Sorry it took so long to update this blog again but I’m a working man now so I haven’t got the time to start up my agonizingly slow laptop! Anyway, I’ve got some time now so here we are!
I’ve been working at the hotel for two weeks now and I must say I like it. It can be very boring sometimes because it’s not so busy but I can always find some things to do like polishing glasses (again), straightening chairs (again), flooding the cellar (no that was the first time actually!). I’ll explain later! There are two shifts you can work in, the day shift (11.00 to 20.00) and the evening shift (18.00 to 23.00 or 2.00 in the weekend).
They've also given me a name tag which is great of course if it wasn't for one little thing:
Cellar Tsunami:
Last week I was asked to clean the pipes that take the beer from the cellar to the bar. To do this you simply pull through loads of water and bleach until you can actually see through the glass check-up valve which is usually impossible! So I turned on the tap with water to fill the barrel that puts the water through the pipes and then the hose came off the tap. Flushing water all over me! I rushed to turn the tap off and put the hose back on. I turned the tap on again and went to look for a tumble dryer to put myself into. In the confusion of a wild water slide I forgot that I had turned the tap on again…. Fortunately I came back later with my manager to discover there were about 4 inches of water in the cellar! I though it was pretty funny and luckily so did the manager. The floor needed cleaning anyway! There is no drain in the cellar so I spent the next 2 hours mopping up the water which was fun because I had nothing else to do anyway!
Some Like it Hot?
During the week we only seem to have elderly people in hotel. They come in busses you know! Everyday we have like two or three busloads of grannies which is a lot of fun. After dinner they get free coffee or tea of course so they all roll their walking frames to the bar and try to move up one place in the cue if someone is not paying enough attention!!
And then there is tea… which never seems to be quite hot enough for them. I’ve figured it out though: if you pour some on your arm and doesn’t cause 3rd degree burns, it’s not hot enough!! Which is funny since they have to Parkinson pour the tea themselves!
The Old, the Disabled and the Drunk:
The old people are very nice and polite though which cannot be said from the drunk English youth we have in the hotel every weekend. In the weekend the hotel seems to have a special arrangement for stag and hen nights. This is fun in the beginning of the evening, before they go out, but during the weekend the hotel bar stays open until 3 in the morning. So when they come back from the nightclubs all drunk, they can have more beer in the hotel! Yesterday, I had a group of Scottish lads in for a party. They came back at around half past 12 and they were very drunk indeed. I know I should probably deny them alcohol but that is quite difficult when there are 9, very drunk, probably rugby playing, highlanders in front of you asking for 3 JD’s and coke and 9 pints of lager top. You try saying no!!
Lemonade Limbo:
Another strange thing I’ve noticed in these past two weeks is that the English tend to spoil any god-given drink with lemonade?! A few examples of the orders I made with pain in my heart and a smile on my face:
Lager top: Beer with a dash of lemonade?! Lager lime: Beer with a dash of lime cordial (aanmaak limonade)!? A Shandy: Half beer and half lemonade!
Whiskey with lemonade, wine with lemonade, vodka with lemonade! It’s incredible really!
Shakespearean Backfire:
I moved to the other room in the house last week. The (ugly) Polish girls (see picture) left and there was a new German guy on the way so I thought I’d move in to the other room and ditch the German with Anton and his mess!
My plan backfired in a Shakespearean way though since the landlord put the German guy in my ‘new’ room leaving Anton with all the privacy! The German guy turned out to be quite nice actually. His name is Cornell and started to work in the same hotel as me this week!
Apparently he also wants the kitchen and bathroom to be clean so we spent three hours cleaning the entire apartment together! I didn’t know the bath-tub was white and that we had a sink in the kitchen?!
L‘Anton Terrible (French):
Anton: · Spreads his long hairs everywhere. · Leaves a huge mess wherever he goes. · Uses other peoples stuff. · Wakes you up at 8.30 in the morning banging on the window because he forgot (and lost) his keys. · Lets in drunk girls looking for Dan, who doesn’t live here! · Leaves the front and back door open when he goes to work! · Gets fired in his first week of work! · Has never bought clothes! · Has a big knife?! (to cut wood?) · Reads comic books about superheroes all day. (especially now he’s unemployed!) · Laughs out very loud indeed! · Even has an Evil laugh! · And I bet he has an alter ego as a superhero on the side! This is just his secret identity!
Enough about Anton. He had a job interview (school arranged) yesterday on the other side of town. So IF he gets the job he’ll probably move. Me and Cornell are trying to get an apartment which is closer to the centre so hopefully that’ll work out.
I must admit that this week has been quite difficult. I really miss everyone, especially Esther of course, and I'm getting quite fed up with work. It's not the work itself, just the lack of proper management and guest friendlyness that bothers me. I seem to be the only one that is willing to go the extra mile for guests and I'm even told off for doing so. It's the lack of ambition that causes the hotel to be pretty bad. The common excuse is: this is Britannia, we don't do stuff like that for guests. But the point is that YOU don't do it!! and you just blame someone else! This really upset me this week but i'll get over it. I can't change the rules or make it a 5 star hotel on my own. I guess I just have to ignore it and do the best I can!
