I believe I can provide some insight based on my own story:
I have recently secured a job in the ski industry. Six years ago, I left my beloved PDX and moved to Arizona to get my MBA and after the two year program I got a job in Scottsdale as a highly paid management consultant. I worked, on average, 70 to 80 hours a week for clients, mainly based in mainland China or Hong Kong, that included a range from micro-cap technology companies to a Fortune 10 oil company (at the time, their market cap made them one of the 10 largest companies in the world).
The problem was that though I made decent money, the job still sucked donkey balls. Mind you, I liked what I did and I had passion for the work I was doing, but I am probably similar to most of the people on the website in that skiing took up an incredible amount of my bandwidth. I am a delinquent freeskier.
Basically all of my spare time (and money) over the past few years has been spent fueling my skiing. I have been a pass holder on Hood for several years and would fly up to see my brother and ride with my crew at least once a month, if not more frequently. Last year, I managed to ride 38 days (and got two Southwest Airlines frequent flyer reward trips).
As we are all aware, the economy has been slowing down lately and I can assure you that the first cost companies cut when they are in need is outside consulting. In late March (2008), I was laid off. I took this as a watershed moment, if you will, to re-focus and decide what I really should be doing with the rest of my working career (or at least the next 20 years). So I moved back to Portland in late April (just in time for the West Coast Session – I planned the move specifically so I could be there to watch – and, as it turns out, give beers to Shea Flynn) to use my fusion pass as much as possible before the end of the season.
And use it I did – Every day my body could take it through May I was in the park at Timberline. After skiing big mountain for years, I am still new in the park and getting my basic skills down (I am probably old enough to be the father of 75% of you and I pulled my first three in late May). It got to be like a commute to Timby from Portland. About this time it occurred to me that I had been thinking about my future career wrong – Instead of trying to find something where I could afford to take time off to ski, I should be looking for something where I can ski every day.
Kizmet is the Turkish word for fate, and I think that accurately describes the situation because when I looked at the employment pages of the local ski areas, both Meadows and Timberline were looking for an Assistant Controller (essentially the head accountant in each of these cases), and my business career started in accounting. Three weeks later, I was hired by Mt Hood Meadows.
The truth is that I am taking a brutal pay cut to work in the industry (approximately 50% of what I made before), but I have scored a very hard to come by yearly job in the ski industry. My skis are in my office, which is right by the Vista lift and I look up at the superpipe out the window. When I have time at lunch (I just started in June, so the resort has been closed the whole time), I strap my skis on my pack and hike up to 4 Bowl for a run. A few weeks ago, I built a small booter right by the admin building. I couldn’t be happier.
The conclusion is that I now appreciate the cliché – “If you follow your heart, you will never work a day in your life.” Basically for the remainder of my working career, I am going to be coming to the mountain. Some days I will do more accounting than others, some days more riding, but I will be smiling through all of them.
