The Time We Lived In A Snow Globe Town (Part 2)

Jobs

So, the main reason for our trip to Vail was to work, ski and earn some money so that we could travel the States for a month before coming back to South Africa.

I worked two jobs while I was there. The first was my "full time" job - I worked at the Spa as a receptionist and Kids For All Seasons (KFAS) attendant. I also got a second job at the local cinema, called the CineBistro, after I injured myself on the mountain and had nothing better to do.

More Four Seasons Bears
The Spa was down the stairs on the left, past the swimming pool and through the glass doors on the other side.

At The Four Seasons, when there were no kids to look after I answered the phones

"Thank you for calling the Spa at Four Seasons. This is Cath speaking, how may I help you?" 

was the constant greeting I gave to anyone calling the Spa.

We aimed to answer the phone within 3 rings which is a lot more

difficult than it looks when you've got people standing in front of you wanting to 

check in for appointments, others tying to check out and pay their bills, 

someone wanting to know whether they should buy x or y item from the store

and 2 or 3 different phone lines ringing! 

Don't ever underestimate the power that a receptionist holds to juggle

multiple tasks, all the while keeping a smile on their face.

took bookings, called people to remind them of their appointments, wrote reminder cards for guests at the hotel, gave tours of the ladies locker room and assisted anyone who was interested in buying something from the Spa Shop. I also sometimes had to cover or uncover the loungers by the swimming pool. When it's snowing outside and each lounger cover in literally an ice block itself, it wasn't an easy task! 

When there were kids for me to look after, I got to spend my time painting, playing wii, drawing cartoon characters for kids to colour in, reading books, watching Disney movies or the Disney channel and basically doing cool kids stuff. Sometimes the kids were demanding but most of the time they were lovely. It was awesome being able to be like a kid again.

There were some kids who were very demanding. One insisted we play the same game over and over again - for FIVE hours straight. Then she came back the next day to do the same thing! Another one got very sulky whenever she lost a game on the wii. But most of the kids were good fun and only there for a few hours at a time.

Me and some of the KFAS/Front Desk girls, one of our therapists and
some of the girls boyfriends. All proud Four Seasons employees!

I worked with an amazing team of 2 spa managers, a lot of therapists, a hairdresser, front desk ladies, KFAS attendants and locker room attendants. Everyone else was American, other than myself and some of the locker room attendants, who were South American. 

Everyone at the Spa was very interested in South Africa and what it was like. I was able to show them some pictures of my life and hopefully one day, one or two of them will come to visit me in South Africa! There was one therapist who had been to South Africa and we chatted a lot about the wines that we had to offer, it was awesome to meet an American who knew South African wines and wine farms!

My other place of work - the CineBistro was the most awesome movie theatre I have ever been to! You'll read more about it in a later post. But for now, I'll leave with with the idea of "Dinner and a Movie" all in one. Frosty also got a job there which was a lot of fun as we got to see a bit more of each other.

We had some awesome managers at CineBistro as well. I was a front desk person again. This time my duties included answering the phone, recieving customers and assisting them to buy tickets, giving advice on the movies that were on show (even if I hadn't seen them!), ushering guests into the theatre and showing them their seats, making sure the entrance doors were clean and all the floors were swept and preparing the theatre before hand with menus and cutlery. Frosty mainly ran food to the guests in the theatre and cleaned the theatre afterwards to make it ready for the next guests.

This sculpture sat right in front of the CineBistro doors. Since they were
glass, I spent a good few hours looking at this sculpture. At night it lit up and used to
seamlessly morph from one colour to the next.

The perks of the job were awesome as well - free movies for you and a friend, free popcorn and soda any time you wanted and discounted meals!

I worked front desk with one old guy who worked to keep himself busy. I'll always remember his favourite reply whenever anyone asked him how he was doing, was

"I'm just peaches and cream thank you very much!"

There was a lovely Jamaican girl who I also worked with. She loved getting Frosty to come and chat to her and say "ice" because in our South African accent, it sounded just like "ass" to her ear. We laughed a lot over that. 
One of the runners was an awesome South American guy and his little son used to come and visit us quite a lot. He was the cutest little guy and all of us used to fawn over him!