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crgildart

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well Carve still pays less.......no reason to jump ship.
Are you sure about that? Just because they are adverting a lower rate than you earn as a L3 at Stowe doesn't mean they pay less elsewhere for different levels. Pay for a CA resort may be lower on average than pay at Stowe. What are instructors at the same resort being paid?
 

Josh Matta

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My entire point is they will not acquire top instructors at 25 an hour.
 

crgildart

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My entire point is they will not acquire top instructors at 25 an hour.


IDK.. I can imagine that there are people qualified to teach who pass on offers of $12/hr but would consider working with skis on for more than double that. Might cannibalize the ski patrol ranks some. Folks who lost interest as instructor pay dropped changed jackets because it comes with similar benefits and less hassle like showing up expecting a class/student and not getting one for starters. You know what to expect when you show up at the patrol shack. But for more than double the pay folks might change jackets again,,
 

fatbob

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How does the instuctor get compensated? Does the student pay direct? Does "Carve" pay them? Do they get 1099'ed? If the instructor gets paid directly by the student, how does Carve make money? If Carve gets paid and then pays the student, what percentage does Carve make? If it is up to the student to donate a fair amount for the lesson, how can they guarantee $30/hour?

I think the answers to these are fairly starightforward if you are an UBER and sit on a huge investment cash pile. You are not trying to maximise profit early but to install a large user pool and get them hooked on your service. So you make up the pay where the customer stiffs out, you keep a pot for litigation or bailing your guys out of jail or settling an injury lawsuit. Now the way to thwart Uber in the early days would have been to sit on them so tight that the customers found a significant proportion of their journeys disrupted because the cops or Caltrans or whoever were always demanding drivers' paperwork so we get to the second challenge. If customers never get to love the service you lose your most powerful lobby group. Resorts are a lot easier to police than roads of course and it would be relatively easy for a smart resort to hassle clients enough at lifts to put them off taking another Uber lesson.

So 2 main problems - thinking "uber for ski instructors" is a long way from being Uber in terms of having a warchest & relative ease with which resorts can play dirty to prevent you ever getting critical mass.
 

Monique

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Uber and Lyft have thus far been successful. I suppose this could be, as well. I wonder what car insurance does about those services - surely they'd want to charge more for someone who's on the road all the time with commercial passengers.

I can't tell if these models are here to stay, or if we're one tragedy away from the whole thing being regulated out of existence.
 

fatbob

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Uber and Lyft have thus far been successful. I suppose this could be, as well. I wonder what car insurance does about those services - surely they'd want to charge more for someone who's on the road all the time with commercial passengers.

I can't tell if these models are here to stay, or if we're one tragedy away from the whole thing being regulated out of existence.

Would have to be a biiiiig tragedy, the odd cab passenger dying in a fireball won't cut it. I have no actual eveidence but I suspect there are a proportion of Uber drivers driving on ordinary insurance and self certifying to Uber that they have adequate coverage, then there will be those that are doing it properly on full minicab insurance and probably at the extreme some self-insurers AKA when it comes to other people's risk, gamblers.
 

DoryBreaux

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So here is something else to think about, and maybe I missed this in my 11pm quick glance thru but, teaching for financial compensation without clearance at a resort you are not employed at, in CA anyways, is considered defrauding an innkeeper. If USFS permits them that's great, they can teach on the land, but the resort still owns, operates and regulates the infrastructure. So even if USFS gives them a permit, the second the step foot on a mail carpet or they're ass hits a chairlift, technically they are breaking the law.

I get what what they're trying to do, and believe me I'd love to make 30 bucks an hour as a L1, but I'll take roughly half that with the reliability of hours, free epic pass, industry deals, comp tickets, food discounts, not having to pay my own liability insurance, opportunities for training (sometimes paid), locker room and the (highly dysfunctional) family that all come with working for a real ski school.
 
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at_nyc

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then there will be those that are doing it properly on full minicab insurance
Talked to several commercial drivers in NYC, many of them are also on Uber to pick up additional work. They’ve already got all their over head up front. Nothing extra to sign up to Uber.
 

mdf

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NYC is a special case -- I really doubt that proper insurance usual in most of the country.
As others have noted, the Uber model is not really about smartphone apps -- it is about ignoring inconvenient laws and getting critical mass before anyone tries seriously to stop them. Now, it is true that the taxi industry was messed up, with a government-enforced shortage in a lot of cities. But the stories of Uber-enhanced traffic congestion shows there might be a reason to put some limit on the number of cabs.
 

Dave Marshak

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NYC is a special case ...
As others have noted, the Uber model is not really about smartphone apps -- it is about ignoring inconvenient laws and getting critical mass before anyone tries seriously to stop them. Now, it is true that the taxi industry was messed up, with a government-enforced shortage in a lot of cities. But the stories of Uber-enhanced traffic congestion shows there might be a reason to put some limit on the number of cabs.
New York really is a special case. In NYC, which had pretty good service, Uber directly challenged the City's authority to regulate the taxi industry. By the time the City figured out what was going on, there was too much public support for Uber to shut it down. In the rest of the State, where taxi service varies from bad to non-existent, the State prevented Uber from starting up for a couple of years while they wrote new insurance rules.

dm
 

Monique

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As for ski instruction -

Seems like we're always, always circling back to the pay issue. But I don't know the solution. I agree that teaching on land that's been improved via massive investments by a ski resort is distasteful. So is the pay scale at most resorts. There are tons of people who are interested in teaching just for fun for a season or two before "getting serious" with college or a career. In fact, I gather there are some people hired as ski instructors who can barely ski and are trained up through ski school before teaching others. (I actually think this might be more reasonable than it sounds at first blush - we've talked about how much better you might ski with lots of instruction before ingraining bad habits.) Students don't pay a premium for a higher level instructor, but that instructor costs the resort more - sometimes a lot more.

So, a union is an interesting idea (that's being tried, right?), but I think there would be tons of scabs happy to fill in the gaps during a strike.

I just can't think of a way to force ski schools to pay more when there are so many people who are fine teaching with minimal pay. They're doing it as a lark. Some are even semi-retirees with PSIA level 2 or 3 under their belts. And I can't find fault with that - at some point I'd like to start paying forward the stoke that instructors, particularly certain female instructors, kindled in me. And the general skiing population doesn't know to ask for higher certs. And no, maybe you don't strictly speaking NEED a high cert to teach you how to slide down the bunny hill - but imagine starting from the foundation an L3 or examiner could provide.

I think the reason we keep coming back to it is because there is no proper solution, short of converting to a basic income / minimum guaranteed income system that would allow people to follow their passions and still support themselves.

Where's the "duck and run" emoticon?
 

Goran M.

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It will never happen.

Or to put it in less bleak terms - it would take so many changes in our political system, business climate, social structure and individual thinking before this happens.

This is Amrika not some socialist Scandinavian country or Euro style "social democracy" (whatever that means).
 

martyg

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So here is something else to think about, and maybe I missed this in my 11pm quick glance thru but, teaching for financial compensation without clearance at a resort you are not employed at, in CA anyways, is considered defrauding an innkeeper. If USFS permits them that's great, they can teach on the land, but the resort still owns, operates and regulates the infrastructure. So even if USFS gives them a permit, the second the step foot on a mail carpet or they're ass hits a chairlift, technically they are breaking the law.

I get what what they're trying to do, and believe me I'd love to make 30 bucks an hour as a L1, but I'll take roughly half that with the reliability of hours, free epic pass, industry deals, comp tickets, food discounts, not having to pay my own liability insurance, opportunities for training (sometimes paid), locker room and the (highly dysfunctional) family that all come with working for a real ski school.

I love the idea. However if you have ever worked with NSAA you understand that it will never fly.
 

Blue Streak

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So here is something else to think about, and maybe I missed this in my 11pm quick glance thru but, teaching for financial compensation without clearance at a resort you are not employed at, in CA anyways, is considered defrauding an innkeeper. If USFS permits them that's great, they can teach on the land, but the resort still owns, operates and regulates the infrastructure. So even if USFS gives them a permit, the second the step foot on a mail carpet or they're ass hits a chairlift, technically they are breaking the law.

I get what what they're trying to do, and believe me I'd love to make 30 bucks an hour as a L1, but I'll take roughly half that with the reliability of hours, free epic pass, industry deals, comp tickets, food discounts, not having to pay my own liability insurance, opportunities for training (sometimes paid), locker room and the (highly dysfunctional) family that all come with working for a real ski school.
There’s a lot I don’t like about the Evil Empire, but the comaraderie is priceless.
Why do you think so many hang on forever?
It’s all about belonging to a special group.
Like Pugski.
 

Philpug

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There’s a lot I don’t like about the Evil Empire, but the comaraderie is priceless.
Why do you think so many hang on forever?
It’s all about belonging to a special group.
Like Pugski.
I am not sure I want to be part of a special group that has someone like me as a member.
 

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