I quit my job.
My last day of resort employment was last sunday. Monday morning at 5 am I drove to LA. In 4 hours im driving the long way home courtesy of this fuck all storm. My new job starts Tuesday at 10 am.
I intend to log and vent about the bullshit that went down over the past 5 months once im back. I think it'll maybe bring closure to that job.
Stay tuned.
For the past 2 anda half years I worked in Property Management. The company I worked for was the largest direct lodging competitor to Keystone Resort. I started in this company when it was small, promoting through the years into management. Specifically, I was night operations manager. I enjoyed it for my first two seasons. Hell, the whole reason I moved out to ski resort CO-land was because my misguided life plan was a career in hospitality management. Well, that was a fucking stupid plan. But I digress. So I moved out to CO, landed what I suppose could be labeled as my "dream job", and was set up with a decent life. Then this winter happened.
When I hired in with said company it was just before they ballooned. When I started there were 14? total employees. When I left there were nearly 50 people working there. In the first summer after I started the CEO/Owner answered the requests of us and set us up with benefits. Along with benefits we had a HR Harpy uberbitch woman that we contracted out to who entered the picture. This mondo cunt began a reign of tyranny which completely gutted the culture of the company. Last year's season was rough, but I labored through it because my schedule at the time wasn't so bad, though I was still on nights. We had our Christmas party per usual and there was some drama, but I enjoyed it and thought nothing of it. Mid spring we get informed that our ski pass reimbursement program has again been shrunken to where the minimalist 350 one mountain suck pass is what's getting covered. Oh, and you're only getting $125.00 reimbursed for this pass. What's that? You bought the 600 dollar worthwhile pass? Sorry, 500 of that that you were planning on being reimbursed isn't fucking coming to you. Then summer came, I did Italy and I was satisfied with work life because it allowed me to go on my whim. While I was in Italy there was a HR shitstorm in the office when it was exposed that the day ops manager, my counterpart, had been fucking our GM for the better part of a year. She gets moved instantly, her position opens for day ops, I apply. At this time in our office I had been with the company for the third longest. The 5th+ longests had been with said company for about 11 months. I come back, do my review, apply for a day gig, and get denied it. The only other to apply for the position who'd been there for 11 months was given the day position, and I was kept on nights. This was the beginning. Fast forward to October 2012. I check my schedule and lo and behold my new work schedule is Noon – 8, 1 – 9, 2 – 10, and then 11 pm – 7 AM 2 nights. I was never asked to work graves. I was never told I would be working graves. It simply popped up on the schedule. This really put me off and furthered the freefall. Early November we get informed that our job responsibilities are going to extend to cover anything we need for operations, like housekeeping inspections and what not. This is because of our budget, because we almost went broke as a company in the summer of 2012 but no one was told this. Ok I think, this will be fine. They fucking lied.
Thanksgiving starts ski resort season. The mountains open prior to it, but Thanksgiving is when the ball really gets rolling. This company had always contracted out our housekeeping, as you probably read me bitching about more than a few times. This was a huge expense on the company, and the CEO decided to launch our own housekeeping department. For whatever stupid fucking reason this department gets launched over Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is when everything fucking goes wrong because resort's been closed since spring break. To say it doesn't go well is an understatement. We struggle through it, learning. The week after Thanksgiving we are now employing 2 housekeepers for roughly 70 different sized properties. All operations staff has a mandatory meeting wherein we get bitched at about our productivity and told that we will be undergoing housekeeping training. Housekeeping training comes and goes, ok. Then we get Christmas time busy. We don't get a Christmas Party because of HR Harpy and because of budget and because the company no longer gives a shit about its employees. The next part could go on and on but it'd piss me the fuck off too much. Essentially it's now expected of me, night manager, to do the fucking work of a full time housekeeper IN ADDITION to all my other shit that was taking up 40 hours a week just fine. Now if I were given a title say "housekeeping manager" I would've sucked it up and organized that shit, but I wasn't. I was "night ops manager" working the shittiest schedule in the company with less than 48 hours off during my "weekends". I organize, sort, bag, deliver, strip, and set linens. I remove trash. I wipe up peoples disgusting waste. This goes on with me miserable until I take some time off for my birthday in January. When I come back into work I get blindsided and pulled aside with the GM and the CEO and put on employee probation for not being productive enough. I'm given an employee improvement plan, told I'm no longer in good standing and not eligible for good standing benefits such as the ski pass reimbursement. Apparently doing the work of a fucking housekeeper for sometimes 6+ hours a night isn't me being efficient or productive for the needs we have and what I should be accomplishing. This pisses me off and I decide I'm miserable with this job that I once loved. In February I learn that for excess of 8 months there have been "managers meetings" in our office from which I was excluded and knew nothing of. I then learn I was basically a manager in name only, and this pretty much makes me become incredibly disaffected with the job, even moreso than I was doing the work of a housekeeper. I was never given access to multiple managers documents. There's a shit load of other manager in name only slights they gave me but even talking about them now pisses me the fuck off. I get informed at the end of February that I will be working 7 pm – 3 am all summer long, on 5 8's while the rest of the company works 4 10's in the daytime all summer. I bite my tongue because it isn't summer yet.
The catalyst happened first week of March, a week before Spring Break hell started. I had a work order that had been assigned to me for 3 months that I was unable to complete. This was to replace a missing lamp that was in the "foyer". I emailed my GM after giving up – to me a foyer Is an entrance, or entryway, or entry hallway of a building. I searched through every picture and video record we had of this entryway to find this damned lamp, never saw it, gave up – and in the email I explained to him that I Didn't think this lamp existed and to please advise what I should do. The CEO responds to this email, tells me I'm a (AND I FUCKING QUOTE) "fucking ridiculous waste of my company's time and resources". I quit in my brain that day. I start applying for other gigs, land an interview, meet with my GM and tell him my intention to turn in my 2 weeks soon but assure him I will be there through resort's closing day. This was a Thusrday. 3 days later on Sunday I put in my 2 weeks. 2 weeks later is closing day and my last shift. Driving to work I get a job offer for where I'm working now, and I decide to go to LA for a week in my interim to detox from the unappreciative bullshit of that job.
So yeah. There's the story of why I quit ski resort hospitality. I'm now working for a rafting outfitter in sales with the perk of getting to raft and zip line for free all summer. Working a day job. Enjoying living in a mountain town again.
Word.
Sucks you had to deal with that bullshit, but I'm glad you wrote this series. I've enjoyed reading it.
Wow, it sounds like the company fell prey to the same thing many companies fall to when they grow too fast... all of a sudden employees are just a commodity to squeeze dry, corners are cut, all integrity is abandoned in favor of the bottom line. But it's a false bottom line because it's based on spreading people too thin and lying to them and depriving them of benefits, so it all collapses in the long run.
May California treat you well!
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on May 18, 2013, 04:12:48 AM
Wow, it sounds like the company fell prey to the same thing many companies fall to when they grow too fast... all of a sudden employees are just a commodity to squeeze dry, corners are cut, all integrity is abandoned in favor of the bottom line. But it's a false bottom line because it's based on spreading people too thin and lying to them and depriving them of benefits, so it all collapses in the long run.
May California treat you well!
This!
Sorry your dream job turned into a nightmare but you got out so congrats!
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on May 18, 2013, 04:12:48 AM
May California treat you well!
I can see how my impromptu mental detox vacation could be misleading. I'm still in Breckenridge, CO. Probably going to be in Colorado for at least 3 or 4 more years before moving elsewhere. This states just too wonderful to flee it quickly. With the exception of the -20 bullshit that is february. Those temps can fuck right off.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on May 18, 2013, 04:12:48 AM
Wow, it sounds like the company fell prey to the same thing many companies fall to when they grow too fast... all of a sudden employees are just a commodity to squeeze dry, corners are cut, all integrity is abandoned in favor of the bottom line. But it's a false bottom line because it's based on spreading people too thin and lying to them and depriving them of benefits, so it all collapses in the long run.
May California treat you well!
Reminds me of people saying that the real job of leaders is climate control.
Quitting jobs is more satisfying than doing them in my opinion. In an odd way you earned this quitting. good luck