Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Older and Wilder with Joy and Claire. It's March 1st. Here we are. We did it. We somehow did it. We did it. We made it to March. Yeah. I think I say this every year, but I've never, I, like, so vividly remember the year I was a lift operator, like, at the ski resorts and was just that, like, miserable person who stands there as you get on the lift.

And what I mean, and I hated that job.

Some people, I think that's like a means to an end.

They're like, I want to ski.

And like, it doesn't matter to me that I have to stay in here and get yelled at by tourists for nine hours a day to do it.

And I was like, this is not worth it to me. Like I'm going to ski anyway. Yeah. And when I made it to March that year, I was like, I have never been so happy in my life to see March. And now every year when I get to March. Because like it was like the ski season was almost over. Like I was so tired.

And were you thinking of, okay, I'm never going to do this job. Because it was like the ski season was almost over. Like I was so tired.

And were you thinking of, okay, I'm never going to do this job again. I just need to write it out. Yes. I was like I just kind of get out of here. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was, you know, like you're somewhere for the season. Like I had a lease. I couldn't like quit and get a different job. Yeah. I'm quitting, yeah.

Yeah, it was the worst.

Be nice to lifties.

They have a different job. You can't just be like, I'm quitting. Yeah. Yeah, it was the worst.

Be nice to lifties. They have a terrible job. Yeah, I was going to say what were the things that people were doing to you. The thing about being a lifty, you guys don't know what I'm talking about.

When you're skiing and you're getting on and off the lift, there's somebody normally like a 19 year old standing there at the bottom and then there's also someone at the top who's normally not standing there. They're normally like in the booth. And they are just there to make sure effectively that you get on and off the lift safely. And then they are also there to stop the lift if something bad happens. They are not. Then there's a whole other classification of people who are like lift mechanics. If something goes wrong, they will come and

actually deal with it. The lifty is just there to make sure that you are getting on and off safely.

And that is hard for a lot of people. Getting on and off the lift is apparently a skill that is

difficult to master. But really the thing that's hard about being a lifty is that you're the only person that people interact with that's like an employee kind of throughout.

You're representative of the hill.

And like, you know, people, like, if you're depending on where you're skiing or what you're doing, you're probably riding a lift at least every 30 minutes, probably slightly more than that even, depending on where you're at.

And people just will take out their grievances on you because you're the one who's standing there and they're like, I remember all the time people would ski up to get on the left and they'd be like, it's so icy. You guys need to do something about how icy it is. I'm like, sir, you are on a mountain in the middle of the winter. And I am quite literally not allowed to leave this like little wooden plank that I'm standing on. What do you want me to do about it?

Also, that's a mother nature thing. Correct. Yes, no. Yes, correct.

There's certain things that you can do to like groom the trails, but like you can't deal.

And also not me personally. Right. Exactly. And people would all the time be like,

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