10 Reasons a Chalet Couple job is the one...

How sad, another list...

Every single blogging site nowadays seems to have at least some sort of cliché list going on (look, seriously this French language thing is a piece of piss…cliché cliché cliché!) so I thought why the hell not add one to this wonderful site*! So here are my 10 reasons a Chalet Couple job is the best in the mountains...

*Anything to help bump me up in the Google search rankings…’’oh god please boost my rankings!!’’

10 – You’re with your better half or close friend

When shit hits the fan or you get the mid-season blues, you already have your favourite there to perk you up. Or do the dishes. Or both. You are not alone!

9 – Bond with guests

Unless they’re complete arseholes, you are going to be spending each week with a different group of people for 5/6 months and be sat down at mealtimes with them sharing bottle(s) of red (other colours of wine are available)! Friendships can be made but have an open mind and you can have some genuinely awesome times with your guests and they may cut you some slack if you hungovingly forgot to add the sugar to your afternoon cake and it tastes a bit like a giant baked egg with a drizzle on top…

8 – Tips

Goes along with number 9 in gaining a good bond with your guests BUT, think of it this way; you’d tip your waiter/waitress at a restaurant after a single meal, so why wouldn’t you tip someone who has cooked you 3 square meals a day for 6 days straight (albeit with a bit of dodgy cooking and a hell of a lot of luck)? It can sometimes just be beer token money but play your cards right and it could actually double your monthly pay in a single week! and we all know how bad the basic pay is!

7 - Independence

Sure, you’re supervisor/manager will check on you from time to time but ultimately, you’re on your own and the rules stop with you. If no one’s looking, why not take that dip in the hot tub that you’ve been forbidden from…just DON’T get caught!!

6 – Your own accommodation

It may not be the Savoy hotel, but trust me, having a space that is just the two of yours is invaluable. The last thing you want when you’re ill, tired, run down and have the guests from hell is finishing a shift to be greeted by a dorm of 8 seasonnaires hyped up from their après ski session playing the 80’s tunes they’ve just discovered through a monstrosity of a speaker whilst your resting on your top bunk bed with its springs stabbing you in the back.

5 – All expenses paid

Now this does vary between companies, but most will offer you an attractive package. Sure, the actual pay is piss poor but a season long ski pass (hopefully a full area!), ski/board hire, insurance, travel, end of season bonus and holiday pay can become reaaally handy. You won’t necessarily get that with other jobs. Your pocket money can hopefully come in the form of Tips too (see #8).

4 – Family mentality

Working as a chalet couple for companies that have more than one catered chalet on their books can mean you make real friendships with the other seasonnaires. Favours quickly become currency between you all and chipping in for one another will really benefit you in the long run. Throw in the awesome parties to be had, mad ski sessions together and general family ‘togetherness’, you can have a great time and genuinely go through a grieving stage when someone has to cut their season short.

3 – If you’re shit at cooking, don’t do it

This does depend on one of you actually doing the cooking but at least you can share the jobs between you. If you can’t rustle up bread ‘n’ pull it, but your partner thinks they’re Heston Blumenthal then go with it. As long as they get the 3 solid meals out on time, and to the right number of guests (don’t forget yourselves!) then you can happily whittle away the morning and evening hours scrubbing the tiles and getting the fucking kids fingerprints off all the mirrors and glasses after they’ve just ate treacle tart. With their hands. Grr.

2 – The hours

Yes its hard work. Yes its long hours. Yes its minimum wage (another blog to follow about that…I’ve worked out the actual wage!!!) but my god, working 6:30-11 (if you’re lucky) maybe a little longer, then if you don’t serve afternoon tea directly to your guests 7-10:30 most days sounds pretty do-able. And part of that is doing what you would normally do anyway; make breakfast and dinner. True, it has to be a bit more than cornflakes and milk and pizza in the oven for many more people than you’ve probably every had to cook for but it’s not thaaaat bad. Minus the 5am-7pm changeover day. And long shopping day. And maybe deep clean once a month. But still, suck it up, you could be stuck in a dingy grey office looking at a square screen for 8 solid hours whilst making small talk with Mavis from accounts who has as much personality as a fart. A low, long, sweeping, moaning fart.

1 - SKI TIME!

If you’ve stayed with me until the end, congratulations, this is the best part! There is certainly a reason chalet couple jobs are among the most coveted and that’s because you can maximise your time on the pow pow with it. Those hours in #2 I mentioned, what do you do in between those split shifts I hear you scream? Well my friends, strap on in for this absolute stonker of a revelation. YOU SKI! You get as far away from your chalet as possible on as many runs as you can in the shortest amount of time. You find the baddest of après bars and fuck bomb yourself into a whole world of trouble with your very influential friends before tackling the hardest blue slope of your life to get home. You immediately sober up at your chalet door singing much louder than you anticipated to a room full of expectant sunburnt faces and serve up some nosh on a plate…thank god for slow cookers. Enjoy it. You’ll fit 20 years’ worth of skiing into this ‘job’, be smart and you might squeeze some more into it...