Kirkwood to Emulate Powder Corporations New Philosophy
THANKS FOR CALLLLLLLLING KIRKWOOD
At Kirkwood, it is possible to have the best of both worlds. On one side of the door, the crisp air and rugged wilderness of the High Sierra await, on the other. As a poor, struggling, demon-infested corporate enslavement camp, we are proud to boast that while cutting basic services this past year, increasing the rudeness of staff and management to all time highs, we are now striving even harder to exceed these savings by adopting Powder Corps basic premise for ripping off customers. Our philosophy will change this year, upon our discovery of Powder Corp's secret plan to milk more money from Alpine Meadows' customers than we here at Kirkwood ever dreamed possible.
Please take time to peruse the philosophy we will now adopt and strictly adhere to as our buildout of wetlands areas begins to dwindle, decreasing the siphoning of profits from the sale of USFS land and, thus, can no longer pad our personal bank accounts:
http://www.tahoereview.com/content/view/24/36/
A perspective on the "money-hold" policies at Alpine Meadows Ski Resort.
The following is a transcript of a recent interview I, “Un-Important Passholder” had with “THE MAN”. “THE MAN” is an executive at Alpine Meadows who is deeply involved in developing and administering operations and mountain management policy. “THE MAN” is also an admitted ass-kissing brown-noser and all purpose Yes Man for Powder Corporation.
Un-Important Passholder: Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to sit down and talk with me about the management policies of Powder Corporation since taking over Alpine Meadows. I was hoping you could give me an inside view into the policy making.
THE MAN: Of course, I am glad for the opportunity. Years ago, when Powder Corporation bought Alpine Meadows, we started discussing the future of Alpine Meadows. After evaluating all the numbers, we realized that we couldn’t quite make the profit margins that we normally target. However, it was when mulling this very conundrum that I came up with a cutting edge business concept that is now the driving force behind all decision making at Alpine Meadows. I figured out that we could exponentially increase our profits if our customers paid us and we didn’t have to give them anything back. I know it sounds over the top, but let me explain this concept in layman terms. For example, imagine if you went to the supermarket and you filled up your cart with groceries, checked out and paid - but you weren’t actually allowed to take those groceries home. In that case, imagine how much more money the grocery store would make!
Un-Important Passholder: I think I understand. You are hoping that customers will buy a lift ticket or pass, however they wouldn’t actually get to go skiing?
THE MAN: That’s right. Pretty amazing idea, isn’t it? Unfortunately, you can’t patent ideas, or I as you can imagine I would be a very rich man.
Un-Important Passholder: Well, it certainly is a different concept to say the least. Being, that this is such a new concept how have you gone about implementing it?
THE MAN: Well, Un-Important Passholder, that is a great question. I knew I was on to something big here, but I wasn’t sure what to do next. The big question was, will people still pay for nothing? I had a hunch they would, I knew I needed help though, so I hired a crack team of psychologists. My psychologist team instructed me that you can’t just go from providing a great service to no service at all. You have to slowly wean people off - slowly but surely providing a lesser and poorer service. Eventually, your customers will forget what they once had and won’t know the difference. As time goes on, they will eventually expect nothing at all.
Un-Important Passholder: Now, that you have explained the motivation behind the Alpine Meadows policies and management strategy, I would be curious to know if there is an ultimate goal you have in mind?
THE MAN: Yet, is another good question. Personally, I still believe we could eventually shut down operations completely except of course the ticket sales department. However my team of psychologist believed that this goal was a bit far-reaching. So, I came up with another alternative that we decided is the next best thing. Believe it or not, we are going to turn Alpine Meadows into a Ski Museum. In this manner we will shutdown nearly all of Alpine Meadows operations including lift services, grooming, snow making, ski patrol, etc. A lift ticket will turn into a museum fee and will gain customers access to our non-guided tour. We do have plans to add a gift shop which will feature such items as scaled down model chairs, dynamite fuses and authentic Alpine Meadows employee clothing. Additionally, we plan to maintain the rental and demo shops, but the equipment will only be available to try on. We expect to still make a fair amount of revenue from this as our studies have shown that most customers that purchase rental equipment get enough satisfaction from just trying the equipment on. Since, the equipment won’t actually be used we will no longer have the burden of purchasing new equipment yearly. Similarly, we also have plans for producing an IMAX ski film which will be a documentary on what Alpine Meadows was like to ski when it was operational. In this manner, customers will still have the thrill of feeling what it is like to ski Alpine Meadows without requiring us to open the mountain for skiing. Essentially, we are maintaining services which represent our most significant profit centers like ticket sales, demo sales and the all new gift shop. While at the same time, we will be discarding major costs like running lifts, paying employees, and generally all the costs associated with maintaining an operational ski resort that you can actually ski at. We put our phasing out of services on a ten year plan that we hope to wrap up in the next couple years.
Un-Important Passholder: Tell me, how has this policy affected the employees?
THE MAN: In our effort of slowly reducing operations and lowering our quality of service we have had to let go quite a few employees. This has been done not only in an effort to reduce our workforce, but we have more specifically targeted long time Alpine Meadows employees. You see, these employees that have been working here for years are often being paid at a much higher pay rate than younger less experienced employees. Admittedly, these older employees are more knowledgeable and proficient at their jobs, but as I have outlined proficiency is the last thing we are looking for. So, we have been systematically replacing the older employees with younger and much less experienced ones whom we are able to pay significantly lower wage rates. Not only does this save us money in terms of wage rates, but it also has the effect of empowering people which we can almost guarantee, because of lack of experience, will provide a much lower level of service to our customers. This in effect, helps us achieve our long term goals of the reduction of customer expectations.
Un-Important Passholder: You have mentioned that your ten year plan in phasing out services is coming to end. What milestones have you achieved this season?
THE MAN: Un-Important Passholder, let me answer that by asking you a question. You mentioned that you ski almost daily. Do you plan on skiing tomorrow?
Un-Important Passholder: Actually, no I don’t. I just did my ritual weather check and they are calling for cloudy weather, with light winds and on top of that there is a chance of snow. As you know ski lifts can’t be run in such stormy conditions.
THE MAN: Well Un-Important Passholder, I hate to tell you this but you are a casualty of our reduction of customer expectations program. It took years, but we have essentially convinced skiers that you can’t ski in stormy weather. Just a couple years ago, skiers still dreamed at the idea of skiing on a snowy day. However, these days if the weather isn’t clear our customers expect scheduled operation of Roundhouse Lift as the best case scenario. It still amazes me that we were able to convince skiers that when it is snowing you can’t ski. Next year, we plan to keep the mountain totally closed any day we don’t have completely clear weather. You see, we make our best profits on clear days. Finally, as you have noticed our hours of operation have been reduced to a five hour day. We have never gone to such an abbreviated schedule before.
Un-Important Passholder: Thanks for your time and the insight into the operations of Alpine Meadows. I hope we can continue this interview on another occasion, but I am going to try and squeeze a couple turns in before Alpine closes.
THE MAN: It was my pleasure. Maybe we can do another interview during the Grand Opening of Alpine Meadows Ski Museum – or should I say the Grand Closing.
