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Hi. I’m Ben Benton from Flagstaff, Arizona. I believe that you will enjoy my daily journal from Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 1999. I left downtown Flagstaff with my saddle and duffel in early July and lighted in the horse corral at Mammoth Hot Springs. My journal will continue through September 20th, unless the weather shuts us down earlier. You’ll read about adventures on the back country trails, Yellowstone history, people I meet, and anything else I can think of to write about. I’m the author of “National Park Employment Data,” a guide to working in national parks, which is available for purchase on my web site at www.gorp.com/nped/. I’ve been working in national parks and ski areas off and on for over twenty years. Because I want the data in my book to always be fresh, I continually test the concepts, employers, and tips that I provide. Right now, I’m working for Amfac Parks and Resorts. They are a top notch concession company because they place employee training, morale, and amenities first. |
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Previous 7/16 |
Wednesday, 9-15-99Today, at 10:00 A.M., I started work in the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel kitchen as dishwasher. By 11:00 A.M., I decided I’d had enough fun in Yellowstone for the summer and loaded my truck and hit the road. Between Saturday, September 11th and Monday, September 13th, head wrangler Amanda went berserk and terminated two-thirds of her staff with only six days to go before closing the corrals for the season. I got the axe Monday at 5:30 P.M. after the last ride of the day because I could not correctly name all thirty-three horses in the corral by sight. Of course it didn’t matter that I am colorblind and can’t tell a brown horse from a sorrel one. It takes me months to learn horses names and she knew it, so that made the perfect test to rid herself of a wrangler with twenty-three years experience who made the mistake of trying to show her a safer, more efficient way to wrangle dudes. I know, I should have kept my mouth shut and done things her way. But during my second day on the job, I saw a sweet, old Japanese lady fall from her running-to-catch-up-horse, caused by Jett Hitt and Matt (from Canyon Corrals) approaching the dude string at a gallop. That’s about as dumb as an ocean liner approaching the pier at thirty knots. She broke several vertebrae and returned to Japan in a body cast. Sometimes one has an obligation to speak up. The biggest problem this company has is finding qualified supervisors. Qualified line employees come (and go) in droves. Last Saturday, while assistant head wrangler Jett Hitt was dismissing my co-worker J.C. and offering him a transfer to the dishroom, the location manager for Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel spent the better part of his day involved in the discussions and paperwork on J.C. Yet his hotel staffing level was down to four room attendants (chambermaids) for 212 rooms, which are still nearly filling every night. Such poor allocation of managerial time reminds me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Where are all the room attendants? Some were students who returned to school. But the company had planned on that. Late in the season they hire older couples who arrive in motor homes and trailers and sign on for the late season, through the end of October. Most of them got disgusted and hit the road after work schedules of nine days (or more) straight. When they finally got a day off, they simply loaded their RVs and cars and left. The sad thing is that all these fine people end up with a “failed to honor contract” notation in their file which usually precludes their being able to work in any other national park concession company (should they temporarily lose their sanity and want to do it again). A last word about J.C. He was terminated from the corrals for wearing his hat in the employee dining room. I’m not making this up. That’s why he got fired. Although I did not agree with J.C. wearing his hat, he always wore his cowboy hat while eating. An unwritten code of the West has cowboys, dude wranglers, packers, and mule skinners removing their hats while eating indoors, meeting ladies, in the presence of a funeral procession, and reciting the pledge of allegiance. J.C. was consistent in eating with his hat in place, on his own time (off the clock), until last Saturday when he was terminated for it. Oh, well. I’m sure nuttier things have happened around here. ***** Betsy, assistant location manager, read today’s journal and was offended by the use of the word “berserk” to describe Amanda’s actions. I’m not sure what word would be more appropriate. “Revengeful,”maybe. Or “vindictive.” At any rate, I implore AmFac to wake up and smell the coffee
before its too late. Alan Naille, Steve Tedder: Are you out there?
Edna Good, NPS chief of concessions management for Yellowstone,
is looking for answers to AmFac’s blatant disregard for
employees. She’s not happy right now. Talk to her. Get AmFac’s
Yellowstone operations back on track. I’ve worked in concessions
off and on for twenty-three years and I’ve not seen it so
bad as it is in Yellowstone right now.  |
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