Xanterra reviews

This firefighter position is a joke. The so-called “captain” is an even bigger joke. If you want to work for the most non-existant “leader” who is only there to collect a paycheck, the dumbest schedule of your life, or the worst company on this planet, you’ve come to right place. Third time working for these people and it’s all the same, no matter what department you work for (I thought the fire side of things would be different. It’s still garbage). They treat their firefighters like they are morons and make them bow down to NPS, who absolutely spit on them (NPS “firefighters” are only certed through a 3 week course). Working as a “firefighter” for Xanterra is an absolute disgrace to any real firefighter. Their newest schedule is a joke and nowhere near a modified 48 and you pay for your housing while working on-call for free. That’s right, you pay for your housing and you don’t get paid to be on call. Even if you live in a nearby city, you have to pay rent on an additional apartment. If they tell you they have plans for actual department living quarters, they are flat out lying. Multiple firefighters have left this garbage company, and for many reasons other than what I’ve listed. And forget about HR. They turn a blind eye to absolutely everything. This is nowhere near a real fire department. I got suckered in through a phone interview and they lied about everything. They obviously have to due to the negative reputation they hold. Do yourself a favor and run away from this place like your hair is on fire. You’ll thank me later when one of your friends gets a job for these horrible, heinous people and comes crying to you.

To sum this up, my contract was to last until the end of the season in mid-October, but I am leaving 2 months early. This is not the work environment I want and I would not recommend this company to anybody that actually cares about their work life/career. Nobody seems to be able to give straight answers to seemingly simple questions. I had been in contact with HR before I started work and told them I wanted to arrive early and move into my dorm if possible, to which they said would be fine. When I arrived, nobody could tell me for sure where to go to check in and when I finally found the housing office, they told me there was nothing available. Lucky for me I had a campsite reserved, only because somebody else was going to be with me for a while when I was starting work and I wasn't sure if they would be able to stay in the dorms with me. So I camped (about an hour and a half away from where I would be working in Canyon) until my first day of work. THEN when I went to move into my dorm they assigned me a room with someone who wasn't ready for somebody to move in, so I went back and asked for a new room. THEN they assigned me a room that was already occupied. It was so unorganized and annoying, and that's just the living situation. Which, by the way, is quite expensive in relation to how little money you make working here. The deductions on your paychecks are outrageous, the amount of money they take out for food is up to ~$160 over a 2 week pay period. The quality of the food is very low and accesibility is minimal. The employee dining room is open very few hours of the day for each meal, so many times you will not even be awake or available to eat from there. And everything in the park is so expensive, you won't want to pay for food from the general stores or restaurants. The wage may sound acceptable at just over $10/hr, considering the fact that you get to live in a national park, but when deductions are taken out, you end up making about half of that. As for the actual work environment, it's not great. It's always a mess, schedules change on the daily, and hours are very long. Expect to work an average of 9-11 hours 5 days a week. You may be scheduled to do one thing but then they make you do another. I wasn't even added to the schedule for the whole first week I was working there. Everyday I would have to ask when to show up and when to leave. There will not be formal training, and they did not even require a food handlers permit or training. My training to be a cashier was me reading a booklet while on the job. It is hard to stay passionate and motivated in this work environment because it is so unorganized and many people don't care about the quality of work they produce. The mentality seems to be to do just enough to get by and nothing more. For somebody who is passionate about serving others and providing top notch hospitality, this is not the place to work. This is not legendary hospitality.