Killington mismanagement

[brownman]

Anyone who has skied here for a long period of time has likely been asked for assistance of some kind .. sometimes of a critical nature.
Many will provide that assistance as a matter of courtesy and are happy to do so. No gratuity .. just a matter of decency.
Our team sure has over the years.

[yiddle on da fiddle]

Anyone who has skied here for a long period of time has likely been asked for assistance of some kind .. sometimes of a critical nature.
Many will provide that assistance as a matter of courtesy and are happy to do so. No gratuity .. just a matter of decency.
Our team sure has over the years.

Christ youre high maintenance.......do they have to come into the K1 stalls to wipe yer bum too?

[RENO]

Of course, some would maintain that all this will change as of 1/20/17.
Absolute Greatness .. Yeah Baby

Secondarily, why would they want to lose that 'touch point' with Guest Services ?
On the whole, KambASSadors don't provide the desired level of personal attention.
Most people avoid them, because they smell from not washing those stinky and ugly jackets.
Put them to work at the ticket window. Beyond that, they simply drain revenue.

How does an unpaid volunteer drain revenue?? Meant to quote this not PM you

I'm guessing they'd have to shell out for the free passes they receive. Is that a revenue drain? Not sure... Would K hire employees to do the same in their place? At what cost? How many ambassadors are there? How would K do without them?

Other than the cost of the ski jacket, I don't see any other tangible costs. Did an ambassador do something to you Brownman?

[brownman]

.. was born at night, but not last nite.
'DTS' .. then that program may work better.

[skacosta]

ME2VTSkier thank you for your support.

Angus I do have a full pass and have had one for over 20 years. My college age kids have a college pass that provide discount tickets that can only be used day of purchase at a ticket window. I was with my children and their friends when the incident occurred.

The problem with this forum is that it often breaks down to name calling and general disrespect. It is a shame that it can't be more civil since we all share the same passion for the activity and the resort for which this forum exist.

I just feel that sometimes it is important to point out problems to management who I'm sure reads this forum so the process may improve in the future. In general I believe Killington is doing a much better job than in the past under Mike. But it certainty has room for improvement. I also don't feel it is run like the elite ski resort that it is.

[ANGUS]

ME2VTSkier thank you for your support.

Angus I do have a full pass and have had one for over 20 years. My college age kids have a college pass that provide discount tickets that can only be used day of purchase at a ticket window. I was with my children and their friends when the incident occurred.

The problem with this forum is that it often breaks down to name calling and general disrespect. It is a shame that it can't be more civil since we all share the same passion for the activity and the resort for which this forum exist.

I just feel that sometimes it is important to point out problems to management who I'm sure reads this forum so the process may improve in the future. In general I believe Killington is doing a much better job than in the past under Mike. But it certainty has room for improvement. I also don't feel it is run like the elite ski resort that it is.

My apologies to you Mr Ski Costa. As I said it was not meant with disrespect. You chose to ski during a very busy time. You should know that being a 20 year season pass holder. You should also know of the alternative ways of getting tickets. You did not mention any of this in your original post. You sounded like a winy flat lander. Lines may form during holiday weeks. You can always get to the mountain sooner. VT state roads are open 24/7. No waiting. I understand the college voucher thing. That was no reason for you to call it mismanagement on Killingtons part. Sure they were under staffed. You should have known better. If you had a problem with it? Maybe you should have talked to someone like Mike. After 20 years of Skiing at K are really surprised about lines during holiday weeks? When you call a thread mismanagement it brings up EB 5 crap from Jay. Not going on here. Maybe choose a different thread title next time.

[eagle628]

Not having enough staff is pretty much a textbook definition of bad management, particularly these days when so much is done ahead of time online and they should have a good idea of the number of people to expect at the mountain. And I don't think that the solution should be to just grin and bear it. People pay a lot of money to ski at Killington, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect high standards of service in return.

[Bubba]

Not having enough staff is pretty much a textbook definition of bad management, particularly these days when so much is done ahead of time online and they should have a good idea of the number of people to expect at the mountain. And I don't think that the solution should be to just grin and bear it. People pay a lot of money to ski at Killington, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect high standards of service in return.

The unemployment rate in Vermont is significantly below the national average at 3.5% or thereabouts. Finding employees is a problem up and down the access road and the resort is definitely short of staff, pretty much through no fault of their own. Yes, they can increase seasonal employee wages but then people here would complain about higher ticket prices. They could pull employees out of other work to staff ticket windows but they would probably require training and, since they're handling cash, might have more requirements. So...everyone needs to calm down and realize that problems occur and don't always mean mismanagement.

[Mister Moose]

Not having enough staff is pretty much a textbook definition of bad management.

I agree a 30 minute wait at a ticket window is a bad idea, but on a holiday week it's hard to be too critical.

For one, you just don't throw a lightly trained inexperienced person into a customer intensive money handling job. Second, I sorta doubt qualified people are easy to find for a holiday week. Third, Killington got slammed by a much larger crowd this year. It's very difficult to staff for double or triple business levels for just one week. Fourth, it's Skyeship Base. It's the remote outpost. I'm happy if the lights are on when I go there, let alone staffed to the nines.

Maybe if Killington paid higher holiday pay they could get more staff to work more hours. Maybe there could be a little more cross training. Maybe there could be a few more ticket kiosks. Maybe if there wasn't 8 zillion discounts, rates, and mutli day combinations it wouldn't take so long for each transaction. Maybe if they made the Express Card cheaper (Instead of $99) they could get more people to bypass the ticket window. Maybe they could go to a ticket printed on your home computer the night before that would get slipped into a plastic sleeve to wear. Or maybe when they had close to 17,000 people show up, somebody is going to wait for half an hour. I'll bet your ticket line was shorter than the line at K1.

[tyrolean_skier]

Mike Solimano was checking tickets at the OL Quad one day this past weekend and I am sure other members of the management staff were working to fill in positions too.

[Spyderman]

Mike S. was also loading people & Ski's in the K-1 over last weekend and Jeff Temple was unloading guests Skis at the top of K-1 with Kory. All hands were on deck.

[Sergio2232]

Thats cute you think Killington Management checks this page or gives a crap about what is written here...

[daytripper]

Thats cute you think Killington Management checks this page or gives a crap about what is written here...

Are you new here? Mike and Jeff both post here on occasion and things we call out here are sometimes addressed.

[freeski]

Thats cute you think Killington Management checks this page or gives a crap about what is written here...

[boston_e]

Mike Solimano was checking tickets at the OL Quad one day this past weekend and I am sure other members of the management staff were working to fill in positions too.

Rich and Tracy were both working this weekend in the lift line at Pico scanning tickets and organizing the line to make sure chairs did not get sent up with empty seats.