Why everything you think about ski seasons is wrong

It’s actually bloody hard work


For some reason, ski seasons come with a massive stigma. I can tell you now, we worked harder in those five months than you will in the first two years of uni. Here’s why your misconceptions are wrong.

We aren’t all really wealthy

When working for a lot of bars, restaurants and every chalet company, your accommodation, ski pass, ski hire and travel to and from the resort is paid for. So, you don’t have to have buckets of money to do a ski season. (Unless you want to become a ski instructor, that takes a little more of an investment).

We didn’t start or end with money

There’s a lot of hard work behind those party pics on Instagram

Everyone knows someone that has done a season and seen the photos that are plastered over Facebook and Instagram which mostly involve lots of drinking and skiing, but what you don’t see is the hard work that’s involved. I was a chalet girl, and I was up five days a week between half six and half seven (after being out until 5am the night before), cooking breakfast, preparing afternoon tea and then cleaning the chalet. Then we’d go skiing and be back to cook dinner. On Fridays we had to buy all our shopping for the next week of guests and lug it back to the chalets. On Saturdays we could be cooking breakfast at 3am, and then we’d spend the rest of the day changing over the chalet, to then get prepared and welcome the new guests. It was exhausting, especially when you’re out five nights a week.

It’s probably a more impressive thing to have on your CV than a standard part-time job

Working a ski season demonstrates independence (living away from home for six months), people skills, budgeting, cooking and cleaning skills as well as helping you gain some sense of adulthood.

Ski work drink repeat

The more up-market the resort, the better the tips

There are certain resorts that are very expensive, and yes they are full of “rah” young adults (Verbier, Val D’Isère, Meribel and the likes) but again, the pay will be pretty high in these places, especially Switzerland. That’s probably why people who work there are able to buy so much champagne. They get fat tips from their overpaying guests.

Verbier seasonaires spend their hard earned cash

We only talk about it so much because it’s the best time of our life

Other than the fact it’s not a massive earner, I would recommend a ski season to pretty much everyone. Its great fun, and you get paid to ski all day and drink all night.   Yes, we talk about it a lot but only because it’s been the best months of our lives and most of us ache to return. We don’t mean to brag but I honestly don’t understand why anyone would want to do anything else with their time. Uni just doesn’t compare to a season in any way shape or form.

I woke up to this every morning, how’s that wall looking?

Finally, it’s nothing like Chalet Girl

Ed Westwick will not fall in love with you and divorce his snooty wife for the lowly chalet girl. You’ll probably get a tip and a hug at the end of each week but that’s about it. Aside from this, you’ll have the best five months of your life. People say they “fall in love with the mountains”, and before you’ve lived there it looks like some kind of escape from reality. It’s never going to shake the posh kid, gap yah status, but it really isn’t like that.