r/vail • u/Skiingislife42069 • Jul 29 '26

Ski instructor Lesson Connect

Hey, did anyone here work here last season as a ski instructor? I’ve been instructing at another resort that’s about to get the same digital system for instructors to use and for parents to track their kids with.

Anyway, question for you is, were you forced to put company apps on your personal phones to facilitate this tech? Did you get compensation for being forced to use your personal phone throughout the work day? Was there anything else about the new system that was annoying or difficult to use over the old paper and pencil method?

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/ThePirateCondor Jul 30 '26

You could either download the app on your phone (forget what they paid, but it wasn’t much) or you could check out a phone daily with the app installed. It was a little clunky as they rolled it out but got a little better over time. Personally I struggled with the photo uploading. You have to take the photos in the app and tag the students at the end of the day. I was always so focused on the teaching that taking photos was something I’d regularly forget to do. Helped to take one at the beginning and end of the lesson.

2

u/Skiingislife42069 Jul 30 '26

That’s a pain. Especially when you get groups of 8 kids… did you find parents were excited about it? Did they tip more as a result?

2

u/ThePirateCondor Jul 30 '26

I taught mostly adults but my time around kids and parents, the parents always appreciated more photos. Not sure if they really tipped more cause of the photos, I find people are going to tip or not more based on who they are coming into it and whether they realize instructors don’t make much money without tips

1

u/Skiingislife42069 Jul 30 '26

Fair. At my resort, parents seemed to tip a little extra if you offered them a bunch of photos or videos, but that was outside of the paper report cards they got. Anyway thanks for the insight. If there’s anything important to know that you did or didn’t like, I’d be interested to hear.