Entering the Crazy Life

Tomorrow, Friday, I start my new schedule and my new life. Apparently, nearly all employees remaining after Labor Day get unwillingly drafted into extra hours as students, foreigners, and people with other lives leave Yellowstone to drift back to their homelands. Already, the front desk has lost Carrie to school and Zane to adventure. Soon to leave are Suzanne and Ariel, both heading home. We should be used to the exodus of employees by now as Xanterra overhired this year and maintains a culture that encourages employees to quit or get fired, so we have already seen many of our co-workers depart. (Yes, I could be fired for that last statement, which is why I have carefully avoided telling any of my mangers that I maintain a blog. And yes, by this point, Alex and I are definitely among the cynic Xanterra employees.)



But, I digress. My new life. My new days off are Wednesdays and Thurdays with every other day of the week booked with work. I'll be working 4 days of split shifts, splitting 2 of the days between barista and front desk and working two 5 hour shifts per day as barista the other 2 days. That leaves Sunday, my 8 hour shift at the front desk. Apparently, I was an item in negotiation between the Front Desk Manager and the Food & Beverage Manager with the first agreement being that I would work 20 hours for each department. The F&B Manager, perhaps playing on the fact that I told both managers that I had really wanted the barista job to begin with, bluffed his way into getting 30 hours for barista and 10 for front desk, me finding out later that I would have lost the barista job had someone stepped forward who didn't need to be negotiated for. (Another Xanterra secret. When applying, we were under the impression we could move between jobs. When Alex was asking about an open Security Job position, we found out that our current manager can prevent a move to a better or more appealing job.) The interesting tidbit comes when I add up all of my new hours. The "30" hours as barista doesn't include time for clean up, so it's actually closer to 33 hours. The front desk managers jumped on every possible shift free from my barista duties, so the "10" hours at the front desk has grown to 16. Sadly, overtime doesn't start until 48 hours and managers are very sharp at not letting their employees' hours creep into overtime. My in between shift hours will definitely include napping and I might have to get Alex to do the laundry. However, it will be worth it to get barista experience. It is very difficult to get a barista job without experience. And it's only for a month and a half.