One of the most valuable things I learned while I was working for Deer Valley was their company culture. At its core, everything they did traced back to the three-circle model which was a van diagram that stated that we take care of our guests, the company, and each other.

My role as a daily scheduling agent required me to learn a lot of new processes and computer programs rather quickly. We were responsible for maintaining accurate records on the ski instructor’s schedule.

Accurate data was important because it allowed the instructor some time to plan for the lesson based on the student’s skill level. Additionally, the information I entered was used by the human resource department to generate payroll.

Now, part of my job was to manage our “instructor inventory.” Every day, we would have to keep track of the number of instructors that would call in sick, were required for group lessons, while also trying to sell more lessons.

To help us keep track of all of these variables, we would manually work through a series of calculations—using paper and pencil. As these numbers would fluctuate, we would erase and update the numbers in our worksheet.

Additionally, during training, we talked about how busy this process would be during the end-of-year holidays, I started using my downtime to automate this process. I created an Excel worksheet that would automatically re-calculate as we updated the numbers.

There was one formula, in particular, that was tricky to write, however with some trial and error, I was able to figure it out. By the end of the 2016-2017 ski season, it was working perfectly. Which gave my boss the opportunity to create this as an automatic report for the 2017-2018 season.

For my efforts, my supervisor nominated me for one of Deer Valley’s Bravo Awards. This award is usually given to employees that that represent the company’s philosophy that so notes worth in scope that it requires recognition beyond the parameters of a typical Shout Out.