Finding goodwill at the lost and found.
by Roger Klein
“I can tell because they’re frantic,” says Jim Arnold. He says he can see it in their eyes from 50 feet away—a person who needs help. Arnold is the friendly face behind the glass at the lost and found inside Grand Central Lodge at Blue Mountain Resort.
“They’re frantic, especially if it’s car keys or a cell phone and they don’t know how they’re going to get home,” says Arnold. The retired IBM marketing man has plenty of experience. He’s been helping people reconnect with lost items for more than a decade. Arnold is eternally empathetic to the situation that visitors find themselves in.
“There was one gentleman who came here one day who was really in a fix. He lost his keys, cell phone and wallet all at the same time. So he was stuck here. He didn’t even know who to phone because everything was on his phone,” Arnold explains. “Somebody had to come from Toronto with car keys, which was going to be two and a half hours. He had no money or anything. I said, ‘You must be hungry.’ So I bought him lunch.” Arnold says it was just the right thing to do.
Arnold’s small corner office is chock-full of personal belongings that have been turned in by the people who found them, from hats and mittens to car keys, cell phones and wallets. Arnold is encouraged by the honesty and goodwill he witnesses on a daily basis. A wallet with $1,600 in cash was turned in once. “They’re just good people and they come in all shapes, sizes and cultures,” he says. “They just say, ‘Hey, I found this wallet, I bet this guy’s looking for it.”
When something is reported lost or a valuable has been found, Arnold immediately gathers personal contact information before tapping into a network of people across the resort that includes security teams, front desk clerks and customer service ambassadors, all of whom are a great help. Collectively, they connect the dots in an effort to reunite guests with lost items.
“One of our colleagues was at the window and a young lady came and said, ‘I was skiing with my uncle and he’s lost his prosthetic eyeball.’ Imagine finding that!” Arnold chuckles before confessing that the prosthetic was never found despite the best efforts of resort staff.
While it’s true that some things disappear into the ether forever, Arnold says the lost and found has a great track record with 90 percent of cell phones, wallets and car keys being returned to their owners, although not always on the same day. Sometimes Arnold returns items by mail. “Most are local to the Toronto area or London or Kitchener, but we ship stuff wherever in the world it needs to go, like into Europe or the U.S.,” he points out.
Sometimes Arnold reluctantly receives tips and small gifts as tokens of appreciation from the people he helps. “They say, ‘I insist, Jim, you did a great job, there you go,’ as they walk away. It goes directly into my envelope for charity,” says Arnold as he nods and smiles. He also points out that the articles which go unclaimed are either donated or sold off with proceeds going to charity. “Last year, we got $2,100. Blue Mountain found out about it and matched the donation. So we donated $4,200 to the local charities.”
Arnold found the job 13 years ago when he and his wife were picking up their ski passes. “We said to one of the ladies behind the counter, ‘This looks like a neat place to work. How do you like it?’ She said, ‘I love it here.’ So my wife and I both applied. We both got jobs here in guest services. My wife has since retired but I’ve enjoyed it ever since,” he says.
It’s evident that Arnold gets a huge sense of personal satisfaction from helping people, but it’s the friends he’s made along the way that he values most.
“The friendships you develop working here. My co-workers, managers and all the resort staff. They’re good friends,” says Arnold. “I live in Thornbury and I have them up to my place every year.”
