When did you "throw in the towel"?

[DBdude]

Thanks. I did "real world" for like 7 years. It's where I got alot of work experience. It's also where I realized I wanted to trade in my big salary for time. Now I am back at the other end of the spectrum though. Too much time and not enough income. I haven't found the middle ground yet. Burning through savings and investments hoping to make real connections that lead to something legitimate. Have a couple possibilities but they all require legit chunks of cash that I don't have.

Everything is a compromise

Find a career and job close to where you can deal with living. There are lots of great places that don’t have world class skiing - but the skiing is pretty good

That does not mean whitefish or Jackson or revel stoke


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[Micol]

lots of good info in this thread...if you are single and have no dependents, take a chance...worked out for me...but you have to be willing to do the work as well as the play...sometimes you can do both at the same time if you map it out with the right gig....but if the choice is a "job" in the mountains...that's not really owning your time nor the same as doing what you want, when you want....like i said, good info in this thread....even if you pursue your own deal, you have to have some skills and low overhead imo...

[billyk]

As a Canadian observing this thread, the 'going back to school' option seem really insane given the way US tuition rates look.

Yeah, it’s expensive, but student loans are pretty easy to get. If you get a degree in a field that pays, like computer science, engineering, medicine, etc, you will be earning at a higher rate for the rest of your career, so it still pays off.

But, even if you can’t swing that, getting something like a nursing degree or radiation tech or even just getting a CDL is better than doing minimum wage manual labor.

On the other hand, the world needs ditch diggers, too.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Didn't WRG live somewhere out West previously (and with a different username)?
Anyway, 30s and no kids is no time to give up. FFS.

[Micol]

^ this may not be about him...imo we should keep this thread on task for offering our opinion of good advice op asked for and not tailor it to who it might be or not...

[rideit]

Maybe OP should just move to Idaho Falls and work for INEEL

[Bronco]

Lived there for 5 years working my ass off. This was after 5 years of working my ass off to build a small house and move there. Played a bit and had a great time but it's not an easy place to make a living. We finally "threw in the towel" in 2009 when my salary (and everyone else in the development company) was cut 40%. You'll know when it's time and it won't just be because you're discouraged. It sounds like the reality of living there is just settling in. At least you'll have some good stories to tell your friends and family in the future.

[Timberridge]

Lived there for 5 years working my ass off. This was after 5 years of working my ass off to build a small house and move there.

"Bronco has the ass of Bangkok ladyboy."
"Yeah, 10 years of living the ski town dream will do that to you."

OP, have you ever considered a move back to the EC? Specifically, Londonderry VT?

[bagtagley]

Throwing in the towel/giving up is BS. It’s just a decision to make a change. Don’t let other people’s perception drive your own.

I’m not saying this is the case, but I’ll add that defining self and happiness by a single pursuit (skiing for instance) is often a recipe for disappointment.

[liv2ski]

This. There are those places with excellent outdoor opportunities that still have real jobs - not resort towns.

Living in Reno (or SLC, or whatever) isn't living in Vail or Jackson, but it could be a lot worse.

And where you live is pretty damn sweet. I could live there no problem. To the OP's question, I see so much work in my hood in the trades. Our previous neighbor was a young man that is a general contractor. After about 10 years of working in this town, he is doing really well. So ya, it takes an investment of time to do well in many businesses.

[PNWbrit]

Didn't WRG live somewhere out West previously (and with a different username)?

What alias did he post as about leaving there?

It's getting really difficult to keep up.

[grskier]

Hey thanks. Its not your imagination, I did post but I went back to change a spelling error and deleted the whole thing by mistake. I got tied up at work the rest of the day but I'll try and recreate it below.

I've almost thrown in the towel twice in my 12 years in a ski town. The first was after my first year to go to grad school. I didn't even make it onto campus before turning around and moving back. The second was after I got the inevitable letter that my sweet cheap rental of six years was going on the market and I needed to get my ass out immediately. I was lucky to go that long, this usually happens every six months to a year for most.

Both times I took a trip home for a week or two to the real world. It helps to go to someplace boring, where the real world is actually being the real world, not someplace new and exciting. It is usually a good perspective that everyone looks at differently, but for me it was/still is fat people and their general apathy for life but a desire for a fat paycheck that turned me off to the real world and had me running back.

That being said, there are certain inalienable truths of living in a ski town that you need to accept, or you are going to have a tough time.

1) You will make 50% at best compared to a similar field in a major city. Maybe 75% of what someone would make in some middle America one. It will take you twice as long to reach that pay grade compared to both as well. Professional jobs do exist but take a couple years of making it work before you will stumble into one. It will probably not be in a field you went to school for.

2) You will be surrounded by people who have way more money than you. This gets very apparent as soon as you, or your cohorts start having children. I am amazed at how many people I know sold their 15 year old Tacos and Subarus and are now buying BMW's and 2.5 million dollar houses now that they have kids. They will do this while the whole time you know they make maybe 25 bucks an hour at best.

3) People in general are more selfish. Most of their wealth is from Mom and Dad and they are not used to not getting what they want. With a limited amount of resources (significant others, professional careers) the amount of backstabbing and general pettiness/dickishness you will encounter will astound you despite the small town nature. You will see lots of charitable giving as people try and repent.

4) Entrepreneurship is encouraged in concept but not practice. The amount of good ol boy bullshit and moat building you will encounter will be extreme compared to some real world place where people generally don't care if there is a little competition in comparison. Lots of times, these are "bought" jobs with money from Mom and Dad and are not capable of handling said competition.

5) Your social circle will turn over at least three times a decade while you get established. Fred is probably spot on that maybe 1% of people will make it, for every one lifelong friend you make you will have 99 ski buddies who stick around for a year or three then leave.

Now with that all being said. If you give up caring about comparing yourself to others, which is pretty difficult in general but is probably required, you will have an amazing life. Literally none of what I listed above (well maybe except the social circle part) will ever be a problem or a care if you don't give a shit about keeping up with the Joneses. Also, none of the backstabbing pettiness if people don't see you as a threat to those limited resources and are otherwise generally pretty rad.

For me, I found the right balance about 20 minutes outside of paradise and work in a professional gig that is decent and challenging enough, that took me almost 5 years to stumble into. Out here I can actually own a house with people who don't get help from Mom and Dad as much, and they tend to stick around longer. Its pretty nice. I usually get a little jaded by the end of summer, usually sitting in tourist traffic, then fly home for a week and sit in real traffic and laugh at how good I got it.

I stumbled into a dream job, but now it's just the job. We moved 25 minutes away from paradise, and have an awesome community.. we're lucky, I get it.

You need to take a step back to see everything that adironrider wrote about... which you probably haven't gotten to do yet. If you can't take that step back, you'll be more prone to throw in the towel earlier than later.

[ill-advised strategy]

I think in the phase of my "ski town life" where things were really cooking along well these were the key elements:

1) I lucked into a management job, but that "luck" was also the nature of a GM who knew the culture where I grew up and correctly anticipated...:
.......1a) I could not, and would not allow my ski shop to be a piece of shit, so I worked from 6 or 7am to 7-10pm 6 or 7 days a week, on salary, because I love skiing and ski gear and tuning and repair and bootfitting and all of it....and, believe it or not, I loved giving that experience to vacationers, and because it was my shop to manage and I was simply not gonna let the work go undone. Period. I worked myself raw at that job, but also it was a job full of love. I loved my employees, I loved that ski area, I loved being a part of the whole thing.

2) The management job and doing decently with it led to a rep and a network of people, including a spectacular girlfriend and her giant network of people, that led to lots of other things, and the hustles were on. Landscaping for realtors on properties for sale....picking lettuce on an organic farm for fancy restaurants in town....wildland fire with a small contractor....demolition for a private individuals construction project....falling trees for a forestry contractor....flipping pickup trucks and motorcycles for $$$...

So I say....be there, be good, keep knocking around and meeting people until you stick to something decent....then hustle hustle hustle. It's not undoable

Or go do "real world" near the mountains and manage your time and schedule and budget and vehicle like a ninja.
The devil's in the details. Sadly, skiing as a lifestyle, for non-trustfunders, is a harsh grind. I don't know of any scenario where that's not true. So you have to grind it out.

I just longboarded and walked the dog. There was some awful fucking cunt with a gaggle of little kids taking up the entire path, so I chose to emergency slide instead of blowing past little kids at 30 mph on the skateboard. This took the form of a David Lee Roth knee slide, totally eating the insides of my ankles and wrecking some vans. Then I went and hobbled around with the dog. Touron explosion (!!!) in our favorite beach walking area, so we had to hobble around elsewhere. Poodle gave me disappointment eyes, because he doesn't understand tourons, and why they're on his beach.
Now I have to go spend the next 8 hours in a bus seat with my sore ankles and wrists, oozing road rash getting infected by disgusting bus germs.

Grinding. Unless you've got that family money you're gonna be grinding.

[MontuckyFried]

Grinding. Unless you've got that family money you're gonna be grinding.

Truth. There's simply no way around that.

[danmelon]

Grinding. Unless you've got that family money you're gonna be grinding.

seems appropriate

[jono]

What are your expectations from "connections"? Social connections? People to ride or ski with? Or something to give you a leg up in a career?

It's important to distinguish between them, but my quick advice is the same: be patient, be generous, always exceed expectations, keep your own expectations low and show appreciation when they are exceeded. No one owes you anything and the connections you're looking to make are the ones where people remember you as someone they want to see/hangout/do business with again.

Lots of people blame small town culture for their inability to break in, but which is more disingenuous: smiling at everyone--even the guy you don't really trust, or expecting that every smile implies the acceptance of some obligation? No one owes you anything. They can wish you well and still not be ready to bet on you. Earn their trust and they'll keep calling, whether to head out for adventures or for jobs. But don't expect your skiing friends to hook you up with jobs; be happy if it happens and make sure you exceed expectations if it does.

Be patient and keep your expectations (and overhead) low. Until it's time to throw in the towel, I guess, but I've never thought about that side of it--with low enough overhead it can be pretty easy to survive a few bad days/years.

[DBdude]

"Bronco has the ass of Bangkok ladyboy."
"Yeah, 10 years of living the ski town dream will do that to you."

OP, have you ever considered a move back to the EC? Specifically, Londonderry VT?

Ludlow or Rutland my man


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[concretejungle]

What alias did he post as about leaving there?

It's getting really difficult to keep up.

Exactly. Has the OP considered talking to a therapist?


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[dunfree]

Yeah, a big one for dreamers in the outdoor world is putting off maturation in favor of a myopic focus on pursuits that might not have a return profile that meets assumptions.

i think a fair bit of that is the return profile has changed a fair bit in the past 20 years; things that were quirky backwater sports/companys/communitys are no longer that and have been integrated into the broader world. As the integration inexorably proceeds the return will continue to change away from what might have been an 00s maxima of local power/prosperity.

small town culture is when people have lived there for 100 years and don't like people not from around there. which is ... different than whats being discussed here.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

seems appropriate

Best band name ever.

[ill-advised strategy]

What are your expectations from "connections"? Social connections? People to ride or ski with? Or something to give you a leg up in a career?

It's important to distinguish between them, but my quick advice is the same: be patient, be generous, always exceed expectations, keep your own expectations low and show appreciation when they are exceeded. No one owes you anything and the connections you're looking to make are the ones where people remember you as someone they want to see/hangout/do business with again.

Lots of people blame small town culture for their inability to break in, but which is more disingenuous: smiling at everyone--even the guy you don't really trust, or expecting that every smile implies the acceptance of some obligation? No one owes you anything. They can wish you well and still not be ready to bet on you. Earn their trust and they'll keep calling, whether to head out for adventures or for jobs. But don't expect your skiing friends to hook you up with jobs; be happy if it happens and make sure you exceed expectations if it does.

Be patient and keep your expectations (and overhead) low. Until it's time to throw in the towel, I guess, but I've never thought about that side of it--with low enough overhead it can be pretty easy to survive a few bad days/years.

Here’s what I mean: when my new neighbor asks about firewood I recommend my friend Bob. Bob does a good fair job so my new neighbor knows I know people who can get things done, ergo I can get things done. When Bob hears I’m looking to put a plow on my truck he offers me a great deal on one sitting in his equipment yard. I need a hand welding the plow carriage so I go to my friend Dave. Dave makes me a good deal on the work, he’s doing it after hours in his employer’s shop as a side gig. Later, when my friend Tim needs his Toyota, my old Toyota I sold him el cheapo, worked on and Dave needs some extra money for Christmas time, I hook them both up...Tim gets an honest mechanic and Dave gets an easy job and some extra cash.

Then I can plow my new neighbor out when it dumps. I ask Dave about mechanical stuff all the time while I’m hanging out fetching tools and holding flashlights for him. Tim hasn’t done shit for me, in fact Tim doesn’t seem to really get how all this works, but that’s no big deal, so we ski and surf and life goes on.

Maybe that new neighbor is the manager somewhere. Maybe his friend is. Maybe his wife’s girlfriend has a vacancy for a really good evening shift mowing lawns and plowing sidewalks over at the college and neighbor lady knows I keep my house nice and plow the neighborhood well and go to work every day. Maybe not....maybe it’s nothing but a good deed, and that’s fine too. I like getting along.

Ken knows I have a rotten shift on Wednesdays, so he steered his charter group to Wednesday so I could drive his group instead of working my awful normal shift. I give Ken’s daughter free bus fare and when people are interested in a place to stay nearby, I tell them about Ken’s rental cabins....which are indeed very nice.

It’s just about being there and being good. Be there, be good. Make friends and take care of each other.

[Timberridge]

tuck the tail and go home

What alias is he posting under these days?

[fastfred]

What are your expectations from "connections"? Social connections? People to ride or ski with? Or something to give you a leg up in a career?

It's important to distinguish between them, but my quick advice is the same: be patient, be generous, always exceed expectations, keep your own expectations low and show appreciation when they are exceeded. No one owes you anything and the connections you're looking to make are the ones where people remember you as someone they want to see/hangout/do business with again.

Lots of people blame small town culture for their inability to break in, but which is more disingenuous: smiling at everyone--even the guy you don't really trust, or expecting that every smile implies the acceptance of some obligation? No one owes you anything. They can wish you well and still not be ready to bet on you. Earn their trust and they'll keep calling, whether to head out for adventures or for jobs. But don't expect your skiing friends to hook you up with jobs; be happy if it happens and make sure you exceed expectations if it does.

Be patient and keep your expectations (and overhead) low. Until it's time to throw in the towel, I guess, but I've never thought about that side of it--with low enough overhead it can be pretty easy to survive a few bad days/years.

yeah what he said

I got endless funny stories about coming of age in a ski town
the best is this guy I worked with 25 years ago, just another dip shit, we were getting high all the time at work and bob would never get high, he just minded his own business and laughed at us and went along for the ride
one day bob says I'm quiting and I'm gonna be a "banker" we laughed at bob for being such a straight edge square and getting all serious while were all fucking off
today bob is one of the biggest players in town, great guy and we laugh about those days now when we run into each other

[Bunion 2020]

Yeah, a big one for dreamers in the outdoor world is putting off maturation in favor of a myopic focus on pursuits that might not have a return profile that meets assumptions.

Results vary but what you describe has worked out for me.

[AK47bp]

Just don’t flail your arms when you throw the towel.


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