Whistler Entry #13

It's been a while since I posted, nothing has been going on really until about the past week.  Crankworx is currently underway and some of the world's best riders are at the scene throwing down tricks and speeding through tight dirt passages all across the mountain.  I will upload some photos of the scene when I can.

Anyways, I will put a few pictures up I've gotten before and just describe them one by one.

finally starting to storm up - after a whole month of no rain, were getting some clouds

Went out for someones birthday, took this picture because we thought it'd be funny.

Went to bounce finally the other day, didn't get any pictures there but on our way back I snapped this pic to show how rainy and wet it is currently.  You can also see the distant mountains half covered by clouds.

Whistla - Entry #12

After receiving my new phone I'm now able to take photos again!

Here are a few from today's trip up the glacier.  Best day, amazing weather, good park, on my new skis too!

up, up and away!

I've been hitting up the airbag most of the day plus some rails.  My new skis hold up very well on jumps and landings but I still need to get use to the new size and rails are becoming a bit of a problem too as my skis are a bit heavier.  The edges were also super sharp so I had to go borrow a file from the patrol hut and file them down so I can actually slide rails without catching an edge.  Nevertheless, I love them, my bindings are sick and I can't wait to get more days on them until the end and shred them next winter season!

Here are a few pics I've snapped, 

on the t-bar.

pic after I'm done for the day

Here are the rest of the pictures I took while downloading:

Jihad turban cause it's so hot.

Stay tuned on this post for a video of me hitting the airbags!  Or you can just see them on my facebook!

Whis. Entry #11

A few cool events happened in the recent weeks.

On Monday, we lifties had a slide night/free bbq.  We did this because Whistler Blackcomb recently scored a 97% on customer satisfaction and this was our reward.  The bbq was amazing since it was the same stuff that they serve at the restaurants and the slides were a whole another story.  They are evil and hurt so much. The slide is basically a small cart for one or two people (usually kids) and it slides down a metal slide with twists and turns.  Kind of like one at a playground... anyways, since we were staff, they rolled out the staff carts which had a certain type of safety brake off and we were able to attain a much higher speed.  My friend and I jumped on one and it hurt us sooo bad.  The cart was fast and unpredictable, the turns weren't as controlled as we planned out to be and in turn we both got out with a lot of bruises and cuts... never again!

On Wednesday, there was an event held by Momentum where the pros and amateurs gathered at the ski jump place and did some really sweet tricks on the water ramps.  One of my roomate and I caught up to the final moments and saw some pros throw down.  Lots of people gathered around there and there were even Hawaiian dressed girls dancing on the ramps at all times!


The rest of the week had been pretty uneventful, I mainly skiied, worked and hung out with some people.  My new skis arrive soon and I can't wait to try them out.

Whis. Entry - New roomate

So two pretty exciting things happened today.

1) I was off work early due to a thundershower, spent majority of my time chatting with coworkers in the lift hut and then getting a drive down.

2) A new roommate showed up.  His name is Vincent from Montreal and he's here to shred Camp of Champs for the next three weeks.

Pretty cool stuff, not much else to talk about.

Whis. Entry #10

Been working for the past few days everywhere on the Blackcomb mountain.  My shift on sunday consisted of going to Fitzsimmons chair for the first time and unloading bikes! It was quite exciting and a new experience than just skis and boards. Haha.

 Beautiful view from bottom of solar coaster

Bottom of Solar coaster

 So beautiful, camera has no depth however, it's simply breathtaking.

 Bottom of solar coaster looking onto Wizard express lift line

 Sunset on my walk back to residence.

 Up on 7th heaven today (Tuesday), beautiful, free coffee, food and shorter hours to work.

Downloading and Black Park scenery!

Belows a video of a bear I saw at the fitzsimmons chair.  The black bears massive and holy about 30-40 metres away from us.  I've never seen one so up close.  

Whistler - Entry #9

Today I went up skiing up in the glacier.  It was amazing since it was super sunny and hot.  It was awesome and I had lots of fun riding with my friends.  Everyone at the glacier was pretty much stoked to be on there, chatted it up with lots of people.  I just wished it could of lasted longer.

Here are some pictures I put up of today.

Whis. Day ? - Entry #8

The last few days has been pretty uneventful since I have been mostly skiing during my break.  On Wednesday I worked up at the glacier for the first time and it was overall, okay.  The weather wasn't amazing since it was mainly cloudy and raining up at the glacier.  It was also really cold and due to my stupidity, I forgot to pack an extra hoodie or even gloves.  I started my station at the showcase TBar and managed to borrow gloves from a person. It was quiet nice but really busy for a crappy day.  Up at the glacier, there are more breaks due to the sun and the weather.  We took breaks every 2 hours or so.

I went skiing both thursday and friday.  On friday I met one of my fellow lifty friend skiing around and we decided to roll together.  It was fun and definitely waiting for tomorrow to go skiing as well.  Here are some pics i snapped of the glacier and my lunch on friday from the wizard grill! 50% of all grill food!

Whis. Day #10

So for the past few days I've been just working normally on my shifts schedule.  There isn't really much to talk about other than lift operations is one of the chillest jobs.  It's really relaxing just watching the beautiful mountain view while serving and greeting everybody that comes up on the lift.  Whether they are tourists or a local boarder, we all find something to quickly chat about.

 I started early at 7am and just shared a station at the bottom of solar with a girl named Naomi. 

 Monday was a pretty rainy day compared to Sunday (above photo)

 We just chatted and then helped the occasional camp skier and boarder load up on the lift.  Half way through the day was when it was really slow, barely anyone came down or up the lifts.  It was just really cold and we relaxed in the liftie hut.  Someone came at 11 to relieve us of our shift so we can have our breaks.  The person I met was really cool and he's been living in BC all his life.  He and I had quite a bit in common since we both were familiar with the freeskiing scene.  It was just a chatty day and Naomi and I got off at 5pm.

On Sunday, I woke up late due to an alarm clock failure on my phone.  I rushed to work and was told to go to the springs building.  I showed up and my manager (Matt) gave me a level 1 warning.  Knowing what I need to do next, I went out and bought an alarm clock that for sure wasn't going to fuck up on me.  Since the positions were pretty filled today, Matt told me I can take the day off and do whatever I want.  I decided to go up skiing in the glacier and see how it was.  I knew a girl that surfs Newschoolers was looking for someone to shred with and we actually met up on the glacier and rode together for the whole day.  She was working as a liftie for the winter and transferred over as a volunteer to get a free pass while working part time at a restaurant.  It got really rainy, cold and was nearly closing time. We headed down together to the locker rooms and got the bus back up to the staff housing.  She lived on the third floor while I was on the fourth, we agreed to ski again on thursday when I was off work so I'm looking forward to it.

Whis. Day - Past few days

So lots of things went down for the past few days. I'll just quickly high light them and explain anything important.

So firstly, I'll explain the bad news.  I got my bike stolen, yup, it was shitty knowing that people still go around and steal anything they can get their hands on.  I bought the bike on Thursday for $40 off someone on CL.  Brought it to the bike shop and got it rechained.  After I left it in a place unlocked with all the other ones for one night, it gets taken.  I should of known better than to leave it unlocked but thinking its only a crappy $40 bike made me think otherwise.  It's so difficult to realize something is so important until it's suddenly gone.  Now I have to walk around the village again or do the whitebike program when I really need it.

Anyways, here's all the other stuff that went well:

Thursday

Today was the outdoor training day.  Waking up and getting dressed at 7:30, I proceeded down to the Blackcomb lift to meet everyone.  It was raining just a bit that day so everything was wet.  We were divided into groups of eleven people and there I made a few friends, even some from Barrie ON!  Our first station was the emergency procedure where we learned what to do if someone was hanging off of the chairlift and needed to be rescued.  We did it under the Magic chair and our feet was soaked by the shrubs and tall grass.

Next we headed down to the Wizard chair and learned where everything is and how to work it.  We then headed up the lift just to see the same thing on the other side.  Pretty much the whole day was being taught the same thing, our whole group just talked a lot and everything went by pretty fast.  After lunch, we met up and our supervisor took us through the Whistler mountain chairs, first up the gondola, then to fitzsimmons and then back to both gondolas.  They ran through all the lifts, where everything was and pretty much the same instructions for all of them.

After all that, our group talked about this meet and greet at the Merlin's bar at 6pm.  Apparently it was going to be mostly lifties and then some ziptrek people at 10pm.  This other girl and I were both 18 and when we asked the Supervisors if we can go, they agreed allowed us to, it was pretty sick experience knowing that people are so chill here.  So we all got off work around 2pm, I picked up the bike and stuff and headed back.  Me and this other girl both lived in the residence so we got up together, had some drinks and headed down with other two to the bar.  Not much of the entire "new" lifties showed up, it was just pretty much us and about 5-7 new lifties.  Rest were old timers that worked here previous seasons.  We all had beer, chatted and good time all around.  I headed back around 10pm to go to bed and get ready for next day's dry run

Friday

Got down the blackcomb locker room at 7am.  Swiped in and we all were ready to go.  Everyone was stationed on blackcomb lifts and there was about 5-8 of us for each station.  We were basically just shadowing the lead hands and learning what to do. 

However there wasn't really anyone using the lift that day other than employees and skiiers that had special access to glacier.  My group was at the bottom of Solar coaster and we pretty much just set up the visitor fences and chilled.  Later we got word of a gravel truck coming in and we had to shovel and spread gravel.  Once the truck came in, it dumped loads and loads of gravel.  It took 8 of us nearly two to three hours to shovel all the gravel and place it properly. 

The whole work was tiring and we all wished to never do it again.  Near the end, some people from top of wizard came to help and made the job a bit easier on us.

We all headed down around 12:30pm and had lunch at Mcdonalds.  Came back to the merlin's bar to have our examination at 2:00pm.  It was necessary to get above 80% if we wanted to pass and be a liftie.  They allowed cheating too so we all copied answers and basically everyone passed the test hehe.

 Saturday

So today was an off-day for me since I start work tomorrow on sunday.  I went up at 11 to the glacier to ski.  It was nice but still quite foggy overall.  The park wasn't fully set up so there was a lot of features I couldn't hit.  I snuck into another camp's park and stayed there the whole time hehe.  It was a really fun day but they only opened for 3 hours for any public skiing.  Here are some pictures below that I've taken  on my phone:

Whistler Blackcomb - The Philosophy of leveraging through service.

Disclaimer: This article is mainly speculation from my point of view.

The ecstatic focus on service

  One of the many areas where Whistler Blackcomb excel is their management over a variety of departments.  One of the many features that drive their success as a world renowned vacation resort is their service oriented focus to sell.  A huge part of being a Whistler Blackcomb employee is the ability to adapt to what they call the Sales culture.  WB presses the focus on providing exceedingly amazing service to every customer and hammers that thought whenever possible.  Repetition is key and WB lectures extensively on the proper core values and service attitudes every employee must attain during work hours.

 The driving thesis is to sell through service, not through their products.  WB emphasizes the importance of long-term clienteles.  While WB also strives to market towards potential newcomers, more focus is being shifted onto creating an experience to bring repeat customers to the table.  How Whistler Blackcomb does this is right through their employees.  Almost every employee of WB will require a FSO (First seasons orientation) where they all go through the cycle of proper attitudes, behavior and etiquette.  Sales culture, as I previously mentioned before, is the engine to this ideology.  Sales culture utilizes the legitimate experiences and attitude of employees to further generate more sales and customer interaction.  From a general perspective, employees act like a stores sales rep without the knowledge or presumption of being a sales rep.  Plus, they even have a wider range of information than just a normal rep. Customers in todays world are generally well rational people that know sales rep are always confronted with their own conflict of interest.  Thus, customers have an easier time trusting and following through with tips by a WB employee being well versed in his set of Sales culture.  Comparing an usual self-interested sales rep to following a sales cultured employees' tips will often bring a more pleasant and positive experience.  Furthermore, the experience will drive a stronger trust between the customer and WB, portraying them to provide a more well-rounded service.  Customers eventually follow through with reciprocity leading to more purchases and loyalty.

  WB fully achieves this sales culture through a set of well-set criterion in recruitment and a variety of perks/benefits to subsidize it.  During the employment phase, potential candidates are assessed more on their familiarity and experience directly with Whistler.  Many of the technical aspects are considered an asset rather than direct qualifications.  Human Resources are especially looking for employees dedicated to Whistler and passionate for the physical-nature-human coalescence.  WB believes the self-interested individuals will naturally seek and educate themselves with various perspectives of Whistler, increasing their range of information that first-timers might also want to know about.  WB also wants to help employees achieve the goals of self-enhancement.  By providing many benefits such as ski pass and discounts, they are helping to unlock a variety of options for employees to learn where money is usually a factor.  The subsidized benefits works in synergy with employee personalities to further drive the successful ideals of Sales culture.

  Whistler Blackcomb has a motto that all customer-services follow by: Connect. Assist.  Exceed.  While employee engagement might drop off the chart for many companies, WB has kept a steady record in the Exceed stage.  Whistler Blackcomb employs the ingenious strategy of using well-shaped employees as the forefront to PR and Sales.  In turn, the positive feedback loop generates even more returns as well as brand preferences, making Whistler Blackcomb one of the most successful business in the recreational industry.

Whis. Day #4 - FSO Orientation

So today was my First Seasons Orientation.  I'm glad it was in The cabin because that is literally a 5 minute walk away from staff housing.  Nothing much really happened today; orientation only ran until 1pm.  It was two employee experience officers that ran us over core values and a lot of general stuff that we should apply to as an employee.  During this interview I reflected upon some of the things they emphasize and will put up a short essay later in this blog about what I thought was interesting.

Anyways, it was really boring orientation they talked a lot about the previous stuff I mentioned and then some stuff about safety, actions, and employee perks.  I got off at 1pm and headed back to residence.  I found out about the White Bike Program for employees that allowed staff to rent out bikes for free in a 24 hour period.  So I headed down to the Administrator building of Blackcomb and requested one.  However, the lady at the front counter rejected the request cause I didn't have my Staff pass with me (the pass we use that have our employee ID + use to access lifts).  Not wanting to argue with the lady, I decided to head down to Springs building to try also.  This time, it worked, I got my bike and as soon as I got on I realized something.  It's like a fixed gear bike where the brakes are back pedal. Hoho, Whistler is full of rolling hills so this was going to be tough.  Luckily my uncle has taught me a bit on how to ride these back-pedal brakes bike and it took me only half an hour to get use to stopping.

I grabbed lunch at Fat Tony's pizza and headed up to residence.  The journey up the winding roads were ridiculous and I find my self exasperated by the time I reached my building.  I rested for an hour and then decided to go hit the gym.  The first time I blogged about the gym, that was down at the village and costed me a whopping $13.  Not wanting to pay it this time, I decide to bike all the way to Meadows park sports centre and workout there for $5 instead.  Below's a map of distances:

Orange A: My place; Green: The Core gym; Red A: Meadows Park gym

 

As you can see here, things get a lot harder since I have to bike all the way to the Red A.  No matter, I decide to try it anyway and it was the best decision I've ever made.  I wasn't quite sure how to get there at first.  Trying to remember the steps taken on Google maps, I found myself lost right beside the Sea-to-sky highway.  I know all it took was to ride down the highway to get there but there was so many cars and really narrow bike lanes that I wanted to avoid it completely.  I wasn't able to find a decent trail so had to ride that out for a bit until I finally arrived at the place

 

 

 I went in, worked out and then bathed in the hot tub for a bit.  Everything was great and it was time to head back.  I asked the front desk on how to get back to Blackcomb without the highway and luckily, they had maps of local trails and pointed me in the right direction. This time the trek was much farther in terms of length but worth it so much more.  I will attach pictures below.  I got back home, ate and chatted a bit with my apartment mate.  End of a great day but I am pooped out.  I get tomorrow off so it's gonna be back to the gym.  I just can't wait for Saturday for glacier skiing to open!

Below are pictures of the nature valley trail: