We Open Tomorrow!!

            Today was the third and final day of job training; the lodge officially opens to guests tomorrow! Training has really seemed like information overload, but I think we’ll be okay after some more practice. We won’t be too busy at first anyway. I heard that tomorrow we’re expecting to get to about 25 percent capacity based on the reservations we have, which is about 65 people.

            Today I also learned that one of the perks of working in a lodge with two awesome restaurants is the staff gets to sample all the dishes they offer so we can offer recommendations to guests. At lunch time today, instead of going to the employee cafeteria, we went upstairs to the Pioneer Grill, which is a fifties style diner in the lodge. The staff basically brought out two or three plates of most menu items, and we passed all the plates around, tasting everything. The chicken wings and one of the burgers were especially delicious, but everything I tasted was really good. It was a pretty fun lunch.

            The supervisors let us out of training at about 2:30 so we could go back to our dorms to change out of our uniforms and be back to the lodge at 3:00 for the summer 2014 kickoff event. There were several speakers including the head of Grand Teton Lodge Company, the manager of the hotel, and one of the head park rangers. They all talked about what their “experience of a lifetime” has been in the Tetons, and also asked some people in the audience that were returners what their favorite experiences were. When the speakers were finished we all gathered for a big group picture, then just mingled for a while and headed back to the dorms. Cristina and I were hanging with one of our coworkers, who we were walking back with. We’re meeting him in about half an hour outside our dorm to head to dinner.

Tomorrow I’m planning to go for a hike since I won’t need to be at work until 3:00; I work the desk from 3:00 to 11:00 the next two days.