Office Politics

One winter, I was hired to work as an office assistant in lift operations. Stephanie, the department manager, hired a woman named Anne to be the office manager. Anne's qualifications, as far as I could see, were being old and knowing how to type. Old might not be the right word. She could have been anywhere between 45 and 65, it was hard to tell. She had a dowdy vibe about her- her hair was set, her lipstick was a bit too pink for her face, she wore slacks with nude nylons and what have traditionally been called sensible shoes. Sensible didn't necessarily equate to practical, as we worked at a ski resort. Inside, I'll grant you. But still.

It quickly became clear that Anne was kind of a dummy. She had no knowledge of or interest in any aspect of the resort that she didn't encounter between her car and her desk. Blue Chair, Yellow Chair, these were just words on the schedule sheet to her. One day she looked out the window and and asked me to point out the Blue Chair. I explained to her that it was the one directly in front of her. The one that was painted blue. I don't think I ever succeeded in getting her to understand that the Triple Chair was called that because it seated three people.

Worse was the fact that she couldn't handle the chaotic nature of the job. It takes a certain type of person to juggle the phone, two-way radio and shift change while simultaneously working on the next week's schedule or previous week's payroll recap. Anne just wanted to do her clerical duties in peace, which was never going to happen in that place. I needed to usurp her. Which... was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, since the assistant manager and most of the owners (supervisors) were on my side. She didn't take kindly to being ousted in favor of a 23-year old, but she probably went right out and got a real job, as opposed to the $8.50/hour the office manager gig paid. So, in retrospect, I'd say she was the winner in that coup.

Time for a trip in the Way Back Machine

Further back than usual, that is. I just found these links, which give a great overview of the history of Vernon Valley and Great Gorge, before and after they merged into one ski resort. A lot of it was new to me, especially the part about Vernon Valley's penchant for all-girl lift attendants in its early days. Very 1960s. (You know what was also very 1960s? The Playboy Club that was located across the valley from the resort. Swinging! )

I got a litle misty seeing images of the old lodges:

Here's Vernon Valley's lodge, which burned down in the mid-90s and was replaced with a collection of horrible, industrial-feeling domed tents. Seriously, they make you feel like you're in some sort of refugee camp. Or maybe a space port.

And here's the old Great Gorge, or South, lodge. It had three bars!!! It was also kinda creepy and to rumored to be haunted. I remember Phil, the director of security, saying he hated going there at night because "There's monstahs down there!" Phil ruled.

Buckets of Beer and Touch Screen Trivia

The Hexagon Lounge, the Park's bar/restaurant, was a popular apres-shift destination during the winter seasons. One of the main draws was the Bucket of Beer. It retailed for $5 and was composed of five random bottles left over from Beerfests past. Sometimes there were gems stuffed in there, but more often, the bottles were merely (or barely) drinkable.

In addition to the cheap beer and good company, the bar had a touch-screen trivia machine. While my fellow drunks would watch football or try to best each other on the virtual skier video game, I would feed dollar after dollar into the machine. I soon became the reigning music and TV trivia queen of the Hex.

One evening, I walked in to find several members of the Park's security staff belly up to the bar. Ed, an older gentleman, was looking rather morose. When I asked what the matter was, he told me nothing. A few minutes later, he spun around on his stool and exclaimed, "You know, I don't have much. I've got a shitty job, no girlfriend. All I had was my TV trivia high score. And YOU took that from me!!"

Damn! I had no response to that. Ed spent the rest of the season trying to best my high score, though I don't think he ever did. In any case, the trivia machine, the ski game, the left over beer, and rest of the Hex perished a couple of years later, when the entire lodge burned to the ground.

How not to ride a chair lift.

All Right, Get on the Bus!

This is one of my favorite Park memories of all time:

This guy here? This is Jamie. He's one of my absolute faves. I stopped by to see him one day and we found this bus in a storage room. It was originally used as a display in one of the retail shops. I don't know who came up with the idea of getting into the display, but Jamie seized on it. It took some wriggling, but he managed to get in relatively easily. Getting him out was more difficult, but I'm pleased to say that both he and the bus survived.

Much Better Than A Snow Angel

I've been going through old photos lately, hoping to find blog gold. Like this. This is Joe. He sculpted a scale model of his VW Golf out of snow, proving that A) he really, really liked his car, and B) the Triple Chair is seriously underused.

Joe the Sign Guy

The signs at the Park would not have won any design contests. Most were purely informational, with vinyl letters affixed to a green or brown-painted piece of plywood. They were all made by an old hippie named Joe. He was the Sign Guy. Joe the Sign Guy.

Sometimes, when it got slow in the sign shop he would pick up some extra shifts in Lift Operations. He would come into the office before he was scheduled to start, sit down with a big sigh and say, "Hiiii TheRESE." It was always surprising to hear such a lilting singsong come out of such a big dude.

One day, he came in to the office while I was in the midst of payroll reconciliation, shift change and a general nervous breakdown. He sat down and greeted me as usual. After dealing with whatever jerky 18-year old was hassling me over his shift assignment I turned to him and started complaining about how hard it was to get anything done in that office. I needed some sort of Do Not Disturb sign, but meaner. Would he make me one that said Fuck Off?

"Sure, TheRESE. I'm low on vinyl in the shop, but as soon as I get more in, you got it."

I promptly forgot all about the Fuck Off! sign. But Joe, bless his heart, did not. A year or so later, I stopped by the Park during the off season to visit a friend. As I passed the sign shop, the window flew open, and through the cloud of cigarette (and possibly pot) smoke that billowed out I heard Joe yell, "TheRESE! I have something for you!"

Sure enough, it was a FUCK OFF! sign. The plywood was painted white, the letters were red. It was beautiful.

SnOasis, or, What Happens When You Try To Run A Summer Ride In Winter

Unlike this winter, 1996's was a cold one. The Park, in conjunction with a New York City Top 40 Radio Station, decided to PUT ON A SHOW!!!! An outdoor concert to feature, among others, Noel Gallagher from Oasis. To make it more of an Extravaganza, management decided to open the Bungee Tower for the day.

I was living in Boston at the time, but decided to come down for the show. I hadn't been home in awhile, and this seemed as good an excuse to make the trip as any. Plus, it totally made my Brit Pop-loving co-workers in the record store jealous. So I hopped on the bus and high-tailed it down to New Jersey.

My sister and I arrived at the Park the next morning and made our way out to the tower. Our friend Steve was already there, setting up the airbags. The sun was shining. The air was cold. The stage was set up in the parking lot. Music filtered over-- Alanis Morrissette, Garbage, and, of course, Oasis. Wonderwall, to be exact. It's a pretty song. We heard it about 17 times that day.

Steve and I climbed to the top of the tower, where we realized that, in addition to being cold, it was also windy. And icy. So windy, that the steel cables that attached to the top of the rubber bungee cords (which allowed the jumpers to be safely lowered to the ground after their jump) were blowing off the retrieval arms (used to pull the cord back in to the top of the tower, thus allowing the next jumper to be buckled to the end of the cord.) To correct this, Steve or I had to climb up on to a catwalk above the jump platform and manually reposition the wayward cable. There was no ladder to facilitate this. You had to climb on to the railing and hoist yourself up. It was no big deal in the summer, but factor in the cold and the wind and the ice? Danger! Luckily, neither of us plummeted to our death.

Back to the cold. We had been given a space heater. We presumed it was to keep us warm. Not sure how one puny heater was going to keep two people warm in the middle of a howling gale, we hit on an idea-- Let's take everything out of the equipment locker, put the heater in, and sit in it! Genius! We later found out that we had been given the heater not out of concern for our well-being, but for that of the cords. Seems they were only safety tested to work in temperatures above freezing. Whoops!

So we huddled in our box, listened to Wonderwall on an almost constant loop and prayed that no one was crazy enough to want to jump in those conditions. But, unfortunately for us, there's always someone willing to walk up seven stories in ski boots.

Oh, and Noel Gallagher? He showed up right before his scheduled start time, played two songs and then stomped off the stage and into a waiting limo. Guess the poor fella was cold.