A day in the life of a ski seasonairre: Nightwatch

The other day I wrote about a day in the life of a Kitchen Porter on a ski season which was quite popular. Since then, I’ve switched to Kitchen Porter/Nightwatch which means you do one for a week, taking each in turn. I think this is a great job! If you’re thinking of doing it yourself, have a look to see if you think it’s for you! Before I show the daily schedule, you may be wondering why did you swap? Here’s why;

  • Variety – It would get pretty repetitive being straight kitchen porter or straight nightwatch. Variety is the spice of life.
  • Extra day off – the week you work as a kitchen porter, you get 3 days off to help adapt sleeping patterns.
  • Good days off – you never work Sundays (the dreaded deep-cleaning, hard-working, early-morning, no skiing transfer day), and you don’t work Thursday, the day the majority of staff are off.
  • Guest Dinner – Perhaps the greatest reason of all. Rather than eating the staff food, you get guest dinner and breakfast. Mhmm!
  • Ski time – There’s only one day you can’t ski from 9am until 3pm every fortnight!
  • A super-chilled, super-flexible schedule! See below

  Schedule

Midnight – Shift begins. Go and chill with staff who are still on the hotel bar. Play some pool if anyone is keen.

12:30am – Put the chefs clothes and swimming pool towels in the washing machine.

12:35am – Breakfast Prep – Lay out bacon, croissants and bread on a baking tray. Chop up some mushrooms and tomatos.

1:10am – Finished prep – Clean bathroom and mop the stairs.

1:30am – Go to the bar and watch some TV while having some guest dinner.

2:00am – Mostly done for the night! Free time – Send Facebook messages, watch films, learn a language, do push ups or plan a round the world bike trip. Just DON’T fall asleep!

3:30am – Put the clothes and towels in the tumble dryer. Back to free time.

7:00am – Fingers crossed it snowed – Go clear the snow around the hotel.

7:30am – Guest breakfast. 8:00am – Shift ends. Go home and get changed in ski stuff.

9:00am – There’s nothing quite like getting first lift and being first up the mountain. Ski!

12:00pm – Ski down for a lunch refuel and to meet others to come out.

12:30pm – Head out skiing.

3:00pm – Crash into bed exhausted. Taking off ski gear optional.

11:30pm – Alarm goes, ready to do it all again!

Now, I know many of you would-be seasonairres are looking at the timetable in shock: “That timetable doesn’t give much opportunity to sample the nightlife scene”. Well, true… but it’s not as bad as you think. The week in the kitchen following night shifts offers me three days off, with three of my four shifts not starting until 3pm, offering plenty of opportunity to get out to the many mountain bars and clubs.

Any questions don’t hesitate to ask!

5 Replies to “A day in the life of a ski seasonairre: Nightwatch”

  1. […] I also wrote about a day in my life as a nightwatch! […]

  2. Wow sounds like a wonderful life! ATM I’m stuck in London with uni work and I still haven’t gotten round to organising my long promised blogpost about Tignes! Oh the workload

    Hopefully I’ll have time to not only read blogposts but to actually write them up!

    Anyway, have a great time snowboarding!!

    Anna x

    1. Ah, hope Uni is going well for you! I imagine you’ve got less snow there than here 🙁

      Yes! Get your work done and upload those blog posts – looking forward to reading them 🙂

      Enjoy!

      Jo x

  3. Forget the skiing, I’m worried about only 20 mins for cleaning bathroom and mopping stairs! X

    1. Hehe, with such a busy schedule you can’t just hang around!

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