December 28, 2005

I am really exhausted. I have been on skis for 9 days in a row now. I still have a few more days before I get a break.

Lessons are going well. I am enjoying teaching skiing again and am back into the swing of things. I am mostly giving people good lessons and I think most people have fun in my lessons. Most of the time I am having fun, too. Sometimes it amazes me at how I can spin around and move on skis in the process of conducting a lesson. I am also feeling pretty fit, skiing up hill to help fallen students or to fetch dropped equipment. I am feeling physically quite capable.

Today I had the lesson of the season. I say this because I am sure I won’t get many of these. The family who is staying in the penthouse suite (who happen to have the same last name as me) came in to learn to ski. The father already knows how to ski so I had the 17 year old twin daughters, a boyfriend, a friend, and the mother. That is 5 people in a private lesson which means I get paid very well. They set no time limit, just told me to take them out for as long as they wanted. We went for three hours which gets me paid over $200. On top of that, I got a $200 tip. That is a better hourly rate than I have ever made. Too bad I can’t work like that every hour. The kicker is that they are here for a few more days and the possibility exists that I will be giving them more lessons. If I could teach wealthy people every week, I could actually make a living at this gig.

It feels weird getting a big tip. I am not really comfortable with that. I really don’t like tipping from either end. I guess the implied power in the relationship seems wrong to me. Customers are not better than the people serving them. I understand that if someone works hard to provide good service, they probably deserve to be paid more. In many cases, a tip is just an expression of appreciation. Having worked as a waiter and ski instructor, and having spent a great deal of time in Las Vegas, I have seen many workers working for tips rather than just working to provide good service. They basically hang around and try to be subservient to potential big tippers, rather than focusing on providing good service to all customers. On the other side of the equation, I have seen people who seem to find a source of esteem in giving big tips. It is almost as if they feel more important just because they are giving money. I guess the good news for me is that tips are not a normal occurrence in giving lessons so I won’t have this weird feeling too often.

Christmas was wonderful. We slept in a little and got a late start heading to the resort. On the way there, wee saw a few moose along Potter Marsh. One was trotting in the road on a side street. I told Kris that it was interesting that the moose was also named Kris. It was a Merry Kris Moose. She didn’t really laugh either.

The skiing was perfect. We made laps all day long at the top of the mountain. Our legs were burning, but we kept going. The snow was deep and soft. It was a little heavy, but our technique has improved to where we can really enjoy it. We found lots of nice routes down the mountain. We had most of the steeper ungroomed sections to ourselves. Our form started falling apart and we quit early. It gave us time to leisurely change our clothes and head over to the restaurant.

Dinner was very good. The restaurant was beautiful. It snowed most of the evening while we were at the top of the mountain enjoying dinner. It was dark so the only view was of the lights of Girdwood 2300 feet below through the limited visibility, but it was still a perfect end to a perfect day.