u/Future_Inflation_698

We arrive to employee housing and the room is just plain gross. Posters still up on wall from previous tenant. Rusted metal desk too nasty to want to put your stuff on and a desk chair that looks too old and beat-up and dirty to want to sit on. Everything has visible dirt on it and is dusty. The window sills were black and brown and so dirty you couldn't wipe them off. They told my GF and I we had a couples room in the couples hallway but a lot of the people in that hallway are not couples and I doubt the room is different from any other lol. The wall had brown liquid that dripped down it and then dried onto the wall and I couldn't even get it off while scrubbing with a Lysol wipe and the rest of the wall was just plain visibly dirty. We went through a whole container of Lysol wipes the moment we checked into our room. The first time I walked into my room I walked right through a spider web that got all over my face. There was numerous spider webs any and everywhere all throughout housing.

The bathrooms smell like the worst thing you have ever smelled at all times. There are signs reminding employees to flush the toilet and the whole time I stayed there that was an issue with employees not flushing like wtf. There are also signs telling us to clean the bathroom even though no cleaning supplies were provided to us. There is one dorm cleaner but he only cleans the bathrooms once a day and sometimes skips numerous days at a time. There is constantly hair on the sinks, counters, and in the showers. In one of the men's bathrooms, all three toilet seats are stained either black/brown or yellow. The other men's bathroom, all the walls of the stalls and the small wall next to the urinal are covered in yellow and brown stains that look like splattered urine and fecal matter.

Your first day of work comes the morning after you check into employee housing. Brian the store manager repeats over and over again to the point where it becomes annoying about how the store makes $100,000 a day. When you have inedible EDR food that is giving everyone food poisoning (more on that later) and the housing is filthy and unlivable and there's hardly even working wifi, maybe keep things like that to yourself.

1st day of work my girlfriend is harassed about her nose ring. Plenty of employees have studs but they tell my gf that she isn't allowed to have a ring because it can fall out. She didn't even work in food service and common sense will tell you that studs can fall out, NOT rings. I have never heard of someone's ring falling out without them somehow causing it. Studs fall out all the time. When she was in the bathroom trying to take it off, they threatened to use pliers on her to which she said no and Brian said "if it starts bleeding we don't care, just slap a bandaid on it." They never told us facial piercing was not allowed until that first day of work and even if that is yall's policy be consistent. Also calm down lmfao it's not a life or death situation and does not call for barging into the bathroom when your employee is occupying it and rushing her. All she did was shadow the first day. The store could have run without her for as long as it took.

I was a stocker. My 2nd day of work I am told there is a local man who makes bread and cinnamon rolls and some more shit and that if I came in before work 10 mins early a day to stock his items, I could make 25 a week. This would average out to $25 a hour for this extra task so I said okay I am willing to talk to him. The next day the man comes to bring his items and tells me it is actually an on call position where he would also be calling my phone to come check his inventory in the store whether I was at work or not. He said it would only pay $20 a week. I declined. I told him if I am already stocking the whole grocery store I will just stock his items on the clock and nothing more which the man refused. Moments later I hear my manager telling him that I just don't want to work. LMFAO! I confronted him later and explained that it is my 2nd day and that he doesn't know me and I have worked far more difficult and taxing jobs than this and that the pay was even less than I had been told and for far more work for this extra activity. Keep in mind every single other employee already turned this down and that's why they were asking me, but somehow it is a me problem. My manager claimed he wasn't even talking about me but in reality he is just a coward. This same man says things like "when you see orientals, make sure to watch the ramen aisle". His name is Patrick. Fun!

The EDR food is a danger to everyone who consumes it. On my GF and I day off they made bratwurst that looked fine but immediately after we ate it, like literally immediately we were on the toilet for the next four hours. It was at that point we started buying our meals from the general store. No cooking equipment so it was just microwavable food every single day. Every day things are undercooked and make people sick or overcooked until they are burned and black and impossible to bite into. They make simple things for sides like tater tots and fries that are somehow always always always so overcooked and hard you cannot bite into them. Every single day. They advertised a wing and pizza movie night. The pizza was raw and cold and the wings once again had my gf in the bathroom for hours. This was a daily thing and employees had already quit before us for this very reason. The guy who had to train me was so sick for 5 days with a bad stomach that he would visibly hold his stomach for the entirety of our shifts and would tell me how unable he was to focus and that he never gets a bad stomach but now he has one because of the EDR.

When we finally resigned, there had been at least a dozen employees before us. This is why when I went and broke the news to Brian he arrogantly and rudely cut me off and shoved two resignation forms in my face from a large stack on his desk. When you have the resignation forms on your desk ready to go, there's definitely a larger problem at hand.

They send a company driver in a company van to come pick us up the following morning to take us back to Bozeman who makes it clear that he has made this drive multiple times because of all the employees quitting but then makes slick remarks about how he doesn't believe the stories employees are telling him. Okay so why would we all quit then? He asked if we are hungry and if we wanted to stop for food and we told him no and then he told us he didn't have breakfast and asked again numerous times if we wanted to stop. Like bro if you wanna stop then just stop. Quit asking LMFAO. The drive out of Yellowstone is highly dangerous and he REFUSED under ANY circumstances to stay off his phone. He kept trying to get the GPS to work even though there was zero cell service and he knew exactly how to get to Bozeman. He genuinely does not understand the concept of needing some type of service to use internet. He had to slam on his breaks for a baby bear, a family of about 5 trying to cross the street, and also for a motorcycle he almost hit. You could see him visibly veering off into the other lane whenever he would check his phone. If people were going too slow for his liking he would fly into the other lane to drive around them. He will 100% get himself and others killed before he is done driving with this company.

https://preview.redd.it/2bcp8nwepk4h1.jpg?width=2592&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ddf8a9c99d9b9b503efb1f2613bb6349631e0f20

Be on the lookout for these two who have been hanging around Roosevelt for the last month. We've had a major baby bear boom this year!

https://preview.redd.it/fidyqk0kpk4h1.jpg?width=2592&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=51e991c33defd0a2a4eaa556b1f368a5eaf93bbf

https://preview.redd.it/ellwgqjnpk4h1.jpg?width=2592&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02c4459f6091bd3b6290cb95a3192a1a1c7cead9

I used to manage a campground, and he works in security.

We mostly have worked out of Canyon Village, for a few different companies and jobs, like the bear spray shack, the employee dining area, and maintenance crew.

I like statistics so animals questions also welcome, we've seen some crazy people do some stupid stuff, most of which probably isn't even appropriate for this sub but we'll see.

The park gets about 2 million visitors a year, we probably talked to about 400 people a day, many of which have fascinating stories.

We were there in 2024 when there was a shooting in Canyon, and when the corrals got shut down for a naked horseback ride. Honestly this would be a very very long post if I just start listing things but those were the most 'famous' so to say things that happened. I could go on forever about the corruption of Xanterra (the company that runs the villages) as well...

I've never done one of these before so preemptive sorry to my overexplainations haha

Hello! This is going to be a long post I'm sure, my partner and I work/worked in Yellowstone with Xanterra for several years. Honestly I don't even know where to start, but simply put there is a very toxic workplace fostered by xanterra. Your experience doesn't matter, all they want is a warm body, no matter the cost.

The first year we worked there we started under a manager who was at best unprofessional. She would regularly yell at guests trying to check-in if they had a single reasonable question or complaint, she refused to listen to her employees at all, putting everyone on a shift with only 7 hours between closing and opening. At one point several employees and I got together and made a schedule that worked better for everyone and had the exact same amount of hours, but she said "everyone likes a swing shift better" despite everyone telling her we did not. We watched her many times throw away complaints made about her, as well as deleted any emails with concerns. Why on earth would xanterra have the complaints about their managers only go through that manager? HR should have been involved, but the HR lady was just as bad. The manager would show up to work in booty shorts and a sports bra, but would discipline people for wearing makeup, or not having their shirt tucked in all the way. I loved the job more than life, but it took me way longer than it needed because she was a micromanager but she wouldn't actually tell you what to do, you had to read her mind. She was also related to 3 people who worked in the same village, who were all given special treatment, better jobs, better pay, better housing, than anyone else. They were equally as bad all for different reasons, the one I worked directly with couldn't even do the job. The 2 my partner worked with acted like children. One would wave his hand around his crotch and grab it every time he saw a woman, then would shout "haha made you look" at them. every. single. time. No repercussions, Xanterra loves that kind of behaviour. Believe me, we tried, soo many complaints.

That year there was a rape and murder of a young woman at old faithful's dorms, that no one even heard about, it never even made the news or anything, and unfortunately it didn't occur to us at the time to record the rangers talking about it over the radio, because I'd sure love some proof for all this right now. 2 days later and that room had another person in it, there was no big deal made. Unfortunately this was only the beginning of the sexual assault issues there.

There was also a guy there who would get drunk and sleep in the back of his truck while clocked in to work, and it took wayyy too long to fire him, and another 2 weeks to get him out of the park... He also was "in trouble" with security for sexually harassing the girls in the pub, but Xanterra won't actually let security do anything.

Once moving to security my partner faced more issues than we could have expected. For the record they'll really only drug test you in Yellowstone if they think you've been doing a bad job, they're looking for a reason to fire you. There's a certain number of people who are meant to be tested each season, but they pick who based on what managers ask for. If anything it's just a punishment. Same thing with the breathalyzers.

The HR lady at the time really wasn't interested in helping whatsoever. She was later fired after the shooting in Canyon, but more on that in a minute.

Now we're at about halfway through the year, and I think things calmed down, but hey who heard about the naked horseback ride out of Canyon Corrals anyway? Turns out not many people did at the time, so buckle up. Let's start with the fact the wranglers had been writing/carving stuff like "Have you done _____ yet? She's the best at blowjobs" and "You haven't lived until you've had ____s dick" all over the ceiling of the corrals, dating back many many years. Now, it's pretty well known that working remotely in dorms fully unsupervised makes everyone act like high schoolers, Yellowstone most definitely proves that. It was definitely more of an issue at the corrals because the head wrangler took a bunch of the girls on a naked horseback ride, and got caught. Which is why you're unlikely to see horses in canyon again. the rest of the dorms was more of a "I thought we were together and you fucked ___!!" and then they try and hurt the other person or themselves, resulting in them getting removed from the park via security.

On that note if you ever wondered how getting fired/kicked out works in yellowstone, they give you a few days to get your stuff together then have a security person drive you to whatever town wherever you want to go, or you can hide like that one guy did and make it a few weeks before they take you out of the park. Unless you're violent then they'll watch you gather your things before they take you wherever you want to go. More on how this has changed when I get to the last year I worked there. Someone would come sexually harass someone in some way, they'd get a bunch of warnings, then work performance docks, before eventually being asked to leave, I noticed there were usually a few more chances, then they'd fire them. The complaints came in daily. HR always said "we need a warm body" and covered the complaints. They are also more than welcome to come back after sexually abusing people the year before, a few of them still work in the park and they were fired and removed multiple times.

Now this one plays into the next year too, there was a manager who had a band, where he would take his shirt off and throw it into the crowd. He ended up being my next manager. He literally knows nothing about managing whatsoever, refused to listen to a woman whatsoever, often made inappropriate comments about his female subordinates, and brushed off any and all complaints. At least he was dressing nice, but his personality hadn't changed a bit, and I didn't go to the pub anymore so I don't know if he kept up his band, but he is now the locations manager, so I image he must be, because Xanterra loves that kind of behaviour. That was a joke, I don't think they'd tolerate it up to that level, well maybe anyway.

This year we have Lucas. Yes the man who fired shots at Canyon. He didn't show up to work often, and when he did he slept in his car on the clock. Manager refused to even talk to him about it, despite my many tryings. He made many inappropriate comments to the female guests and employees, as well as some creepy ones to everyone about guns, knifes, and wanting to hurt himself. Again, I try and get him fired, I try and get HR to take these comments seriously, I thought he needed mental help immediately. Each time I heard a comment I noted it to the manager, after it was dismissed I took it to HR, where it was again dismissed, well she acted like she cared but didn't do anything. Then he is caught several times in the pub claiming to be security and asking for young girls ID's and hitting on them. I don't remember how many warnings he got for that from security, but they also took it to HR each time, where it was dismissed, but they were at least given the reason that "we need a warm body". At this point I didn't feel safe working there anymore, so we left, but we stayed in contact with many people in Canyon. The rest of this story is not from my and my partners directs viewing, it's he said she said the news said... Before the shooting he had kidnapped his girlfriend at knifepoint, there are rumours she was trying to break up with him because she was seeing someone else, but it's not consistent in the stories I heard. She escaped, and went to security, who told her to call 911, so she went back to her room and did so. She was dismissed. I heard a few different versions of what he said during this time, but he was making a lot of threats, mostly about killing himself or everyone there. Now 2ish days passed, and someone notices a gun out in the open in the passenger seat of a car. The car is identified as his. (I'm aware this contradicts the original report but this is how the security person who called 911 reported it to me, and they did update the article online later to be more accurate.) He then told anyone who would listen he was going to start shooting, and a woman goes to security to report it, and they both call 911, now he's by the EDR and started shooting. Not too long later rangers arrive, and surround him, and he's shot dead after injuring (a fantastic) ranger.

One thing I feel was failed to be reported is that there were employees in that building who were not evacuated, people were walking around outside not knowing that they were NOT hazing shots fired by rangers to scare bears away. You can even see people running in the background of the bodycam footage, which side note, why on earth would they start recording after shots were fired...

The aftermath was another story completely, no one was being fed, not that the Canyon EDR had enough food to feed everyone before this, they were told there was still an active shooter for days after the event. The turnover rate here is already horribly high, but a lot of people left because they needed to make money, not be drained of it and unable to eat. Many more refused to ever come back to work for Xanterra, because this was an extremely preventable situation. Not to mention the lack of caring afterwards.

The HR lady who wouldn't do anything was fired the next year, they added 2 legit gangsters as armed security there, and now require everyone to only carry transparent bags and bottles. None of the management issues were fixed, they just promoted them out of the way.

I did work in the EDR at Canyon for a while too, I've heard that everywhere else has better food, we got the leftovers, and it wasn't enough to feed everyone. The night crew was told they'd get hot meals, that didn't exist. There is no system, no recipes, no one in charge. So much food was either wasted or served after expiration, because there is no system.

Now I refuse to work for Xanterra again but we are back in the park, so far we've seen a few violent or sexual assaulters (employees) get escorted out of the park, one of which was Canyon's EDR manager. In a way this gives me hope, but not enough. The village isn't even fully open yet, and they've managed to find a few assaulters already... and rangers say they can't do anything about it by the way, that's why they're just removed from the park. If they wanted they could drive right back in.

This isn't really to say working for xanterra is going to be bad, but you're more likely to get a manager that has no business being a manager, and if you want to be a manager, if you have any experience outside xanterra, you can't get the job. If you like the kind of behaviour I listed, then Xanterra would be great for you. There are good managers there, but they're few and far between.

I could also make some notes on the helping hands group, which does not have enough training or oversight, and they're overworked and underpaid, but I never worked for them, that's just what many of them relayed.

Plus guests have a lot to say about the issues they run into here. A lot of them are admittedly dumb things, but sometimes a room really is unacceptable, or a campsite won't work for a certain type of vehicle, which are things that are fixable and should be, rather than ruining a guests vacation because it'd take a gsa or manager five minutes to fix the issue, but that's too hard...

I'll also add that Roosevelt's corrals were at one point just as bad as canyons, a manager stole the keys and painted "sex palace" on a wall. There was also a head wrangler lady who would bring underage boys over to her cabin and gave them alcohol. She was warned over a dozen times, eventually someone broke their arm drunk riding and that was the last straw apparently.

While I'm complaining here, PLEASE STOP WALKING UP TO WILD ANIMALS, I imagine if youre reading this you know that... but it's a serious issue here... also don't stop in the middle of the road, just pull over for fuck sake.

Thank you for listening, I may have more to update watching everything from afar this year, and there's still a lot I've left out because this is so long so maybe I'll add that later too...

Update; we're up to 8 sexual assault related employee removals out of canyon, and a few drunks stealing keys, and setting a microwave on fire.

Also I remembered in 2023 there was a woman who worked for Xanterra who was killed in a bear attack, she was between a mama and her 2 babies with headphones in and no bear spray, and that's not counted on the official list of bear related fatalities in Yellowstone. In fact it was so covered up no one knows about it now. With the death this year, people are saying it's the first in 10 years and it absolutely is not. It's just the first visitor.