Poster: A snowHead
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@Perty, just of interest when and where did you work for silverski, I was meribel in the late 90's for them.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I was in Reberty (Les Menuires) in 05/06. Just the one season as a grown up gapper from the day job. Worked my backside off and enhanced the company reputation to boot, for which the gratitude was minimal....
At the time, I did a 10 week Cordon Bleu certificate course at Tante Marie in Woking. It teaches you loads. Many of my co students were off to do a ski season. It's a proper examined course with exams. Things like budgeting, menu planning, timing etc are integral to the (or any proper) course. It also means that you don't feed your guests an endless diet of yoghurt cake for afternoon tea. Frankly, a student from Tante Marie has a far better chance of cooking something really good, properly seasoned and well presented for guests than some short term caplet cookery course
I've since gone back and done the professional Cordon Bleu diploma (the intensive course which is 2 X 10 week terms). At the time I was thinking of turning food into a new career, but in the end copped out and went back to the law....
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@Perty, your experience with silverski sounds a bit like my wife's, she only did one season as well and came away with a similar opinion of them. I must admit my experience was a lot different as my first 2 seasons I was a maintenance man/driver, I was on the same money as resort management with hardly any work to do (apart from morning and afternoon bus runs)!!
I did go back a couple of seasons later and worked in a chalet for the 2nd half of that season, but it was fairly easy as there was 4 of us looking after a medium size chalet, and me and the other "companion" would take it in turn to go out when we could.
I have the upmost respect for anyone who worked in the smaller chalets run by couples or pairs of girls, as they worked their butts off, day in and day out, as my wife reminds me all the time as she was in one of the chalets that I would look after when we met.
to be honest it seemed to put her off skiing for life, though we went away this year for the first time in 10 years (children!!!!), and she has rediscovered the joys of skiing
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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My father did a course, something like "how to rescue a meal". As mentioned above, it was basic principles of how to adapt when you find you had no egg white at the last minute, or you'd accidentally put the wrong amount of X ingredient in. Gave you a much greater flexibility when cooking. Not sure if it was an evening or a 5-day course somewhere.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@terrygasson, interesting. My season-3 of us running a chalet that slept 19. 2 chalet hosts plus ski host (me). It was the first season where Silverski had reduced the ski hosts per big chalet from two to one. I think I was out with guests every day I was supposed to (4 per week) save for just two days in the entire season. (Too bl**dy good at it!). Even with 15 guests all the rooms were occupied, so the work was the same for pretty much the whole season. I was recruited to be the chalet cook and after arrival on about day two was asked if I minded being ski host (because of over recruiting cooks) which wasn't what I had planned. I'd spent £4000 and 10 weeks doing a cordon bleu cookery course and knew I was the sort of person who needed more than a couple of hours' daily head space. There was absolutely nowhere indoors with any privacy, and I shared a room with a layabout who was almost always in.... Needless to say, I didn't have much choice and said yes to the alternative role, though at the start of the season I was a blue run/occasional red run skier.
I did cook 2 days a week by choice on changeover day and shopping day. Leaving out changeover day, and shopping day, the routine was: Up and into chalet at 7.30am, help with breakfast, ski with guests 4 days per week from 9.15 to 4.30/5ish. Break till 7pm, help with dinner and then fall into bed at around 10pm. No private space. We had a "floating" extra member of staff (my roommate) every 3 weeks, whose presence made little difference to the work load and who seemed to find ample time to lie around.
I loved the fact that I got to ski each day, but the lack of free time and personal space was hard for a 40 year old who was used to her own 3 bed house. Skiing with guests could be fun, but was more of a chore than you might think at first blush. I would yearn for the 6 hours or so free time my fellow chalet hosts had in the middle of the day.
The best day was my day off, during which I would "just want to be alone"...so went skiing. On my tod. Fab!
Had I had a chalet of my own with 8 guests to feed and no ski hosting duties, it would have been a piece of cake...as for those Silverski chalets with 8-10 guests each run by two people....what a treat that would have been.
This makes me sound like I didn't enjoy it, when I did, though it wasn't what I signed up for. I was turned into a ski addict, love the 3v, and this season Mr P and I were within a whisker of buying a chalet near St Martin (strictly personal use), till the exchange rate looked a bit flakey.
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