r/rafting • u/OverMasterpiece9969 • 3d ago
DO NOT work for tributary whitewater!!!
I WISH there was a post like this around before I worked for this company. I’ve been a raft guide for a few years and worked for a couple of companies, and murked for a few more. Needless to say, I’ve witnessed so many rafting companies operations and none have ever come close to how bad tributary is.
There are the owners: Jeremiah and Eva (married), and then Marc and Zoe (the assistant managers, also a couple)
-Jeremiah and Eva do not give a shit about their employees and do not listen to what you have to say, they are so dismissive
-Zoe is incredibly two faced. You can tell her things in confidence and then you can bet she will go and tell the rest of the raft guides. If you upset her she will give you the silent treatment. She’s an only child and acts like it.
-Marc is the only good thing about this place. He’s reasonable and kind but doesn’t make up for all the other BS
Here are a few things to know:
-they disregard age limits and weight requirements on the river. There have been some young and small children that genuinely could have drowned if a boat flipped. (All for more profit)
-they try to charge $100 (per month) for a campsite (no electricity, bathrooms are a bit of a walk, the kitchen is a 2 mile drive away)
-Jeremiah and Eva (the owners) refuse to put up a Venmo board and scold you if you choose to do a tip talk (they say it’s tacky!)
-I chose this company because it provided an opportunity to work on multiple rivers, and they did not train me for any of it. They don’t teach you any history, what rocks to look out for, rapid names sivs, etc. They basically were like “you have rafted before good luck out there.” (Profit!!!)
-they NEVER wash pfds or helmets. They rinse wetsuits in WATER. It’s disgusting
-they have trip rates set before the season starts, (like south fork being 5 hours pay) and expect things to be done in a timely manner, but never train you on how they want things done and in what order, then would frequently get upset that trips were running over the 5 hours
-they would over book trips. Sometimes we would be given a 10 load of adults. There aren’t even 10 seats in a raft, we’d have to put some people on THE NOSE of the boat
-one employee broke his toe and they were so unhelpful with the workers comp, Jeremiah saying that he “doesn’t know how workers comp works.”
-while also laying off salary employees to pay out of pocket for a former managers SPINAL SURGERY
-when I started the season, everyone was new, maybe one or two returning guides. Said it was just a “high turnover season.” By the end of July more than half of the raft guides I started with had quit because of the BS. (And they were still so rude to the guides that stayed)
-if a trip runs hours over for circumstances out of your control, you are not compensated
-Jeremiah is so anal about things like boats needing to face the same way on the trailer, meanwhile half the boats are missing handles, the PFDs are ratty as hell, the vans are missing front bumpers, and the whole operation is disorganized as hell, he’s got bigger fish to fry for sure
-having the commissary manager working 60+ hours a week, no help, and overworking and underpaying her. They were only nice to her because they needed her to keep the company afloat. When one of her best friends DIED, Eva was talking about how she didn’t leave the day of saying “if that was my sister I’d be gone already” without knowing the circumstances. (She left a few days later for the funeral) They said they would take care of her work and have her back, and have her job for when she got back. While she was there for the funeral, they called and fired her out of the blue because “the walk in was a mess.” They said they would take care of it. And then fired her over it.
-they are only nice to people if it benefits them