Anyone for “poo patrol”? A Liftie story.
Yesterday I conducted an interview with an ex-Mountain Ops manager at a mega ski resort in the USA. The purpose of the chat was to determine how chronic the staff shortages were. This story he told me summed up the situation perfectly.
Poo patrol isn’t exactly a glamorous job. It involves skiing from one on mountain toilet facility to the next cleaning it, unblocking S bends, stacking TP, refilling soap dispenses, and doing trouble shooting.
The mountain ops manager needed 5 staff for the season and he had no idea how to find them. How could he possibly get anyone to come to a town with a chronic affordable housing shortage to clean the loos for $20 per hour?
The problem was solved when he put the word out to existing lifties. Their ride breaks had been removed and they weren’t happy.
“Poo patrol” suddenly didn’t look that bad because it meant at least half a dozen decent runs every day.
The ops manager ended up knocking back a dozen lifties who put up their hands for poo patrol, and yes this resort was closing multiple lifts that season due to lack of lifties.