Day One in the Dorms

            Today was my first full day here in the dorms, as well as orientation day. In the morning, after having breakfast, I went to HR to turn in my paperwork and get my employee nametag and uniform. While in line to turn in the paperwork, I noticed that a girl came from Bulgaria to work here, and one of the culinary cooks at the lodge is completely deaf. He was right in front of me in line, when he got to the front I realized he was deaf, then when he was done and I came to the front, I saw on the sign in sheet he’d filled out “culinary cook” as his title.

            After coming back to the dorms to put my uniforms away and hanging out for a bit, I went with my roommate back to the cafeteria for lunch. The employee cafeteria here is awesome, by the way. The food is great, they’re well equipped with several choices for every meal, the line moves really fast, and they even have ice cream available after dinner. Anyway, after lunch we went to orientation, which started at one.

            Orientation lasted about two and a half hours and covered a lot of information. The first speaker was one of the training managers of the Grand Teton Lodge Company, then the employee recreation manager (yes, that’s really his job), and finally a park ranger. As they said in orientation, people pay literally thousands of dollars to come stay here and take part in all of the activities GTNP offers, and we have all of it available to us for free. I’m also just amazed at how well this company treats its employees; there are tons of parties, socials, barbecues, and staff-only activities that are happening all the time. There’s actually a party coming up Sunday evening, right before the lodge opens to the guests on Monday.

            When orientation was over, at about 3:30, I decided to walk around the dorm area for a while. It warmed up nicely this afternoon, and was an absolutely beautiful day. There’s a small basketball court in between two of the dorm buildings, and some guys were playing around on it while several others were sitting near it watching. I recognized two of them as the guys that had introduced themselves to me at dinner last night, so I went and sat next to them and struck up a conversation. After a while Cristina came out of the dorm and started hanging out with us too. I learned that the two main guys I was talking to will both be bartenders and servers in the restaurant in the lodge, so they’ll be working very close to us. I think we’ll all probably hang out again soon.

            After going and getting dinner, the rooms department had an informal get together to get to know each other. I met the other front desk agents- there’s about ten of us- as well as some of the housekeeping staff, and all of the supervisors in the department.