ORIENTATION, Part One

Wow. December was intense. I have never learned so much, been so humbled, and felt so successful all in one month before. 

There were four parts: orientation (indoor), on-the-snow training, shadowing, and teaching. I'll save "shadowing and teaching" for next posts, here's my slightly traumatized overview of the two former activities.

Orientation:
Basically two days of sitting in a room finding out about how smart you were to apply for the job, how much fun you're going to have, and what things not to do, or your ass will get fired. There was one "getting to know" you exercise that was particularly memorable, as each new hire was asked to stand and state name, place of origin, and unique thing about him or her. The woman who started showed her unique thing: thumbs that pointed at right angles in the opposite direction of her fingers. This inspired a chain reaction of physical anomalies, building in remarkable intensity to the guy who said he can make smoke come out of his mouth, and he did. Just by puffing his breath and holding it for what seemed like a long enough time to cause serious brain damage, he eventually forced smoke out of his mouth in little signal-like puffs. He was the star of the group after that, and made my ability to wiggle my nose seem kind of stupid.

On-The-Snow Training:
We broke into random groups and were toured around the mountain for six days by a trainer who explained terrain, teaching elements, ways to deal with various crises and challenges. He was great. My group consisted of five under-25 year-old men, one 23 year-old woman, and me. We were bonding and laughing and having such a great time I forgot completely about the age difference until one day, when when we were sitting around at lunch and our trainer was talking about communication; specifically, the different things you say to 7 year-olds vs 12 year-olds, what will be most effective with each group, and why. He said, "Younger kids like being singled out and praised individually, but teenagers don't, so general feedback is better with them." 

I inserted a joke: "Just FYI, Trainer, I never outgrew loving being singled out individually," and everyone laughed appreciatively. 

Then, a few minutes later, he said, "You have to think of parents, too," (gesturing to me with a kindly pat on my shoulder) "I don't know about you, but some older people are really unfamiliar with the internet, and the tools we use to track our students can be confusing to them." 

Short awkward silence, which I quickly filled with: "Just FYI, Trainer, when I said I liked being singled out individually, I meant with praise for how awesome I am, not speculation about the things I might not understand because of how fucking old I am."

Everyone laughed appreciatively, Trainer put his head in his hands sheepishly, and it would have been best to stop there, but I could not resist: "Also, this is definitely going in my blog."

So there it is. 

Love you, Trainer!