We welcome guest blogger, Emma King, who worked for us during Winter 2017/18 as a School Coordinator. She has kindly written this very detailed and informative blog post, describing her experience working for Interski in the Aosta Valley…

 

 

I recently spent a week working for Interski in the Aosta valley in Italy as a School Coordinator (a role more commonly known in the industry as a Ski Rep).  It’s been an amazing, if somewhat exhausting experience, and one I would highly recommend!

I started skiing when I was 11 years old, but have never worked in a resort before.  Initially I was hoping to do the full season, 5 months as a Resort Assistant – a much more behind-the-scenes job than a Coordinator which is almost entirely customer service – but I wasn’t certain about sharing accommodation, which is a requirement, especially for that long.  Interski persuaded me to try out part time work, which means being a Coordinator as only they and Instructors work part time, and I’m not qualified as an Instructor (yet…).

Overall I was hugely impressed with the Interski operation, relieved by the level of support and team spirit from my colleagues, and had a fabulous – if occasionally challenging – time helping people enjoy a wonderful school ski trip to the mountains.  The week was particularly rewarding because the school I was looking after was from a deprived area, very few of them had skied or even visited the mountains before, and several had special needs. They all had the most wonderful time and, though I was working hard and often tired, their enthusiasm and enjoyment was contagious.  It really made the week something special.

This is my blow-by-blow account of the week, what I got up to, and how I found it.

 

Drama at Dover

Travel out and back for Interski staff is provided on the coaches they use to transport school groups.  Although I could have had a pickup close to home from a coach coming past, I was keen to arrive with or before the group I would be looking after for the week.  Doing a brand new job is nerve-wracking enough, I was very conscious that I didn’t know the resort or any of the people I was working with and, given that I was arriving at the beginning of half term, one of the busiest weeks of the year, I was pretty daunted by the whole thing.  I didn’t want to arrive half way through the day, when I wouldn’t just be figuring out what needed doing but also trying to figure out what someone else had already done.

As my group was arriving early there were no suitable pickups near me, so this meant getting myself to Dover by public transport and hopping on the coach there with the school group that I was due to look after for the week.  This gave me the chance to get to know the teachers and coach drivers I’d be working with for the week on the journey, which was nice, but also meant that I wouldn’t have so much as a chance to look around the resort, never mind ask questions or figure out where anything was before I was starting the job and responsible for looking after my school, which made the whole thing even more worrying.  Talk about jumping in at the deep end!

After some difficulties finding the port (Google maps is usually pretty good but led me completely astray in bad weather, so I walked twice as far as I needed to and arrived soaking wet!), I made it to what I thought was the pickup point still with 5 minutes to spare.  As there was no coach in sight, I walked up to the passenger terminal to double check where I should be waiting. Yes, the lady there confirmed, I had been correct, so back out into the wet weather I went, only to see an Interski coach passing the other way as it drove through check-in and into the port.  Concerned, I reminded myself that there was more than one coach on this ferry, and tried not to panic that I’d already missed it as I made my way back to the pickup point. There, I saw another Interski coach, but not mine. There were, however, a couple of people in Interski outfits near the front of it, so I went to enquire if they knew anything about my coach.

It was lucky I asked, as it turned out that no-one was expecting me to get on at Dover, and my coach had already gone through check-in!  My travel arrangements had been shifted around quite a lot at the last minute as Interski tried to accommodate my request to join the coach with my school party on board, and the message to expect me hadn’t made it through to the people on the ground.  Though I had a bit of a panic, they were quite unphased, called the office to check I was, indeed, supposed to be getting on there, and arranged for me to jump onto this coach to get into the port, then transfer to the coach I was supposed to be on to actually board the ferry.  Problem solved. Phew!

A Number of Newbies

The ferry crossing was uneventful, and gave me a chance to get to know my Party Leader (the PL, the teacher in charge of the trip) a little, and find out a bit about the school I would be working with for the week.

I was relieved to find that the PL seemed lovely – friendly and easy to get on with – but surprised to find out that she had never led a ski trip before.  On top of which, the school was from a deprived area and, as ski trips are normally out of their budget, their last one was 7 years ago. This meant that of the 30 students, about 25 had never skied or been to a ski resort before, and nor had 4 of the 6 staff!  And one of the two teachers who had spent time in the mountains was a snowboarder, and we all know that they don’t count…. 😉 Suddenly I was very nervous about my ability to look after this group when I was also brand new to the job.

Road Trip to Aosta

Back on the coach we had about a 10 hour overnight trip down through France to Italy.  I had a double seat – something that’s not guaranteed for staff travelling with Interski, but which is nice if you get it – and tried my best to get some sleep, but between the general difficulties of sleeping on a coach and my mounting anxiety over exactly what I’d got myself into and how I would cope launching straight into arrival day when we arrived, I got less than 2 hour’s sleep on the journey, which wasn’t ideal.

Thankfully, Penny from Interski had been a great help in advance of the trip and assured me that an experienced Coordinator would be there to greet my coach and help me get started while I got my feet under me, which was a huge relief.  Sure enough, as we pulled into the coach park in Aosta I could see a couple of Interski jackets and left my PL looking after the students while I jumped off the coach to try and find someone who knew what they were doing!

In at the Deep End

As promised, one of the full time Coordinators was there, and offered to do the arrival talk – I’d had a plan for this, but thought I should let the expert handle it while I watched and learned, and was very reassured to find that he said more or less what I’d been planning to.  He then got the teachers and students into the ski hire building to be fitted with their boots and skis, which was our first job of the day. There, they were looked after by full time ski hire staff while I was given a whirlwind tour of the building, which is also where Interski run their office and rental wear from, provided with a work phone, a rucksack of paperwork and a uniform, and given space to change.  As soon as I was in uniform, I pretty much hit the ground running.

Arrival day is extremely busy.  First off was ski fit, which was mostly handled by the full time staff in the building, but which was complicated for our group as so many of them had never worn ski boots before.  It’s hard to explain how they should feel if you’ve never experienced them, so I pitched in helping out, attempting to convince students that boots that seemed really quite uncomfortable compared to their regular shoes probably fitted fine, and picked up the paperwork related to the group’s ski lessons for the week.  Once all that was sorted out, and skis and boots had been safely stored in lockers in the building, we went for lunch. I’d been given details of the restaurant that was expecting us, and called the restaurant to give them a heads up that we were on our way. Then we just had to find it…

One Team

All the Interski staff really were amazingly helpful and supportive both on arrival and throughout the week, both by phone and via WhatsApp, the company’s main method of group communication, as well as in person.  I’ve never worked anywhere with such a great team spirit, and where I really felt part of the team from the moment I arrived, even though I didn’t know anyone.

Interski have what they call a “One Team” approach.  Everyone chips in to help everyone else, no matter what the issue, and you very rapidly realise that wherever you are, and whatever is going on, you have a huge support network around you.  You can literally call or message anyone whose number is in the phone, or walk up to anyone in an Interski uniform and ask for assistance, and know that you’ll get it. If they can’t help you, they will rapidly find someone who can.  And there is no looking down on people for asking questions – it’s actively encouraged, and I was told several times not to worry, just call, they’d rather get 10 calls about things I might think are silly but am not 100% sure on, than have something go sideways because I’ve got something wrong or there’s been a misunderstanding.  I was also told by other staff I met through the week that, in the event that you do mess something up horribly (which I managed to avoid, this week at least!), no-one wastes time on laying blame, it’s all about pulling together to fix the problem. And from everything I saw, I believe them. It’s a very reassuring environment to work in.

So, with assistance from the full-timers, I made sure the coach drivers knew were lunch was, and off we went.  It was pasta – of course – something that would rapidly become a running joke with the group as almost every meal in Italy seemed to involve pasta somewhere!  From there, we went on to our hotel.

Customer Care

Before check-in, every room had to be checked for damage by both me and the PL, then the students got themselves settled in while I had a meeting with the PL regarding the week ahead.  This is an opportunity to discuss and arrange things like the après-ski schedule and meal times, which of course need to be fitted around the group’s ski lessons. The Coordinator’s main job is really to ensure that the week runs smoothly and everyone gets where they’re supposed to be at the right time, so once the week was planned out I had to communicate the meal times and dietary requirements to the restaurant, and the pick up and drop off times with our coach drivers.  There were also various bits of paperwork to complete, including questionnaires to go through with the PL about the journey and arrival.

Interski are very keen on getting customer feedback as swiftly as possible, and a lot of my job seemed to involve going through questionnaires with the PL to achieve this, though they were thankfully all pretty quick and simple to do.  These are fed back to the staff in the office each evening, who can then immediately take action to rectify any problems, rather than not finding out about them until the end of the week when it’s too late to fix anything. It was clear all through the week that Interski really care about the experience that their customers are having, and will do what they can to address any problems immediately.  They’re not miracle workers, and not everything can be fixed, but if it can be fixed then Interski will manage it!

Our biggest issue so far had been that the toilet on the coach we travelled over on wasn’t functioning properly.  The coaches are one place where Interski are heavily reliant upon suppliers, as they use coach companies from around the UK, so they ask the Coordinators to acquire as much feedback as possible about them.  Obviously this wasn’t ideal, but we’d been told by the drivers it was okay for number one’s, just not for number two’s. As the journey was mostly overnight, with a breakfast stop and opportunity to use the facilities there first thing in the morning, this really hadn’t been too much of a problem, but was duly recorded & passed on up the chain.

Rental Wear Everywhere…

Interski provide perhaps the most comprehensive ski trip service I’ve ever seen – travel, food, accommodation, ski & boot hire, ski lessons, and even ski clothing rental (jackets and salopettes) for those who don’t have their own.  It really is a complete package.

Usually a school might have 4 or 5 sets of rental wear for the new skiers who aren’t sure enough that they will enjoy it to buy their own, and although the items that have been ordered are organised in advance by the rental wear team, it’s the Coordinator’s job to hand them out to students, record that everyone has received the correct items, record any damage so that the students aren’t charged for pre-existing problems, and sort out any necessary swaps.  Of course my school, having so many new skiers, had 25 sets of rental wear to issue, which I think might have been some sort of record! And was quite a challenge when this, as well as everything else, was new to me. Thankfully I had a very hands-on PL with a very supportive team of staff, so they pitched in helping me get everything sorted out, and ensuring any damage, swaps or returns were recorded.

Checklists Galore

The Coordinator’s other main job for arrival day is to host a Welcome Meeting for the staff and students just before dinner, which runs through some basic information – about the hotel, the resort, and the week ahead, as well as how to deal with wearing and carrying ski gear (particularly relevant for my group and all its new skiers), and even some basic Italian phrases.

On the one hand I was very comfortable with this part of the job, as with another of my hats on I present science shows in schools, so I’m very at home with that sort of environment, and confident speaking to an audience.  On the other hand, having never been to the resort (and not speaking a word of Italian!), I was very uncertain about much of the information I was conveying, so was relying heavily on the information provided to me by Interski.

Interski do provide plenty of information, though, with lots of documents and hand books and the like, and my biggest problem was really that I didn’t have much time to read through it all because I was just so busy on the first day. But they also provide checklists for everything, which is enormously helpful.  There is a main checklists which tells you everything you need to do each day through the week, so you can be sure you haven’t missed anything. Then there are checklists for individual jobs, eg to make sure you’ve covered everything that needs to be covered in your meetings with the PL, or gone over all the important points in the Welcome Meeting.

I’m an enormous checklist fan, and it was very reassuring to have them provided by the company, because I knew that if I’d hit all the points on the checklist, I’d done my job.  That removed a lot of potential for anxiety during the week, where otherwise I would have been worrying about whether I’d forgotten something important (because without a checklist, I usually do!).  So I found a few minutes to go through the Welcome Meeting checklist, look up any important information I was missing and write myself some notes about what I wanted to say, before launching into it.  Although there are things I might do or say a little differently next time, after actually spending a week in the resort and getting to know it and the Interski way of doing things, it seemed to work well enough!

Toilet Trouble

It was while I was prepping for the Welcome Meeting that I got a knock at my door and was greeted by my PL, who had discovered a significant problem with the troublesome toilet on the coach.

Though we’d been told it was okay to use, albeit in a limited sense, it had in fact leaked through to the luggage below, soaking her and another teacher’s bags in urine.  They were understandably upset, and not keen to pay for the in-hotel laundry service to fix the problem!

Interski describe themselves as a “yes” company, but do not make any promises in case the company can’t deliver.  So I told the teachers I would see if I could sort something out and asked them to gather the affected items and bring them to my room, while I made a quick phone call.

I was relieved – but not surprised – to be told that someone would be on their way almost instantly to collect everything, and that the rental wear team would launder it all and get it back to us that evening, and that they would figure out a solution for cleaning the bags.  Ultimately the bags were scrubbed by hand, then hosed off with a pressure washer. They took longer to fully dry, but, unlike the clothing, no-one needed the bags back urgently so that wasn’t a problem.

Pro-active Problem Solving

Overall, this attitude was one of the most impressive things about Interski.  Sometimes, things go wrong, and that’s unavoidable however much planning you do.  In this case, Interski had been let down by a supplier on something that was totally outside their control.  But everyone in the company has a pro-active attitude towards finding solutions and sorting things out. It wasn’t ideal that it happened in the first place, but given that it did, it was impressive that all the clothing was laundered and returned within a few hours at no cost to the customer, and that the bags were back, good as new, a couple of days later.  You can’t really ask for more than that, and everyone was happy with the outcome.

After the Welcome Meeting and dinner (more pasta!), things calmed down a little, and I had time to run through the rest of the day’s checklist, figure out how to use the various systems on the work phone to get questionnaire results and feedback to the office, sort out medicards and lift passes for the students to be handed out in the morning, make sure the information that the ski instructors would need the following day was in order, and generally catch up on bits and pieces.  I’d had a particularly busy day because rather than just doing things, being brand new to it all I’d often had to figure out how to do them first, then do them, which in some cases was almost double the work. By about 11pm, some 13.5 hours after we’d arrived in resort, I’d finally done everything that I needed to do and fell very soundly asleep!

Steady Going

Although arrival day is quite hectic – particularly if you are brand new to it all, I’m assured it gets easier with experience! – the rest of the week follows quite a steady pattern.  In the mornings, you greet your group at breakfast, meet them before they get on the coach and check they haven’t forgotten the important basics (hat, gloves, goggles, sun cream, medicard, lift pass, etc), then get them onto the coach and to the ski hire building.  February half term is one of the busiest weeks of the year, there are a lot of school groups in the resort, and getting them all through the ski hire building every morning and evening without massive queues forming is an impressive logistics exercise all by itself, and I was constantly amazed at how smoothly it ran.  Then you go up the mountain in the gondola with your group and hand them over to their ski instructors for the day.

In theory, you then have nearly 5 hours free to ski, grabbing lunch on the mountain in the middle, though my first couple of days I didn’t get nearly this much, essentially because I was new to everything and so was the group I was looking after.  Some time was lost to issues like sorting out the remaining rental wear problems and teaching so many people how ski lift queues and gondolas work. At one point I found my school queueing politely two-by-two, British style, for a busy gondola, with all the locals pushing past them into the traditional lift queue scrum.  I had to teach them all continental queueing, keep moving forward and fill every gap, and the teachers were quite horrified that this was how things worked!

But the issue that took up most of my time at the beginning of the week was that so many students were having boot trouble.  At one end of the spectrum, some of them were convinced their ski boots were too small and wanted bigger sizes, not believing how uncomfortable correctly sized ski boots can be especially when you’re first learning to ski.  At the other end, having been told they should be uncomfortable, other students were struggling through significant pain not wanting to cause a fuss, until they broke down in tears and their ski instructors told them to go and get bigger ones!  There were plenty of full time Interski staff around to help, but with most of my school’s teachers also knowing nothing about skiing, I was on hand as much as I could be to help them figure out what to do, where to go, who to talk to (once I’d worked all that out myself!), and make sure boots got changed and skis got correctly fitted to the new boots and all the changes in ski and boot numbers were fed back to the ski hire staff.  It certainly kept me busy and on my toes!

Ski Time!

By half way through the second skiing day I was getting in a bit of trouble from my superiors, because I wasn’t spending enough time on the slopes myself!  Interski really do try to make the experience enjoyable for their staff, and are also aware that you’re not getting much pay in terms of money, you’re really being paid in travel, accommodation, food, cryptocurrencies for which we recommend to check here the best credit cards for crypto, lift pass, and skiing time, which is ultimately what people are there for.  All that would cost a huge amount if you go as a paying punter, so a lot of people work as ski reps because they love skiing but can’t afford to go as often as they would like. I was particularly surprised at the number of retired people working as Coordinators as a cheap way to get their skiing in for the year!

But by day 3, most of my group’s issues had been resolved, and both I and they had got into the stride of the week.  From that point on I did nearly as much skiing each day as I did on my recent skiing holiday, which isn’t bad! The only daytime job is to take some photos of your school’s ski groups while they’re on the slopes, as part of the Interski Snowshots service.  Finding them is the biggest problem – luckily most of mine were beginners so mostly on the lower slopes near the gondola, and I only had one advanced group to hunt down across the mountain! That mostly involved liaising with the teacher that was with them by phone, then chasing them up chairlifts and down slopes, trying to catch up with them….  It was quite an enjoyable little quest!

 

Après-ski

In the evenings you meet your group from their ski lessons, go down the mountain and back to the hotel with them, then get them to dinner and their après-ski, where you can join in with the activity and also act as official photographer.   This can be before or after dinner, depending on what it is, and the school have some choices depending on what they think their students will enjoy. Over the week we went bowling, tubing, shopping in town, to a Pizzeria, ice skating, and on the last night everyone has a presentation of awards from their instructors for their skiing, which the Coordinator for the group acts as MC for.

Either before or after dinner, depending on the timing of après-ski, you have some time to talk through the day with the PL and get any feedback (and complete the day’s questionnaires!) then send that back to the office, and edit your day’s Snowshots to delete any blurry or duplicate pictures.  Then you might have an hour or so to check facebook and catch up with friends, before getting an early night so you can get up and do it all again!

In general I found that the day was pretty full from getting up at 6:30am to going to bed usually at around 10-11pm.  What’s odd is that almost all your free time is during the middle of the day while you’re skiing, so although that is great, it’s also active and tiring, so overall the week was pretty intense.  That said, I met several more experienced Coordinators who assured me that, once you get the hang of everything, it’s quite a relaxed week really. Even late in the week I was still doing double work at times because of needing to learn how the various après-ski activities worked in order to make sure we got to the right place at the right time with the right stuff, and that the activity ran smoothly, as well as actually making that happen.  I can see how much less work there would be once you have been there a few times and know all that stuff, so you just get on and do it.

Room Sharing  

Some time was also taken up getting to know my room mate, Sarah, who was amazingly helpful, having done the job before, as well as good fun and interesting.  Working in ski resorts attracts quite a range of people, with some basic similarities (mostly a love of the slopes and an outgoing, friendly demeanor!), so you meet all sorts.

Sharing accommodation was something that concerned me initially, but ultimately worked out just fine.  The main issue we had was that I like to sleep in freezing conditions and overheat easily, while Sarah seemed to be freezing cold and piling on extra layers even when I was sweltering!  The nights that I was in the room first I tended to open the window which was comfortable for me as I found the hotel overly hot, and I think I froze her to death! Whereas the nights she was in first, it stayed shut, and I had to stick all my arms and legs out from under the covers desperately trying to stay cool enough to actually sleep…  That sort of thing is fine for a week, but I can see how sharing longer term would be more difficult. Having lived at boarding school for a long time and put up with all this sort of thing, I’m generally not keen to share these days unless I really need to.

Work Hard, Play Hard

On top of everything else, there are a couple of Interski staff nights out a week.  I skipped the one on Tuesday as I was just too tired, but was persuaded by one of the full time staff to join the Friday night out, as he assured me that the harder you’re working, and the more tired you are, the more you need to go out and blow off some steam!  Though I’m not sure I’m convinced by his logic…. 😉 The life clearly attracts people who believe in working hard and playing hard, though.

Friday’s night out was fancy dress – because of course, a range of costumes is exactly what I’d packed for a week working in a ski resort!  We’d all been assigned a letter for our costume to start with (Sarah’s was N, while mine was U). I crowdsourced U-based ideas on facebook, deciding on Urchin (Street, not Sea!), and took encouragement from Sarah’s make-do approach to creating a cheap nun costume.  She wore all black, bought a cheap pillow case and white head band from the local supermarket, cut up the pillow case to make the circular white bit that goes over your shoulders, and put the white head band over a black scarf to make the head dress. Combined with a cardboard cross, it was remarkably effective.  Meanwhile, I bought a cheap white shirt, ruined it by tearing the sleeves, collar and bottom and stained it with coffee I’d brought with me, then wore that over black combats and tied a thin black scarf around my neck. Not perfect, but good enough for less than a tenner, though I did smell strongly of coffee for the evening!

It was nice to get to hang out with people in a more relaxed social setting, and I’m pleased I went, but given that I find socialising quite draining, I think that it probably wasn’t the most sensible decision I ever made!  I didn’t drink much as the idea of waking up with a hangover filled me with dread, and when at 2am I was back in my room still sorting out questionnaires and going through the day’s Snowshots, alarm set for 6:30am, I decided I’d been insane to think I could manage it!  The following day I felt quite a lot better than I expected to on 4 hours’ sleep, though. Maybe I’m not so old after all!

Homeward Bound

The end of the week came around much faster than I expected, as it so often does, and along with the staff and students in my school group, I was sad to be leaving, but also very much looking forward to getting home and getting some more sleep!  I was a little concerned that departure day might be as busy and exhausting as arrivals day, but in reality it turned out to be pretty relaxed – by that point in the week I had things more or less figured out, and the checklist made it easy enough to stay on track and make sure everything got done.  From my end it was predominantly a case of reminding people about packing and moving cases and making sure they had access to their passports, and of course collecting a seemingly infinite volume of rental wear back in, where my PL and her team of staff were once again amazingly helpful, to my relief.

I’d bought some extra bedding for the trip back – a roll-up memory foam pillow to use as a mini mattress on the coach seat which turned out to be a fabulous investment, making my double seat infinitely more comfortable to lay on, and a furry, warm, snuggly blanket.  Between those and how tired I was, plus the fact that the job was officially over and I could really properly relax, I slept much more on the way home than I did on the way there!

Repping vs Instructing

Our coach was joined on the trip back by an Instructor called Joe, which was great as I’d been hoping for a chance to chat to one about what that job is like.  Before going out there for the week I’d been extremely keen to train as an Instructor, though not willing to commit the time and money until I’d at least experienced what it’s like to work in a ski resort.

Having seen it, I’m not convinced that the Instructors have that good a deal compared to Reps.  They get better pay in terms of money, but while a Coordinator is busy morning and evening, they have most of the day to free ski.  By contrast, Instructors are free morning and evening, so get more time to relax in that regard, but their time on the slopes is predominantly spent teaching.  That’s great if you get an advanced group so much of the time you’re acting as more of a guide, but the instructors taking the beginner groups were clearly working hard while they were up the mountain, and not skiing much at all.  They might get an hour or so for free skiing at the end of the day after lessons, but not long. On the other hand, they also get one full day off a week when groups are arriving/departing, whereas Coordinators often roll from one ski group to the next without breaking step.

Looking back at it, I think Coordinator is probably the better job if you’re out there part time for a few weeks, as you get the most ski time that way, but Instructor might be a nicer way to be there for the full season – weeks you’re with beginner groups and don’t get much skiing would hopefully be offset by weeks you’re with higher level students and skiing most of the day, and a shorter working day and more downtime might make several months living in resort a more pleasant experience overall.

On Top of the World

Overall, as well as being enjoyable and rewarding, the week was also undeniably very good for me.  I’ve had a bit of physical health trouble – mostly a shoulder injury and a hamstring injury I picked up a while ago which were aggravated somewhat by skiing, but which I mostly ignored!  But I also lost weight without trying, which was nice as I’m still trying to shift a bit post-Christmas, as meals were provided so I rarely went to the shops and wasn’t tempted by snacks, and the days were full and busy and I was on the move most of the time.

But the biggest difference I’ve noticed is in how I feel.  A change of scenery and doing new things is often good for me, and the job was such that, whatever issue cropped up, I had no option but to just get on and sort things out, becoming part of the pro-active problem-solving team that is Interski.  It’s a great feeling, to look back at the week and all the various things that were thrown my way, and feel like I’ve actually coped very well and done a great job! It’s been a great antidote to all the anxiety that’s been plaguing me of late. I’ve been on top of the world this week in more than one way.

I am am very much looking forward to going back later in the season.  If you enjoy skiing or snow boarding, I really can’t recommend the experience enough!