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How to avoid being a jerk on your ski vacation.

MaineSkiLady

Angel Diva
I always say thanks. This being a "community" place, most people know one another and are on a first name basis, so "Thanks, ___." They seem to be eternally cheerful. It's contagious. :smile:
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
There's been a lot of discussion on whether or not we say 'thanks' to the lifties and so on. But what about other ways we can avoid being jerks? What about the locals? I'm a local in a ski town, and I can say unequivocally that there are people who come here and yes, they act like jerks. They pay no regard to the local culture, act like they're entitled to whatever they want and behave in a rude manner. What do you think about that?
 

NewEnglandSkier

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
They pay no regard to the local culture, act like they're entitled to whatever they want and behave in a rude manner.
I think in general, people who do that tend to be just as clueless and rude at home. One doesn't usually change their behavior drastically depending on where they are. If that is how they are behaving, I'd say they are likely just that way in general. If they feel the need to curse out a clerk, that's probably just how they are. That doesn't make it right though.
But there is something to be said for "when in Rome . . . do as the Romans do".
 

Jenny

Angel Diva
I think in general, people who do that tend to be just as clueless and rude at home. One doesn't usually change their behavior drastically depending on where they are. If that is how they are behaving, I'd say they are likely just that way in general. If they feel the need to curse out a clerk, that's probably just how they are. That doesn't make it right though.
Agreed.

I'm not big on small talk, so I'm not going to be chatting much with random people, but a please and thank you never hurt me. And a couple observations on weather or something probably won't kill me either.

I'm very, very tired of the "me, me, and only me" attitude it seems like is so much more prevalent these days.
 

Après Skier

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I feel the road to courtesy and mutual understanding is a 2-way street. While ski resort locals don’t appreciate being bossed around by impatient cityfolk, non-locals expect to be treated with courtesy as well. In many mountain towns the people are beyond lovely: i.e. Bend, Aspen, Jackson, Mammoth… but, to be honest, there other ski areas were I make an effort to keep to myself because the locals make me feel unwelcome.
 

elemmac

Angel Diva
I love the point in the article about choosing smaller hills, though I disagree with the assumption that non corporation resorts automatically treat their employees better.
I agree, I love the advice to choose smaller mountains to learn. But I’m not exactly sure why it’s on a list of “how to avoid being a jerk”. I think there are plenty of reasons people choose larger mountains to learn on (more beginner terrain, better ski schools, more apres, more things to do that suit a whole family…etc), I don’t think they’re jerks for not choosing a small mountain…maybe I missed the point?
 

Iwannaski

Angel Diva
They pay no regard to the local culture, act like they're entitled to whatever they want and behave in a rude manner. What do you think about that?

I have a lot of questions about this! Are the local cultural norms understood to the visitors? Or are they unspoken/taken for granted by locals? If the latter, then maybe the people who are bringing in/inviting/housing the visitors need to educate the incoming folks?

If it’s plain rudeness - as opposed to regional niceties - do you think rudeness is disproportional to the average population? I mean, personally, I think a lot of people are rude. Just now, i was at the store, and a woman‘s cart was in my way in our tiny local market. instead of pulling it back 6” so I could roll by and get out of the next person’s way, she just said, “well, wait a minute” … so I backed my cart up so that she could finish slowly loading her stuff and then go without banging into me. This situation also meant that I stayed in the way of the person behind ME. So, it is just average rudeness but just amplified because in the higher density of the mountain with visitors it’s more pronounced?

If not just average population rudeness (but concentrated due to density), is the place for some reason attracting rude people? Unless we think skiers are disproportionately rude relative to the population (which cannot be true), I would suspect that a subset of people who are UNUSUALLY rude would either be that way because the location is attracting rude or there is something about them being there that makes them rude.

It would be an interesting study to see if there’s any correlation between the price point/driving time/prestige for visiting a mountain and the “rudeness index” associated therewith. Maybe the further the average visitor comes from, the ruder they are? Or the ruder they are seen to be? Like, are people nicer when they are closer to home? and is that “shame” driven or culture driven?
 

MaineSkiLady

Angel Diva
I pretty much understand what @ski diva is saying. The region where I live has 5 ski areas, 2 of them smaller, 3 large. And each one is very, very different in terms of, shall I say, ambience.

I no longer ski weekends or holidays, but I certainly have in the past.

The 2 smaller ski areas are lovely in terms of patron attitude. 1 of the large ones is also great. 1 is variable, depending on when one visits. The other is - well, let’s just say I really try to avoid it : (

None of this has anything to do with terrain, snow, services, etc. It’s all about customer/skier attitude.

I don’t know what the answer is; I don’t think there is an answer. My answer has been - luckily - to ski only on non-holiday weekdays - and avoid those places which tend to induce stress. Among many other things, I’ve seen knock-down, drag-out fights in parking lots, over parking spaces, cars intentionally hitting one another - enough to realize that wasn’t where I wanted to be. Also incredible vandalism.

Seek out the quiet places and quiet times. It’s worth the sacrifice? Well, at least it is to me. Ski areas with a real sense of local community have the best ambience. YMMV.
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
I apologize if I've offended anyone. I didn't mean to imply that everyone who isn't local to a ski town is rude or oblivious. Just some people. And yes, they're probably just as awful wherever they go. Some people are just plain rude and thoughtless. Here are a few examples: people who go into stores/local businesses with their ski boots on, even when there are signs clearly saying NO SKI BOOTS. Or people who park wherever they please, even when it's clearly not a parking space or they may be harming someone's yard or blocking someone's driveway (the vehicles who do this always have out of state plates). Or people who get annoyed if service takes a bit longer than they think it should, when the person behind the counter is doing the best they can. Clearly, these people have a feeling of entitlement that drives locals crazy. That's what I'm talking about
 

Christy

Angel Diva
There's been a lot of discussion on whether or not we say 'thanks' to the lifties and so on. But what about other ways we can avoid being jerks? What about the locals?
If people stopped staying in Airbnbs, that would help. They've made such an impact on affordability for locals. Yes there have always been vacation rentals and for a while, locas have been increasingly priced out, but Airbnb took this to a whole other level. They've been the ones to spend millions to lobby state legislatures to ban any attempt by municipalities to regulate short term rentals. So in Sun Valley/Ketchum, for example, it's illegal to regulate them, though the towns would like to, because of state law. And they've been the company to refuse to cooperate with places that DO have regulations. I think there are a lot of nice people that recognize the issues ski town workers have that still blithely rent Airbnbs. If we are looking for ways to stop being jerks, this would be a good place to start.
 

Iwannaski

Angel Diva
FWIW @ski diva, my questions were sincere curiosity, and I wasn’t offended (I won’t speak for anyone else). I am truly fascinated. So please forgive me for opining so much on this question. :smile:

From what @MaineSkiLady said, there ARE some places that attract jerks. Part of my work is looking for patterns, so I try to figure out why and where patterns exist. Are small places more polite because the people who go there are just more thoughtful? Are some larger places filled with a-holes because they ATTRACT a-holes? Or is it that the jerks just stand out more there for whatever reason? And are there even micro cultures within… like certain hours of the day or days of the week?

I suspect a mix.

So, for example, in our area, there are four places (all minuscule hills, right) within an hour of me. Each has its own culture. I go to the one with the culture and conditions that best suit my preferences. BUT, even there, I know that after noon on a weekend, I’m going to start either laughing at or getting annoyed by people. So we go on weekend mornings ONLY. Or on days off where ONLY SOME school districts are off.

But what I do know, is that there are a variety of folks - both never evers and hill regulars- who are just jerks. And I think I do notice it MORE when the density is higher. People carrying their skis through the lodge instead of around (DESPITE THE SIGNAGE), people being jerks in the lift line (the concept of line shouldn’t be alien), people literally standing on the narrow uphill bridge to get to the hill, people leaving their skis all over the snow instead of in the rack… I could go on, but you get it. And I’m in the Midwest… where for the most part we try REALLY hard to be polite. Try. For the most part.

But is this different than air travel? I talked to a waitress at DTW when I was flying for work and we were just chatting about her day … she told me that she has seen so much rudeness and poor behavior in the last few years. Her hypothesis was that the number of business travelers had gone down, but the number of ”untrained” travelers had gone up and they just didn’t know how to act… but that’s all she was seeing so it felt like everyone had lost their minds.

How do you fix it? Get a time machine and ask their moms and dads to teach them manners when they were kids? Go further back and go to their grandparents? I don’t know. I think it’s very much a micro culture of where people live and grow up, and is then reflected in the choices they make.

On our playground at our local/walkable elementary school, if a kid is being a brat, ANY mom will tell that child to stop… some more than others. ;) I think it makes our kids fundamentally more respectful and aware of those around them. Not every community has that. We know each other’s kids, they know us, they know who they can go to for help and it’s a pretty long list. I honestly think it starts that early, and I don’t think a lot of kids growing up in American suburbia get that. We live where we live VERY deliberately.

So, by the time an adult is skiing, if they’re a jerk? The only thing to do is to hope that your resort isn’t attractive to that type of person? I feel like that has the practicality of the time machine suggestion. ;)

PS: can you tell I have FEELINGS about this? Thank you for asking.
:smile:
 

mustski

Angel Diva
But there is something to be said for "when in Rome . . . do as the Romans do".
The problem is that they are unfamiliar with "roman" culture. I have lived in cities, beach towns, and ski resorts and all three cultures are massiveley different. Visitors don’t necessarily understand that they are being rude. I’m not talking about saying please or thank you or cutting a line for example. Big Bear is a small town but a quarter million visitors descend on us every weekend. One of the cashiers at the grocery store visits with every customer as they come through her check stand. It doesn’t matter if the line is 5 customers or 50, she is going to chat and visit. People from LA get super frustrated, impatient, and just don’t get it. They cut her iff and don’t respond. In their minds she is inefficient but in reality she is what this small town is all about.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
One of the things I like about Alta is that riding lifts as a single is pretty easy. Meaning even when there are few enough people that a liftie is not managing the lift line. People who have an extra seat, whether because they are solo or a two-some or three-some don't mind sharing a chair at all.

The converse of that are people who don't understand how lift line merges or singles lines work. So to avoid being perceived as a jerk, it helps to pay close attention the first few times in a lift maze. The Alta lift lines using a "Front Row" process that is not that common. Newbies who don't pay attention are usually quick to learn though and rarely talk back when asked to wait.
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
The problem is that they are unfamiliar with "roman" culture. I have lived in cities, beach towns, and ski resorts and all three cultures are massiveley different. Visitors don’t necessarily understand that they are being rude. I’m not talking about saying please or thank you or cutting a line for example. Big Bear is a small town but a quarter million visitors descend on us every weekend. One of the cashiers at the grocery store visits with every customer as they come through her check stand. It doesn’t matter if the line is 5 customers or 50, she is going to chat and visit. People from LA get super frustrated, impatient, and just don’t get it. They cut her iff and don’t respond. In their minds she is inefficient but in reality she is what this small town is all about.

This is exactly what I mean by culture. It’s the same here in my ski town in Vermont.
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@Christy the rudest students are consistently the ones staying at the top end hotels not short term rentals in my 20 year experience. I have seen it first hand and the only guests I have been yelled at by or witnessed yelling at staff were all staying at one of 2 hotels. These were the most expensive hotels at the base of the resort. This year I was yelled at by employees in other departments at my ski area too. Bad enough that teenage boys in line next to my that I'd never met asked the sales lady to her face " hey lady! What's with the attitude?" Disclaimer: I own and manage a short term rental. The median home sale price is 3.5 mil in our county. Most home buyers new to our market don't need to STR their places where as normal people are the ones that do to be able to keep paying the rapidly increasing taxes and insurance. Selling my STR will not create a home for local service industry employees as mortgages in that price range are too high for the corresponding hourly pay jobs. Unlike the new hotels being built, many of those of us who rent out part of our home or a cabin we own actually do all the work ourselves. Not the case for STR in the luxury market, but hotels take a lot more staff that all need housing and more hotels keep being built. I used to live in a CA beach town woth zero STRs and many many months our lights were the only ones lit on the street. Maybe not having people stay in hotels would keep the jerks out? Having worked as a banquet server for the biggest hotels in Jackson I also know first hand that hotel rooms display the lack of respect way more than STRs in terms of how visitors trash the spaces. Again, only anecdotal, but my renters respect the house way more than many do their hotels and many have become dear friends that I visit in their home states.
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
@snoWYmonkey , good theory, and maybe it's the case there. But I live in a place where there are far more STR's and second homes (many of them ultra expensive) than hotels, B&B's, or inns, and I find the same sort of behavior here. And yes, very often it is those with a LOT of money who are impatient or rude with the locals Again, I'm not saying all of them. But some believe that the rules don't apply to them, or that they should get special priority/service because 'don't you know who I am?' or 'this isn't how it's done at home.'
 

ilovepugs

Angel Diva
I won’t name names to avoid being political, but a well-known US Senator recently had the cops called on him at the Bozeman airport after he missed the check-in window and insisted on being allowed to check in anyway. He played the “do you know who I am” card and…well… they did not. It filled my heart with glee to read this news.
 

Abbi

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I always thank everybody! And say ‘hello‘ and ‘how are you?’ and if I see their name tag I use that. It’s called the basic respect of existence, as a starting point. Too many walk by those doing seemingly menial things in the world as though they are not even there. :frown:
 

elemmac

Angel Diva
I feel the road to courtesy and mutual understanding is a 2-way street.
So much truth here.

I live in two tourist towns and am on local Facebook pages for both. The elitist attitude that comes out when a tourist asks questions can be brutal. I also witness clueless tourists on an almost daily basis…unaware of basic driving patterns, wandering into the middle of the street not paying attention.

When witnessing someone being rude, oblivious or disrespectful, I try to look around and remind myself that they are a minority…unfortunately the rude one are the ones that are noticed and remembered.
 

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