Lousy Meeting Yesterday

One of the major goals we have on this working adventure is to eliminate, as much as possible, the stress that our previous jobs had. We want to enjoy the areas we visit, and at the same time, enjoy the work and the people that we associate with. Every part of this stop in Lincoln City has been a good fit for us - in spite of the rain, wind and cool weather, which we know will improve - except our Managers. We had a very unpleasant meeting with them yesterday. We were warned about their personalities before they arrived by Terry, the VP of Operations for the company, who hired us and spent the first week with us in the office before the managers arrived. We also have been told by the people that work a few hours a week here that there have been many regular workers like us that have left as a result of their management style. In fact, we heard that they have gone through 5 couples in the last two years. The only reason they are managers here is because they were once part of the original ownership group that started these resorts.

The meeting actually took place shortly after we arrived at 1 PM for our scheduled shift. Mary went through some minor items, as always, that she feels must be done differently to satisfy her rigid procedures. We always brush these off as nitpicking. Shortly after the discussion with Mary and after she left for the day, Jim walked in and, without any warning or pleasantries, went into a tirade about the fire ring(s) that we have that are gas operated and he screamed that nobody, but nobody, was to start those rings except him and he was the "boss". See, we had a request from several of the guests the night before to start the ring but it never has been lit since we've been here and it only gets lit in nice weather, which it wasn't. Josie was on duty at the time and she called Jim to get a decision which was - don't lite it. It turned out that he went up and lit it himself anyway, in the bad weather, and had to go back up an hour later to turn it off as a result of the rain. This was such a minor detail in the total scheme of things and we were shocked that he was reacting this way. After all, he did lite it himself so what's the point in the argument? He went on to talk about several other "minor" events that made us feel like we were second grade kids that didn't raise our hands to leave the room. This isn't the first time that he has acted this way, but we always thought he would mellow out with time. He is the type of person that never says good morning, never says hello when you walk past him, and always walks around with a scowl on his face like he is "pissed off" at something. We have had returning guests even ask if "grumpy" still works here.

The result of these discussions for us was that we don't need this stress on our jobs. We are deciding how we should proceed. As mentioned before, we have been refusing offers from several nice places in order to stay here, but we are thinking that staying may not be the happiest solution. We'll see what happens...