many of Sunshine's 410 employees are 17 and 18 years old, out of high school and wanting a break, or taking a break from university studies. They all express enthusiasm over the work and the job perks... the skiing is free and if you've got the night shift, the day and the snow belong to you.
Katie Scott, 25, a Burlington, Ont. native who has skied all her life, started at Sunshine in the Human Resources Department as a clerk. She moved to the front desk, then to employment supervisor and now she's Human Resources (or Personnel) Manager, responsible for maintaining active records and making sure the 410 jobs have effective bodies in them when ski season starts in October.
She says jobs at Sunshine are plentiful and exciting, and there's something for everybody. While there are 70 permanent staff at Sunshine and 200 in the busy summer hiking months, it's the heavy October-to-May ski season and the 6- 10,000 applications that she weeds through that make things demanding.
The resort is divided into operations each a specialty with specific staffing needs. The Gondola operation, a giant airborne people mover, hires 41 people with a maintenance department and operations department caring for the 200 cars that move 1800 people an hour.
Food and Beverage services take care of all nine eating locations, budgeting, ordering, receiving and moving food brought up on the gondola (everything at Sunshine comes and goes by gondola). People in food services handle scheduling of shifts, budgeting of food quantities and cost, organizing menus.
Human Resources is responsible for personnel. The three staff answer to the General Manager, maintaining constant employment numbers, keeping track of hours, benefits, personal data, etc.
"We get all varieties of people here," says Scott. "Some are grown up, self motivated and some are the complete opposite, needing guidance. Working at a ski resort always look glamorous but it's very demanding."
The Marketing Department, headed by Crazy Canuck Dave Irwin, has a total staff of 62 people, 47 ski schools pros, hosts and hostesses performing promotions and publicity functions for the many world and national ski events held at the village.
Mountain Operations concerns itself with Sunshine's day visitors. At least 2,000 people a day arrive on the gondola to ski, eat, shop, and enjoy themselves before heading back down the mountain. Economically, it's the day user that really brings in the dollars to a ski resort, and Vice President of Mountain Operations Fred Bosinger has 70 people in his division guaranteeing that Sunshine brings people back. Mountain Operations oversees the lift operators, cat crew, trail crew, ski patrols (whose excellent skiers maintain safety standards, and administer first aid.)
There are 26 people working in the Maintenance division, all full-time employees maintaining indoors and outdoors of buildings, lifts, snowmobiles, cats, utilities, and electrical needs. Maintenance hires apprentices, licensed mechanics, millwrights, and journeymen welders who ply their trades making sure equipment is in top shape. Dorothy Gould, Assistant Maintenance Manager, says many employees come right from high school and sign on for their apprenticeships. They are highly valued.
The Bourgeau services involve accounting and financial guts of the operation, all ticket sales for day skiers, plus the accounting requirements for the inn's 90 rooms.
Full time employees receive medical, dental coverage and subsidized benefits but seasonal employees must take care of that themselves. The pay isn't high, but the perks (if you like to ski) are terrific. Wages vary from resort to resort, province to province and union to union.
Wages run from $4.50 an hour for the lift operators, dining room staff, and maid service, and day lodge staff, to $6.25 - $8 an hour for ski patrol, avalanche crew, and jobs requiring a mechanical background.
Permanent staff heading up major divisions are often people who started at Sunshine as lift operators or hotel desk clerks. Their average salaries, depending on responsibilities, climb to between $18 and $26,000 a year.
Katie Scott thinks about the 10,000 applications that arrive on her desk every year... "the kids who do well are the ones with lots of people experience. Kids from the prairies do exceptionally well because they often have a farm (and mechanical) background, they know how to work hard, and they're willing to learn," says Scott. "But we also have a lot of people here from the East," she grins.
©1999 TG Magazine/Le Magazine TG
tgmag@tgmag.ca