powderfreak

It’s certainly not safe to pull the polling machine lever down with your mouth during a pandemic. If only there was another way, maybe, but I’d rather lick the ballot envelope instead of the lever if those are the two choices, ha. All joking aside, voting is fun to do in person. Feels civic. My parents still say my name comes up on the list of voters for Albany, NY despite the fact I’ve voted in Vermont for a decade.

I was washing dishes like 2000-2001 time frame? I then realized lifeguarding at Normanside Country Club was a better gig as a senior. No idea when Alteri’s closed but I think it was within 5 years or so after that? Barb and Lou were getting up there in age and the 80 hour work weeks I think were getting to be too much. Lou was at that restaurant from like 9am until 11pm every single day.

Nice, still 70/55 up here! South wind and cloud cover not letting us decouple at all and keeping a well-mixed atmosphere.

Fun community it sounds like....yikes. Either that or sounds like a high school clique online that is trying to make it sound like they sit at the cool kids table.

You know the seasons are changing when today’s 59F dew felt a little humid all the sudden.

At the ski area, my best employees have been the J1 students and US college kids who know it isn’t a career and is only a temporary stepping stone. There’s a change once you get slightly older Americans working entry levels jobs in terms of work ethic and time they are willing to work. It certainly starts to get rougher around the edges the more disenfranchised a person is, and unfortunately working entry level in your later 20s and 30s in America does that really quickly to a person. Like this feeling that they are behind in society and will never catch up just seems to eat them alive. I’ve noticed that same thing working in hotels and restaurants, probably why drug use is so high in those industries among entry level positions. This disenfranchised attitude that “the system” is keeping them down, wages are too low, and the grass is always greener elsewhere etc.

Funny you say that, a friend of mine in Salt Lake City had an incident like what you and KLW seem to allude to... he found a used needle in his bathroom after a crew putting in tile floors left one day. He now has a family of Hispanics who roll up all together in a van, they’ll do literally anything as each person in the family has a specialty (lol) and they absolutely bust a**. He said the only time they stop is when the mom shows up at lunch and sets up a table of cooked food for them (which is awesome, folding table, crock pots, etc). They waste no time and if they only have two hours work left they will just stay and do it, instead of leaving to come back the next day. He just makes it sound like the work ethic is out of this world.

I’m already like “what’s the phone number of this company and will it service NVT too?”

I could see Friday being the day too if I had to pick. The final day before FROPA often sneaks in the warmer than modeled.

Ha, I think it was mentioned in the ski thread... but not what the ski industry needs heading into the fall. Even in COVID times Killington fulfills it’s reputation as a party spot .

I wonder if any of it in VT is tied to that $200-$300 million construction project in Burlington that stalled before COVID too. Largest commercial construction in the state. It was going to be the largest structure in Vermont but they’ve been in legal battles for a bit. I think the last work done at all was last November? Maybe the other VTers know more on that. True on those sized projects that employ hundreds of construction workers will jack up those percentages.

Yes! Last time we had work done it took the guy 8 months to bill us despite repeated pleas that we wanted to give him our money for work he performed. My folks had the same problem recently with a landscaper, I still don’t think they’ve paid him from June despite wanting to. They show up do the work but there’s no one running the “office” or accounting side of things... just one job to the next and “we’ll bill you soon.” Scheduling is often hit or miss too... forgotten times, etc.

There has to be some other reason, unless someone just put a decimal point in the wrong place. I was trying to figure out if any large companies folded or something, ha. I was also thinking I think I know some folks working those jobs under the table (not sure) but even if it wasn't documented that can't make up for 30% decrease. Those crews just don't have enough time for the work, like you are experiencing up there. Every person we called is like well if it's not an emergency, it'll be months. We've been waiting since June at this point. Hopefully this month he said.

You haven't looked at any models today have you? I guess if the GFS/NAM are calling for 85-86F at BDL, I could see you adding a few degrees to try for 90F... but nothing immediately says 90F in SNE. Humid? For sure. Strikes me more as a humid 80-85F for the bulk of the populations down there on Thursday and maybe Friday. Wednesday is 70s for highs.

Still there has to be something more to it. I'm waitlisted on a guy who's company is over an hour away. Most of the trade jobs are located/live in much more rural areas that feed into the tourist spots, but I'd still like to see a further breakdown on that judging by how hard it is for anyone between here and Montpelier/Burlington to get any work done.

Yeah that makes no sense to me. I have two friends who have bailed on the service industry, one is going to trade school then an apprenticeship to be an electrician after he saw how much demand there was for that job throughout this whole thing, and another is becoming a welder. They know they'll have to suffer for a few years of low pay but hope for a more stable payoff later. Like getting an electrician or plumber to your house right now is maybe even months if it's not an emergency call. Also the strong real estate market state-wide (from down near Mass border straight to Jay Peak) right now that has people gobbling up places just days within being put on the market, many of those folks are all making upgrades or changes to their new properties and are providing a never ending line of work for construction/electricians/plumbers/etc. -30% just makes no sense in that line at all.

I agreed. Bolded is a huge plus. I honestly am surprised to see manufacturing and construction as the big changes in VT...maybe they haven’t rebounded yet? I’m not kidding when I say a day doesn’t go by on my short drive to the mountain that there’s an ad for manufacturing jobs on the radio and if I wasn’t attached to what I do those jobs sound pretty damn good for someone unemployed. And wait times for any residential or commercial construction is significant right now. Service industry makes sense as essentially they need 50% of the entry level staff to handle 50% of the guests... or even less as many places are trying to do it with only their year round staff. But construction and manufacturing are surprising, not sure what’s going on there.

Talk of that got real quiet after that last 90F at BDL.

Yeah weird, there are ads on the radio all day long for manufacturing jobs... especially 2nd and 3rd shifts with extra shift pay, $500 sign on bonus and Monday-Friday with weekends off. Ha, the ads always sound appealing but guess no one is filling them. Construction is also surprising given the boom seen with stimulus payments and commercial additions and all that. We’ve been waiting for 4 months to have $10,000 of work done on our place. The owner gave me the impression that industry has been flat out with work, but guess that doesn’t show employment numbers. Be interesting to see how foreclosures go in a few years. It’s not a rosy picture, but it could just be that the hit is coming next year as Will said.

Yeah that must be it because despair is not something you hear about up here despite those numbers Ginxy commented on. Maybe down the road it'll really hit hard. Some 22-year-old who is a bellhop that's out of work right now is mostly just mountain biking waiting for winter seasonal jobs to ramp back up, lol. But that's life in these towns, it just so much different than normal places. It would be interesting to see an age breakdown of those out of work. And also in the seasonal service sector many are used to skirting the edges anyway but when I think of despair, I think of folks who were making $75k but now find themselves without a job, with a house and family that can't support themselves. Now that's scary. Not the 20-somethings in ski towns who seem to just survive regardless and can exist on $300/week. I remember those days for sure.

It did get better for sure in summer... There are certainly a lack of the lowest level service jobs and that's probably it for sure in the percentages. There's a distinct lack of $12/hr jobs right now that come with full hotels (say having 40 housekeepers instead of 12 right now) and stuff like that... most that are back at work were supervisory or higher levels but also quite a few high school kids working as well, so who knows.

Ha yup, I dishwashed at a local Italian place through high school on like Thur/Fri/Sat nights... that operation had the two owners as cooks, one other line-cook, me as a dishwasher, and like a handful of servers. The owners easily worked 80 hours a week and always seemed to barely be making ends meet every month. And it was like a "fancier" Italian spot in town.

Ha people have been mailing in ballots for decades, I used to do it in college for NY state. But I agree, go to the polls.

Yeah for sure. That entire industry is incredibly tough. No on is getting rich off a restaurant it seems. When I go home to visit my parents in Albany, they are always talking about a new restaurant to try out that is located in the same buildings as the ones that failed before, it's almost comical at times. Like oh that building was an Italian restaurant for 4 years then went under, then someone thought they could make a run of it as a Thai restaurant and then it lasted 2.5 years, and now there's a BBQ style joint in there, etc.

45F to start Torchtember.