Hey, December 7 is Fit Night at the retail store at Jackson Ski Touring. Expert fitters from Swix and Fischer will be there to fit you to equipment.
Gee. When I was there, you could get fitted to skis any day we were open, by people whose loyalty was to you, the customer, not a specific manufacturer. Everyone on staff knew how to suit a ski and ski equipment to the needs of the specific customer and we took pride in doing so. The only exception might have been the gangly, aging cyclist who worked for us one season, whose last retail experience had been at EMS in the 1970s. Turned out he didn't even know the sidecut on a Fischer Cruiser. Ah well. He moved on. An ill wind brought him and an ill wind took him away.
The difference is between serving the customer and servicing the customer like the bull services the cow.
There's a lot of razzle dazzle in Big Time Nordic. Bonfires, promotions, smoke and mirrors...plenty of smoke unless they've gotten that fireplace reconstructed. You have to feel you're someplace special, someplace greater than you. Someplace someone would bother to homologate.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Before you take a job at Jackson Ski Touring
Remember: they don't care if you are intelligent and knowledgeable, they just want you to be obedient and malleable.
You ski free the way the caddies got to use the facilities in "Caddyshack". In fact there's quite a bit about the employer-employee relationship at Jackson Ski Touring that reminds you of Bushwood.
At the time I was there, at least one member of the board of directors would always come in with glistening mucus dangling from his nose. It gives new meaning to the term rich snot. Winter brings out the drippers. These are the people who always have a hanger, who leave a trail of droplets across the service counter, the floor, your lunch, or wherever else they happen to roam. They're the ones whose sleeves and gloves are always shiny and wet and who seem to have missed school on the day handkerchiefs and facial tissue were presented as polite ways to stem this tide of nauseating nasal flow. It's just an added burden that one of their chief representatives is also in a position of some power over you.
Know your place and stay in it. You are a servant. More and more of the original old guard are dying off, so almost no one really thinks you're lavishly paid at five dollars a day, but the management still wishes it was true.
There's a definite pecking order among the staff at JSTF. They rank on each other constantly in the normal run of things, talking about who is the most lazy and useless. Then, once the management lets it be known that someone is on the way out, the survivors demonstrate their loyalty by taking their parting shots. It's only human and quite hard for our social species to resist. Still, it's ugly to watch and even uglier when you're on the receiving end.
If it doesn't snow, you have no job. If it snows a little you may be able to shovel enough of it into the trail to stay employed. Good luck with that.
The best news is that by working at Jackson Ski Touring you will qualify for our support group for PJSD (Post Jackson Stress Disorder). It's really just a drinking group where people are free to share their stories about their grand experiences in The Big Time.
You ski free the way the caddies got to use the facilities in "Caddyshack". In fact there's quite a bit about the employer-employee relationship at Jackson Ski Touring that reminds you of Bushwood.
At the time I was there, at least one member of the board of directors would always come in with glistening mucus dangling from his nose. It gives new meaning to the term rich snot. Winter brings out the drippers. These are the people who always have a hanger, who leave a trail of droplets across the service counter, the floor, your lunch, or wherever else they happen to roam. They're the ones whose sleeves and gloves are always shiny and wet and who seem to have missed school on the day handkerchiefs and facial tissue were presented as polite ways to stem this tide of nauseating nasal flow. It's just an added burden that one of their chief representatives is also in a position of some power over you.
Know your place and stay in it. You are a servant. More and more of the original old guard are dying off, so almost no one really thinks you're lavishly paid at five dollars a day, but the management still wishes it was true.
There's a definite pecking order among the staff at JSTF. They rank on each other constantly in the normal run of things, talking about who is the most lazy and useless. Then, once the management lets it be known that someone is on the way out, the survivors demonstrate their loyalty by taking their parting shots. It's only human and quite hard for our social species to resist. Still, it's ugly to watch and even uglier when you're on the receiving end.
If it doesn't snow, you have no job. If it snows a little you may be able to shovel enough of it into the trail to stay employed. Good luck with that.
The best news is that by working at Jackson Ski Touring you will qualify for our support group for PJSD (Post Jackson Stress Disorder). It's really just a drinking group where people are free to share their stories about their grand experiences in The Big Time.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
JSTF: From Taliban to Oral Roberts
Upping the ante on destructive superstition, the Jackson Ski Touring Foundation has now taken Olympian Charlie Kellogg's skis hostage and will execute them if enough people don't donate to the poor, beleaguered touring center.
It's like when Oral Roberts said God was going to take him out if his followers didn't fork over a cool million. Why someone who urgently desires heaven would tell his followers to dig deep in their pocketbooks to keep him in this vale of suffering raises questions the average superstitious believer never seems to ask. Logical thought is a sin.
In another sense, Jackson Ski Touring's lighthearted rallying call to vandalism is more like a simple hostage grab by religious zealots. They don't even have to believe what they claim to believe. They've simply taken something or someone, hoping enough people value the threatened object to produce a decent payday.
If they need something to throw on the fire, how about marriage licenses people are no longer using?
Burn, Baby, Burn.
It's like when Oral Roberts said God was going to take him out if his followers didn't fork over a cool million. Why someone who urgently desires heaven would tell his followers to dig deep in their pocketbooks to keep him in this vale of suffering raises questions the average superstitious believer never seems to ask. Logical thought is a sin.
In another sense, Jackson Ski Touring's lighthearted rallying call to vandalism is more like a simple hostage grab by religious zealots. They don't even have to believe what they claim to believe. They've simply taken something or someone, hoping enough people value the threatened object to produce a decent payday.
If they need something to throw on the fire, how about marriage licenses people are no longer using?
Burn, Baby, Burn.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Jackson Ski Touring and the Taliban
Jackson Ski Touring has been sending out emails announcing that they will burn Olympian Charlie Kellogg's skis in a bonfire to appease the snow gods and bring on a great ski season. This is a small example of the kind of thinking that led the Taliban to destroy historic Buddha figures carved into cliffs in their country. In either case, performing an act of destruction is supposed to cause powerful imaginary beings to shower the faithful with approval.
Mr. Kellogg's skis are hardly in a class with ancient, monumental sculptures, but they're still irreplaceable historical artifacts that have been taken hostage by superstitious vandals.
You want to put on a good show for the snow gods? Have Thom and the entire board of Jackson Ski Touring run naked around the base lodge and the village on the weekend of the annual ski sale. Make the assembled membership watch. THAT'S a sacrifice.
You want to burn something? Burn everybody's clothes while they're running around.
Mr. Kellogg's skis are hardly in a class with ancient, monumental sculptures, but they're still irreplaceable historical artifacts that have been taken hostage by superstitious vandals.
You want to put on a good show for the snow gods? Have Thom and the entire board of Jackson Ski Touring run naked around the base lodge and the village on the weekend of the annual ski sale. Make the assembled membership watch. THAT'S a sacrifice.
You want to burn something? Burn everybody's clothes while they're running around.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Jackson Math: $50 = Free
An offer from Jackson Ski Touring to cross-country ski teams:
"Dear Coach,
Here’s a cost-effective way for your team to train this winter: ski
in Jackson for free!
For $50/person per night, [emphasis mine]your team stays overnight at the AMC’s Joe Dodge Lodge at Pinkham Notch, N.H. Dinner & breakfast are included in
this special rate.
Jackson Ski Touring provides you with the largest Nordic trail system
in the East, including our FIS Homologated Courses.
Book this combination packages for $50/person during weekdays in January.
Our brochure describes all the details..."
That's right! Receive this FREE offer for just $50! That's ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Sure, I know what they mean. Throw some dough to the AMC and you can play on Jackson's trails during off-peak periods and admire their 100% homologated trail while you're there. I'd forgotten about all the homologation they had done. Once you've gone homologated you never go back to ordinary ski trails. I lie awake nights remembering how that homologation felt.
Brother, have you ever been homologated? I mean more than just once in college as an experiment?
So...scrape up $50 for your free skiing! While you're at it, if you send me $1,000.00 I can begin processing that huge lottery jackpot you didn't know you won.
"Dear Coach,
Here’s a cost-effective way for your team to train this winter: ski
in Jackson for free!
For $50/person per night, [emphasis mine]your team stays overnight at the AMC’s Joe Dodge Lodge at Pinkham Notch, N.H. Dinner & breakfast are included in
this special rate.
Jackson Ski Touring provides you with the largest Nordic trail system
in the East, including our FIS Homologated Courses.
Book this combination packages for $50/person during weekdays in January.
Our brochure describes all the details..."
That's right! Receive this FREE offer for just $50! That's ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Sure, I know what they mean. Throw some dough to the AMC and you can play on Jackson's trails during off-peak periods and admire their 100% homologated trail while you're there. I'd forgotten about all the homologation they had done. Once you've gone homologated you never go back to ordinary ski trails. I lie awake nights remembering how that homologation felt.
Brother, have you ever been homologated? I mean more than just once in college as an experiment?
So...scrape up $50 for your free skiing! While you're at it, if you send me $1,000.00 I can begin processing that huge lottery jackpot you didn't know you won.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Withdrawal
Recovering from nine winters at Jackson Ski Touring has taken a surprisingly long time. As I expected, I did not miss wondering who hated me and why. That only mattered to me because whoever it was managed to get me tried, convicted and sentenced in a secret court with no chance to face my accusers or answer the charges against me and it almost cost me my position. I was then reinstated by an equally secret tribunal where I again did not appear and had no input or closure. I was told I would get to hear substantive details from people in authority, but what I got was an impatient brushoff from someone who was obviously pissed off that I had been reinserted into the situation. What I missed was the skiing.
For those who felt that the retail grunts spent far too much time indulging themselves on the trails and far too little time insta-waxing the scabrous planks of legions of road-crossers, you will be pleased to know that the only person who skis in Wolfe City is the boss. I don't begrudge him. He works his ass off. Unlike a number of fat people and smokers at the upper levels of management in cross-country ski manufacturing, coaching and touring center operation, he still loves to get out there.He would let us get out there if he could. But not at the expense of his own ya-yas. Every morning he grooms. Then he skis. Then he comes to the shop. Four days a week he's gone again in the afternoon to coach the high school cross-country ski team. Because of the skeleton crew we run here we can't spare anyone during the work day, despite our leader's best intentions. We can never be sure it will stay quiet enough for long enough not to overwhelm the capacity of the staff left behind.
One day at JSTF Big T asked me if I was going to ski that day. I said I hoped so.
"Wouldn't it be great if you were too busy?" he said with the kind of dopy grin people use when they're trying to get a child excited about doing homework or getting a painful injection.
Are you crazy, Big T? If I was into this for the money, I wouldn't be into THIS. I wold be into something that actually makes money.
Before work the trails are not groomed. They're BEING groomed, but the pattern doesn't generally favor a good surface for a meaningful workout until the groomer has finished the job, at which point he takes first tracks. It's most efficient. He's there, the trails are ready. Just do it!
After work the trails are either a slush pit or a refrozen invitation to a broken femur. The average winter temperature does not keep snow powdery fresh the way it did just a decade ago.
Where does this leave the shop grunts? Riding the wind trainer at home, using the Nordic Track if you can stomach it.
It took two winters to get accustomed to the fact that we would be hard-pressed to get any exercise between the end of bike commuting in the fall and its onset again in March or April. The body and the mind need to find things to replace those healthful endorphins once provided by the excellent action of cross-country skiing. Because we probably won't get it, we can't want it, because denial of it only makes the lack of it worse. Write it off. It is gone. It is over. This greasy room full of smelly ice skates and rental ski gear is the only reality.
Exercise is a luxury for most people. That's why Jackson depends on wealthy elitists for its very existence. Many of them might not think of themselves as elitists, but you can't achieve the financial position they have without disconnecting from the concerns of the working class. Many club members are hard workers who are athletically but not financially elite. Others are complete snobs.
We are blessed in Wolfe City that the wealthy elite do not make skiing a central part of their lives. The big money is here for the lake. Whatever problems they may have mingling with the commoners, they don't take them out on us. Not so in Jackson. Those people chose their town for the mountains and the activities they can pursue there. In the touring center we were at center stage. Many more customers have a much higher ego involvement in Jackson. This makes it much trickier for the retailer unaccustomed to dealing with such a sensitive clientele. None of that will bring back skiing, of course. But at least as my information gets stale and my enthusiasm grows more artificial no one is likely to notice.
For those who felt that the retail grunts spent far too much time indulging themselves on the trails and far too little time insta-waxing the scabrous planks of legions of road-crossers, you will be pleased to know that the only person who skis in Wolfe City is the boss. I don't begrudge him. He works his ass off. Unlike a number of fat people and smokers at the upper levels of management in cross-country ski manufacturing, coaching and touring center operation, he still loves to get out there.He would let us get out there if he could. But not at the expense of his own ya-yas. Every morning he grooms. Then he skis. Then he comes to the shop. Four days a week he's gone again in the afternoon to coach the high school cross-country ski team. Because of the skeleton crew we run here we can't spare anyone during the work day, despite our leader's best intentions. We can never be sure it will stay quiet enough for long enough not to overwhelm the capacity of the staff left behind.
One day at JSTF Big T asked me if I was going to ski that day. I said I hoped so.
"Wouldn't it be great if you were too busy?" he said with the kind of dopy grin people use when they're trying to get a child excited about doing homework or getting a painful injection.
Are you crazy, Big T? If I was into this for the money, I wouldn't be into THIS. I wold be into something that actually makes money.
Before work the trails are not groomed. They're BEING groomed, but the pattern doesn't generally favor a good surface for a meaningful workout until the groomer has finished the job, at which point he takes first tracks. It's most efficient. He's there, the trails are ready. Just do it!
After work the trails are either a slush pit or a refrozen invitation to a broken femur. The average winter temperature does not keep snow powdery fresh the way it did just a decade ago.
Where does this leave the shop grunts? Riding the wind trainer at home, using the Nordic Track if you can stomach it.
It took two winters to get accustomed to the fact that we would be hard-pressed to get any exercise between the end of bike commuting in the fall and its onset again in March or April. The body and the mind need to find things to replace those healthful endorphins once provided by the excellent action of cross-country skiing. Because we probably won't get it, we can't want it, because denial of it only makes the lack of it worse. Write it off. It is gone. It is over. This greasy room full of smelly ice skates and rental ski gear is the only reality.
Exercise is a luxury for most people. That's why Jackson depends on wealthy elitists for its very existence. Many of them might not think of themselves as elitists, but you can't achieve the financial position they have without disconnecting from the concerns of the working class. Many club members are hard workers who are athletically but not financially elite. Others are complete snobs.
We are blessed in Wolfe City that the wealthy elite do not make skiing a central part of their lives. The big money is here for the lake. Whatever problems they may have mingling with the commoners, they don't take them out on us. Not so in Jackson. Those people chose their town for the mountains and the activities they can pursue there. In the touring center we were at center stage. Many more customers have a much higher ego involvement in Jackson. This makes it much trickier for the retailer unaccustomed to dealing with such a sensitive clientele. None of that will bring back skiing, of course. But at least as my information gets stale and my enthusiasm grows more artificial no one is likely to notice.
Friday, November 12, 2010
What a Concept!
Have you heard about the new Swix and Fischer "concept shop" at Jackson Ski Touring?
Hey, here's a concept: How about a truly independent, knowledgeable retailer who has the best interests of each individual customer at heart, rather than some manufacturer's pimp, especially one that has to represent the Fischer tongue depressor touring skis?
Just a thought.
When you're up there keep your bullshit detector on high and your hand on your wallet. And enjoy the delicate balance they walk between po' penniless non-profit and full-on retail shark.
Hey, here's a concept: How about a truly independent, knowledgeable retailer who has the best interests of each individual customer at heart, rather than some manufacturer's pimp, especially one that has to represent the Fischer tongue depressor touring skis?
Just a thought.
When you're up there keep your bullshit detector on high and your hand on your wallet. And enjoy the delicate balance they walk between po' penniless non-profit and full-on retail shark.
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