i should start with a little background info. i work in yellowstone national park, managing the deli at the lake hotel. it has been one hell of a summer!
in april, my pickup broke down as i was on my way to my job to check in for the summer, about 8 days before i had to be there. i was in tuscon arizona visiting a friend. i managed to get back in time for work, thanks to my dad. we had a nice road-trip together. saw the grand canyon, zion, and a lot of beautiful country along the way.
when i arrived at my job, i had an entirely new crew from last year, and very little idea of how to go about opening the deli for a new season. luckily i had a good starting crew that picked up the job very quickly. about a month and a half in to the season, things started going awry. i had some crew quit, some get fired, and some just leave. my staffing problems continued throughout the entirety of the season. with all this going on, i had trouble scheduling myself for days off with anyone i knew here. we are a collaboration of seasonal workers from every corner of the country, and even the world, so it is very rare to know anyone when we first get here unless we have been here multiple seasons. that was not a big issue, but was aggrivating none the less.
around that time, there was an outbreak of norovirus in the park. that lasted for several weeks. luckily at my location we were informed of this before it reached us, and did a good job of quarentee-ing anyone who got sick, and sanitizing the location well enough to keep the outbreak at bay. some of the other locations were hit pretty hard with it though. i feel bad for them!
almost as soon as that subsided, there was a series of thunderstorms all around the park. those sparked many forest fires. one of them, the biggest one i might add, was less than 3 miles from the location i was at! for 2 weeks we were on standby, ready to be evacuated with a 15 minute notice. this led to several people simply gathering their things and leaving, never to return again. the hardest part of this was keeping the guests (instead of calling them tourists or customers we are encouraged to use the term guest) from panicking. this was infinitesimally easier than keeping the employees here calm. i know the usual patterns of wind, and which direction the mountains corral the winds, so i was not at all worried. the fire was 3 miles northeast of us, and where we are we almost always get a northward wind. for a time while we were on standby the wind blew the fire eastward as well. this means that the wind would have had to blow the fire in the opposite direction than it usually does, across already burned forests and fields.
after that came the masses of people quitting. we had one day where 4 of our kitchen staff quit with no notice. then less than 2 weeks later we had a day where the entire pm line in the kitchen walked out mid shift. that was just the food and beverage department! the front desk had a similar experience, as did housekeeping.
we managed to get by for a few weeks without anything bad happening after that. and then, the health department came. the kitchen did not do so well. in fact they did horrible! there was a lot of equipment trouble, and some other things i don't want to go in to detail about, but in short it was a catastrophe. in case you're wondering, yes my deli did great! i passed, and was a shining example to the rest of the f&b department. no recognition for that though. i realize none should be needed, but it would have been nice for someone to say 'good job', or 'congratulations on being the only one to pass' or something like that.
so from there i finished the season understaffed, while staying open extra hours to relieve the dining room. we made it! my time at the lake hotel was over for this summer! we closed the doors of the hotel on september 29th. 2 days later, the government shut down. unfortunately for me, i was staying here in the park to help close down 2 other locations. i made it to the first of those 2, and we got them closed down and cleaned up for the winter a couple weeks early since the park is now closed (thank you very little, congress). now i am waiting at this location until they determine wether or not to keep people here in case the park opens back up in the next week. if they do, i'll be here until the beginning of november. if not, i will probably just get sent home. i have been waiting, and not working for a week now, and still no decesion has been made. since there is a weekend, and monday is a holiday, i likely won't hear anything until tuesday at the earliest. sitting around waiting is not fun! i may be in a national park, but i can't go hiking or take pictures, because "recreating is illegal while the park is closed".
i need a hug after this summer. preferably by a hot, pierced and tattooed woman!
but, on the bright side, winter is coming!!!!!!! this winter i get to work in the ski shop at old faithful snow lodge! i will be teaching cross country skiing, and giving tours around the old faithful area! and while i'm doing that, there is an ongoing construction project at the lake hotel, and the next phase of the construction is the deli! next summer, i am hoping to come back to a promotion, and a brand spanking new deli! i will have more crew, and a couple 'lead' crew members to help me out. i am very excited for the coming winter, and the coming summer. and after all of the crap that went on this summer, if i market it right, i can really spice up my resume'. not many people can put 'experience handling a gastero-intestinal virus outbreak', or 'keeping guests calm in during a forest fire' on their resume'.
i suppose that is a long enough description of my summer. to anyone who actually reads this all the way through, thank you for reading! (i wanted to put listening, but that wouldn't make sense)