Donner Ski Ranch, a fun place to ride, and one of the little guys we all root for. Photo: Donner Ski Ranch//Facebook
Maybe Donner Ski Ranch is trolling its followers on Facebook? That’s one possible explanation for why they’d double down on an announcement last week that received an overwhelming amount of negative feedback.
For a quick brief on the matter at hand, Donner Ski Ranch shared a social media post last week with an image of a new sign they say will be posted on the platforms of their lifts (below). “Rat ’em out,” reads the sign, giving the guests permission to double as tattle tales when they spot a lifty preoccupied by their smart phone. It’s a safety issue that doesn’t really need much explanation, and nobody disputed that fact, but social media users did overwhelmingly voice negative opinions about what the sign says about Donner’s workplace culture.
And that’s where things seem to have gone from an irreverent, maybe out-of-the-box attempt at reminding guests of ski lift safety (understandable) and nudging employees with some accountability to…well, a little unhinged.
Criticism revolved around a few different points. Many commenters feel it shouldn’t be their responsibility to police employees for something that is ultimately the responsibility of the resort to manage (more on that later). Some just flat out don’t like the sentiment of becoming a snitch.
“Why don’t you save your money and buy a ski resort and you can run it any way you want,” the resort responded to one comment. “You do not know Sh*t about our pay and subsidized housing,” they replied more than once when others questioned if employees might be incentivized, or at least more enthusiastic about their job requirements after a pay raise. Just for the record, a 10-year-old job posting advertised $20-per-hour in 2016, and the resort’s application webpage currently says, “We care about our employees and offer competitive pay and benefits, with most positions starting at $20 an hour.” There’s no indication if that is the going rate today for the same lift operator position.
Anyway, Donner doubled down a few days later on its rat sign. In fact, they used exactly those words in a followup post. And then showed what I think is a rather revealing sentiment by diving into a pretty weird, detailed, hypothetical scenario.
“Say you just arrived at the resort. It snowed three inches overnight. It is a blue bird day. After a few runs you are thinking this is going to be the best day of skiing of my life. When you get to the top you notice the lift operator is not paying attention as he is watching a movie on his phone. You think ‘Huh, that is probably not good,’ but don’t say a thing. A bunch more runs and you are thinking this is awesome. Just before lunch you are a little tired, get crossed up getting off the lift and fall. The lifty is still not paying attention. Does not stop or slow the lift so the 260-pound guy getting off the next chair falls on you and breaks your collar bone. He is very sorry but you were in the middle of the ramp. He skies off,” the post reads.
It continues, still missing the point of criticism from social media followers the first time around.
“The pain is almost intolerable as Ski Patrol loads you into the toboggan. You feel every bump on the trip down as the two sides of your broken collar bone are scraping together. You are thinking, ‘This sucks.’ When you get to the Ski Patrol room and they immobilize your collar bone you feel a little better and start thinking who is to blame? Even though the Skiers Responsibility Code says I must be able to safely load and unload the lift it could not be my fault. That damn lifty was watching a movie and not paying attention, But I could have said something. As you are getting loaded into the ambulance you are thinking, ‘The resort should do a better job keeping their lifties off of their phones. This was all so avoidable.'”
The irony here is that Donner Ski Ranch has chosen to die on a hill that you just got hypothetically injured on. And it’s hypothetically your fault, not theirs. At least that’s the psychological warfare tactic at play. Even in this completely made-up scenario, the part where you’re sitting in ski patrol HQ wondering how this could have all been avoided and asking yourself who is to blame, this privately owned ski area is sweating bullets in hopes you don’t think to yourself, “I bet I’ve got a lawsuit here.”
“But your honor, they posted a sign,” the hypothetical defense attorney argues. “And Jerry Neckbrace over here didn’t rat out the lifty when he had the chance.”
“That may be true,” the hypothetical judge declares. “But the resort is still real-life responsible for the hypothetical actions of their hypothetical negligence. Hypothetically, of course.”
All hypotheticals, and real-life snark aside, lift safety is a serious matter. The National Ski Areas Association acknowledges that a significant number of ski lift accidents occur during the loading or unloading process. But nobody was ever debating that. We don’t know what the workplace culture is like at Donner Ski Ranch or what the pay or resources made available to employees entail. By all accounts, Donner has always been a well-respected and loved ski area in California precisely because it’s one of the little guys. But doubling down and passing blame on to guests, whether they have a valid point or not, hasn’t been a good look.
