Page 359 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
It was those personal touches, I knew, that made people want to come to Brooks Mountain, after all. And it was those personal touches that Bailey was trying to preserve as owner of the resort. I had a feeling they were all changes that she would have been on board with.
People were downright peppy when I went into our morning meeting. Hal clapped me on the shoulder. He was the head of the ski school and not someone that I normally had to interact with. But he seemed pretty happy with me right now. “Your plan worked,” he said. “I can’t believe how many people we have returning to ski school today after the weekend. And it’s a Monday!”
I blinked in surprise. “Shouldn’t they be headed back home to get their kids back in school?” I joked. It wasn’t like it was the holidays anymore. “If they’re still here, they were probably planning on staying anyway.”
“Believe it or not, we’ve actually had a record number of people extend their stays in the condos,” someone else chimed in. He shrugged. “I guess they were impressed with how things went over the weekend and weren’t ready to leave yet. One missed day of school won’t hurt the kids.”
I shook my head, at a loss for words. “Well, I guess that’s great,” I said lamely.
Kayla laughed. “It’s amazing, really. We’ve already been having a stellar year, and this is just more icing on the cake.” She leaned in close to me. “I know you’re ready to go back to being unnoticed, but have you realized how happy people are with you in charge? That translates into company morale, which translates directly into making our customers happy. I hope you realize that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
I wasn’t doing anything that anyone else couldn’t do. It wasn’t that I was particularly good at this job or anything. It was more just that I had been at the resort for longer than most people, and I knew how things could run most smoothly. That was it.
There was definitely a part of me that hoped that Bailey would appreciate the effort that I was putting in, though. That she would appreciate the small tweaks that I had made to how things were run. And I kind of thought that she would.
Not only that, but I was getting better at handling the customers. In the past, I tried to avoid them as much as I could. Of course, it wasn’t always possible. People recognized that I worked for the resort and asked me questions about various things. But I was never the first person in the line of duty when it came to calming down our customers or changing their frustrating days into better ones.
Now that I was acting head of the resort, though, all those complaints came to me. And I was getting better at handling them.
First, I had to listen. Ninety-nine percent of people who had a complaint weren’t, it seemed, looking for someone who was going to make things better. They wanted you to listen as they complained. They wanted to know that they were heard and that their business was valuable. And if you threw in some vouchers or whatever at the end, then they were over the moon about staying at the resort, even if they still had the same problem from before.
Like this guy, named Mr. Hadley. “I’m just frustrated with the way that you have the ski school set up at the moment,” he said. “We have a ski-in-ski-out property for a reason. We can drop the skis on the snow at the start of the day and get the kids into them, and then they ski straight over to their lessons, and I never have to juggle all their skis. I have three kids, you know, all taking lessons, and now you’re asking me to take off their skis and carry them over there so you can check their ski passes and then get them up the hill and back into their skis for their lessons.”
“I know it’s inconvenient,” I said sympathetically. “And I know that of course you know how important it is for them to have their lift passes in their pockets first thing in the morning. But unfortunately, some of the other parents, especially ones who aren’t familiar with our program, either forget their kids’ ski passes or else they have them in their pocket and leave their kids without the passes. That’s a big problem for us, because we want to make sure when the classes get over to the ski lifts, everyone is ready to go.”
“I understand that,” Mr. Hadley said, “but then maybe you should have more than one gate that the kids can go through. Like one that’s on the snow so that we can just ski right through it like we would for a lift.”
“That would be nice,” I said. “The trouble is that then we have this giant piece of metal machinery right here at the bottom of the ski run where it becomes an inconvenience, not to mention a safety hazard, for everyone skiing down, particularly at the end of the day when we’ve cleaned up all of the ski school fencing that you can see right now.
“I totally understand your frustration, though, and we’re looking into getting some handheld scanners to make the process run a little more smoothly for you in the future. But for now, why don’t I go ahead and get you guys hooked up with free ski locker storage down here in the base area? I know it doesn’t solve everything, but we do have wagons that you can use through the base area so that you don’t have to juggle all their skis.”
I didn’t know if that was exactly how Bailey would have handled the situation. I hadn’t seen enough of how she handled the business before she had gone back to Nevada. But I knew that we rarely filled all of the available locker spaces, especially not now that we were through the busy holiday season and not into spring break time yet. So it was an easy way to diffuse the situation.
“Would we be able to store the boots in there as well?” Mr. Hadley asked, but I could tell that I had already won him over. “Having them walk all the way over here in their ski boots isn’t going to save us any time.”
“They definitely can,” I promised. “Not only that, but each of the lockers has a built in boot-dryer so their boots should be nice and toasty and easy to put on first thing in the morning.”
Mr. Hadley nodded. “I appreciate that,” he said. “Do I need to walk over there with you now?”
“Nope!” I told him. “I’ll just take your contact information right now and get them all set up for you, and at the end of the day, you’ll just need to give them your name.”
It was yet another thing that I needed to do that day, on an already busy day, but I knew that this sort of customer service was important so that we could keep people like Mr. Hadley coming back and putting his kids in our ski school.
I took down his information. “And remind me of your name again?” Mr. Hadley asked.
“Adam Katz,” I said, holding out my hand for him to shake. “I’m currently the acting manager of the resort, so if you have any problem with the lockers this afternoon, you’ll be able to get in contact with me.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Mr. Hadley said, shaking his head. His demeanor was totally different from how it had been just minutes ago. “I can tell that you have a good head on your shoulders and that I can trust you to make things right.” He grinned at me. “You’re definitely the right man to be acting manager of the resort, and I’ll make sure to pass that comment on at the end of my stay!”
“We really appreciate your visit, Mr. Hadley,” I said seriously. “And I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay here in Park City.”
“I believe I will,” Mr. Hadley said before heading off in the direction of the lifts.
I exhaled heavily and took a quick look around for anything else that might be amiss. Then, I got on with my duties for the day, starting out with organizing the lockers for Mr. Hadley and his children.
The day passed quickly, and I was surprised to finally glance outside and see that it was getting dark out there and the lifts were shutting down for the night, staff streaming off towards their homes. I smiled a little to myself. I remembered my first season there at the resort. I had made quite a few friends amongst the staff, the kinds of guys that I could go out drinking with sometimes. But I hadn’t chatted with most of those guys in ages now. First, there had been my family, then Beth’s death, and now Ethan. But maybe it was about time that I started taking an afternoon for myself here and there.
