My comment for the survey is that the idling buses in the new Twilight lot are emitting noxious exhaust that is permeating the nordic trail system. It's awful to have guests in a lesson and want to bring them to what can be some of our best trails, only to have the idling bus fumes and noise force us to find other terrain. When the wind is blowing just right, the entire trail system between the Twilight lot and the nordic center smells of bus exhaust. Can we put a limit on how long the buses idle down there? What about having the buses idle in the Sunrise Lot, the furthest away from guests? Do the buses really need to idle? Thanks for helping to keep the nordic trails the awesome Mt. Hood experience we all want them to be!
We are working with Parking & Transportation to come up with the best way to work through all the logistics with the New Parking lot to make sure our guests and the Nordic trails are not impacted negatively.
The buses parked down there on the edge of the trails was thought to be helpful so our Nordic guests don’t have to look out at the parking area. In addition, we are working to move the shuttle bus stop and the porta-pottys so guests do not have such easy access to our trail systems.
As for the idling of the buses, the staging area cannot be altered. However, we can work with transportation to ensure that the buses are idling for as little time as possible to ensure that we comply with the stringent environmental standards we have set here at Mt. Hood Meadows.
Thanks for letting us know we need to stay on top of this! - Debbie Bauer, Nordic Center Manager
This season has been great so far but I’ve ran into a few pain points.
The two ATMs in the South lodge have been out of service for a few weeks and as instructors we often direct customers to these for cash for tips. Would be great to have those fixed and usable.
I’ve also been asked by customers about tipping on credit card and I we should have this as an option.
I'm not sure why the ATMs have not been working, but I do know that guests can tip on a credit card. This tip amount gets added to your loyal points account as stored value that you can redeem at any point of sales at the mountain - like to buy your breakfast, or get an employee tune, etc. Glad your season is going well! - Tyler Barnes, Learning Center Operations & Training Manager
Huge shoutout to Marshal Woods and his team for running the lifts all night lately. Also to the Lift Ops employees (Graham Place, Marshal Ellison) who have worked the overnight.
Thanks for recognizing the Lift Maintenance Team and others that have been helping out. They have been working very hard to deal with the up and down freezing levels causing icing challenges. We are lucky to have such a dedicated team.
-Jeremy Riss
Transportation - I do understand that we are now contracted under the CAT bus system but I do not think that meshing the employee and guest buses has been the best. From what I have understood - we are now profiting from the CAT system - could we use a portion of this profit to fund using the school buses/white vans for the employees again?
Brandon: Director of transportation - thank you for taking time to speak with me about the buses! You were extremely receptive of my opinions and found a great way of explaining everything that has been going on for you guys. I hope you aren't getting yelled at today and can take a day to relax at the hot springs!
Higher Grounds - Rafael is always ready to go and on top of his job. I have (un)fortunately become a regular and I always look forward to my Good Mornings with him! Nothing better than a Chai from Rafael!!
Retail Supervisors & Managers - you guys are awesome and we love you all! Thanks for always being so understanding and looking out for us. It's a great team to be a part of... when are we having a department party?!
May we please have ski/snowboard racks outside of the retail shop?
We don't allow people to bring their gear in - with racks out front we are hopeful it would be assumed to leave gear outside.
No heavy gear stored above heads on bus!! - One of my coworkers in retail was recently hit by a ski boot that fell from a top rack - the bus drivers need to do a safety check walk through... Had the boot hit a toddler or smaller child it would have definitely caused damage to their head/resulted in a really upset parent.
Greg Pack is too cool for school and I appreciate that he remembers my name and always says hello. Thanks Greg!!
Thanks for the positive comments. Taylor did send out a notification that the transportation team is going to try to have some team member only buses. I will talk with the retail team about racks outside the shops, I see what you are saying about the need. That area is extremely congested on busy days so we will need to get creative to do something that wont impede traffic flow.
- Jeremy Riss
-A shout out from a couple of weeks ago...rental was super short staffed and both Cayce and Mason, who were scheduled for night shifts, came up ASAP in the morning to help out. Micheal also did an awesome job getting people from other departments up to speed to help out.
-Bring back the muffins please!!! Our department loves the muffins we've had in the past and they are such a great grab-and-go without being overly sweet. We miss them!!!
-Guests get really frustrated about the lack of band aids, and often get further frustrated when we tell them that they need to get them from patrol or the clinic. I've seen a lot of people rig up interesting napkin/tape things this year in lieu of going to find band aids. Is there a way we could have a check out for them in the lodge or an easier way for guests to access them?
-People love to stack skis against the window in the breezeway, and inevitably when the breeze comes through, everything goes crashing to the ground. Would it be possible to put a ski rack here? I know there is one in the center already, but alas, people still also use the window.
Thanks for the comment:
1. Cayce and Mason really showed their commitment to supporting the team by coming in early to help out instead of leaving the team short handed with call outs, props to them!
2. I'm not sure what muffins you are referring to but feel free to shoot me an email with more details on that.
3. I have seen the skis/boards up against the window, kind of a bummer when their is already a ski rack in the center a few steps away. That is a busy area and I'd had to congest it eve more but will look at it closer to see what we might be able to do.
-Jeremy Riss
MLC : I taught 5 First time/novice lessons this weekend. One class had 12 students, one had 10 students and another had 9. With class numbers this high the quality of our service will unfortunately suffer no matter how skilled and experienced our instructors are. Please properly staff the adult group lessons especially on the weekends, our customers deserve it and your employees need it.
I'm sorry to hear the class sizes that weekend were as large as you stated. Back when I was a full time instructor teaching class sizes of 10 were the norm. My largest class size was 22 and I agree it was not ideal, but I did my best and gave everyone as much individual coaching as I could. Since those times, we've adjusted our target ideal instructor to student ratio to 7 to 1 when forecasting staffing needs. We also have dynamic pricing and inventory pools that help us both limit overselling and direct guests to days when we have more staff and less busy slopes via our dynamic pricing.
There are many factors to not having adequate staffing levels as you know like people getting sick, parking issues, transportation issues, etc. The station teaching approach was designed to help alleviate situations where a single instructor is responsible for a large class of 10 or more and it has been working well so far - there are certainly some bugs to work out, but overall the flexibility of guests to move at their own pace is such a great benefit.
My observations of class sizes this last weekend were very good, even on the Toyota Night special for first timer and novice guests; we had plenty of staff and the class sizes seemed managable. Hope you had smaller class sizes this last weekend. - Tyler Barnes, Learning Center Operations & Training Manager
chauffeur Brandon, is so kind. NYE he was so willing to go out of his way and jump start my dead car battery. Then drove back later to make sure it was running OK and offered a ride back to the lodge. Thanks for helping and for the consistently safe rides to Sandy. Your driving is much appreciated.
Thanks for recognizing Brandon. He considers himself a "lifer" at Meadows and I have seen him truly look for ways to add value here. - Matt Troskey, VP People & Learning
I know we are all working hard to do the best we can on crazy busy days, but there are some opportunities to improve things. We need to work on consistency. Having no tissues in the bathrooms multiple weekends makes us look very disorganized, because how hard is it to purchase and stock them?
I understand the parking department has a lot of challenges including staffing, but I’ve seen team members standing out there that don’t appear to have a direction, like they are lost. Maybe break into 2-3 teams with specific duties And please don’t stand in front of the car you’re directing to park for your own safety! Many don’t appear to have flags or lights to help guide the drivers. Guests also would like to be able to purchase snowpark permits in the parking lot.
I appreciate the lift ops trying new lift lines, but we’ve been inconsistent with maze control. Could the Mountain Hosts help with maze control at the beginning of the day?
Thanks for your comments:
- The janitorial team does work very hard to keep the bathrooms clean and stocked on busy days. If you see an empty tissue holder please help them out and let them know so they can get it filled.
- There have been times that Mountain Hosts and the Learning Center team have been helping out with Maze Control and that is certainly a good option when necessary. Overall I think things are going much better with our maze setup and management this season. The Lift Ops team is continuing to focus on making sure there is someone doing maze control whenever there is a line and knows additional resources are available if they need assistance.
- Jeremy Riss
I'm sharing a quote my friend said yesterday: "I used to work to fill my wallet. Now I work to fill my soul." I can honestly say this is so true for me, too - both last season (winter / summer) and this season. I love, love, love my job at Meadows! I sincerely appreciate the ski lift pass and all of the other great benefits Meadows provides its employees - even the fresh fruit in the HR fridge! And I appreciate having the "Check-In" survey to let us communicate any concerns (and/or praises!) to upper management. Thank you!
That is awesome to hear, thank you for the positive comment!
-Jeremy Riss
Opening the schuss grill on time instead of half an hour late ever peak day. For instance on Sunday they opened close to 1/2 hour later then the posted opening time on the daily fact sheet. There was a few guest that were a bit frustrated that they didn’t open till 8:15
Thank you for your comments. We do apologize for that late opening on Sunday…we were pushing that as fast as we could. We have team members that normally come on the early bus to get that area ready that were unable to make it on Sunday. It unfortunately does take some significant time to get that area prepped and ready to open in the mornings (and it takes our team members to do it), and it was a struggle that day without our early employees. If it was a Tuesday, we would have just opened…but we needed to be 100% ready for the rush that was going to happen or everyone would have waited 30 minutes for food. I hope you have noticed that it normally is open on time or a bit early on most days this year…and how much faster the breakfasts have been.
-Mark Fellows