I have hesitated writing anything that would be negative because Bud and I are NOT that kind of people, but our dream as we have chosen to call this event in our lives, has become the nightmare (to a certain degree) that we hoped would not happen.
We are home - and very disappointed. When we were hired by Xanterra in February we were told that we would work hospitality services - that included housekeeping, food services, camp grounds etc. etc. When we called numerous times to check to see if they knew where we would be staying or what we would be doing, they never knew. That was OK. We had filled our applications out honestly and felt they knew our ages and our limitations (cardiac and orthopaedic).
When we arrived Tuesday (7/12) at HR in Gardiner they saw who we were and processed us through to Grant Village as Room Attendents (RA). When we went to get our unifforms, some of the older people told us that RA's worked really hard, OK, we thought - we can do it or they wouldn't have hired us for that position. We drove down to Grant Village and met with our Personnel managers and they told us again that this was really hard work. At that time we asked "Do you think we can do it?" and they said they thought we should give it a try. The Personnel Locator remarked that he was glad we were there but ws not encouraging to us, Once again we were reminded how hard the work was. We then drove over to meet the Housekeepings Supervisor and he told us again that it would be hard work, but we told him we had a good, strong work ethic and we were willing to try. He was not disagreeable to that.
After orientation on Wednesday morning, we met with the team leaders - ALL of them about 18-20 years old. They were not real impressed with the group of new RA's (me, Bud and 4 Equador students.) But they reluctantly took us with them to finish the days work. We observed, participated and generally thought that other than the scrubbing of the floor in the bathrooms that this was do-able. We had eaten breakfast with the Personnel Locator on Wednesday AM and he told us that he felt we needed to be in another job position and he was looking into it. Thursday we reported and all 6 new RA's accompanied 1 Team leader and we cleaned as a group - 18 rooms and on top of that,2 rooms that had been snow damaged and the carpenters, etc had left them a mess. They required ceiling to floor cleaning and that was very difficult - all the time we were on a time schedule. New occupants start coming in at around 4PM but a tour bus was early and the pressure was on. We worked VERY hard . When we clocked out all the new RA's had worked harder than any group and of course, we were praised. Bud and I got in the car and looked at each other and said, "We can not do this 5 days a week for the next 3 months"
We went to our Personnel managers and told them that we could not sustain this pace. They assured us that we had been the topic of every supervisory group meeting since we arrived at Grant Village. We were told to take Friday off and give them an opportunity to try and work it out. We were given great reviews by all of our team leaders, even our co-workers were impressed. The housekeeping supervisor used us as an example in his AM motivational meeting Friday - he told them they could all develop our work ethic. A compliment, but it didn't make our backs feel any better. He told Bud that had we been able to withstand the strenuous workload for a few weeks he would make us supervisors.
Well, long story short - at 10PM Friday night the Persoanl Locator came to our cabin and finally admitted that Human Resources had made a BIG mistake in February when they hired us to Housekeeping, then he proceded to tell us that we actually had arrived 3 weeks too early and that there were no jobs for our age group until the 1st week of August. He told us that employment with Xanterra throughout the park was greater than 100%. To say the least we were pretty upset. We had just invested a large amount of time and money to be where they had told us to be. They had messed up royally. He suggested we try a competitor there at the Grant Village and we did that on Saturday morning, but it was the same story - the college kids leave in August and they could use us until then. We could not stay in the area for three weeks (height of their season and hotel rooms are at the least $150/day.)
We have learned that HR doesn't look at age, health or time you want to be there - they look at "Will you do anything while you're here".
So we loaded the car and started back home.
We are not completety over Yellowstone. We spoke in earnest with all the supervisors and they gave us good advice for next year - how to apply and how to avoid such a catastrophe.
ALL in ALL, we had a good time. We saw more than most who were out there vacationing. Wish we could have fished, but the water was too high and too swift. Maybe next year. Lord willing we will try this again next year - August for sure. Don't think we could take the 10-14 foot of snow that might greet us if we went earlier!!
So the blog will end. I have added a few more pictures for our memory and if anyone has followed this blog - hopefully you will see just how beautiful the area is and perhaps venture out west sometime.
View of the Tetons around the North end of Jackson lake,
Another look at Jackaon Lake with part of the Tetons in the background
We are ending the blog the way we started it - with the flood in Nebraska, The detour was still present and our trip was delayed by about an hour and a half.
We are so blessed to have had the opportunity to do what we did get to do. In retrospect - we have our health, our family, our home and good memory upon good memory.
So until next year the blog remains open and we will invite you to rejoin us August, 2012.
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