Working at Last

Well, finally the paper work was all finished (Thanks Mummy and Daddy!) and I had been just waiting for my name to appear on the scheduling list! I was expecting it may be Monday I had to work, but luckily not. With the sun shining and the snow pretty nice, I headed up on Monday and just had an entire day of doing laps of the terrain park and garden. It really was good fun, practicing various little flatland tricks to each of the parks, before gradually becoming more and more comfortable in the air. I even managed to grab a couple of times, and was just kind of messing around in the air, trying to twist and poke the board around to get the feel of it. It was such an ace day doing this, and then topped off by taking the Catskinner chair over the Highest Level Park, watching all the dudes doing huge 720's and rodeo flips off the big kickers. A really good day, although my legs and knees were so knackered by the end of it. There's a whole load of absorption to be done by my knees when someone my size lands off a kicker!

So anyway, my name finally appeared on the scheduling list. 7am to the top of the Creekside Gondola. Being at the top basically means that what I get to do is take the boards and ski's off the racks on the side of the cabins, and give them to people, whilst smiling sweetly! Pretty repetitive, but, amazingly really good fun. I've just read Rich's blog, and I think this is gonna sound pretty similar to his, but it's less the actual work, but it's just being part of a team, and grouping together to get stuff done and have a laugh. All the people that I met working on the lifts have such a good attitude - it is after all a means to an end, and everyone is here to enjoy themselves primarily, and know that this job is justa way to ensure that they can afford to stay over here.

But all the guys and gals seem to be really friendly, and really helped me to settle in, and I soon felt part of the team. The morning was cool. After helping some guys set up their lift, I got a lift on a snowmobile across to my lift which was cool, as it's the first time I've been on one! The day was spent lifting boards and skis off the gondola as described before, but that's a small part of it, with the banter that you get, especially as there's acouple of lifts next to mine, taking the piss out of the tourists, chatting to the lovely ladies, and trying to come up with new ways and accents to say "Have a nice day"! The end of the day was cool as well, with the peeps off about 3 or 4 lifts all meeting up at the bottom of one of them, and boarding off the hill together in a big posse! It really is just as well that I don't suck on a snowboard, cos the entire run down was pretty much done at mach 10 on an otherwise completely empty mountain, which was pretty cool.

All in all, I'm dead glad I've got this job. Although it is just a means to an end as said before, I think I picked the right job, cos I get to be outdoors all the time, have a laugh, and I think the social side is going to be pretty cool as well! It is bloody hard work though, so I think I might be crashing out at about 9pm tonight!