Saturday 24 November 2007

Results... almost

It was a rather busy weekend last week, we had a function on on Saturday, so you can guess that the bar was fairly hectic.

As I pushed my way through the masses who had decided that the bar was the best place to stay for the night. It was around quarter to eleven, there were two other people serving behind the bar. The arrangement of the three of us serving behind the smallest bar lasted pretty well. OK, it lasted half an hour before they decided to leave, just as the bar got extremely busy. There was around 20 - 25 people waiting to be served. I must stress that I was on my own at this point and could not leave the bar unattended.

The Restaurant Supervisor came in, served two or three people and promptly left the bar. I foolishly presumed he had gone to the Kitchen to collect the washed glasses, as we were running dangerously low. He wasn't seen again for forty-five minutes.

I had guests complaining in one ear about the prices of alcohol and guests trying to order another round of drinks in the other ear. I tried to work through the backlog of customers as quickly and efficiently as possible, but when using a computerised till system I have had little to no training on, it can become very irritating to the guests and myself.

At one stage, one of the customers started playing around with the touch-screen monitor. He was asked to stop, otherwise he wouldn't be served. As I started serving another customer, I noticed the same male, lifting the monitor off the bar. He was told to put the monitor down immediately, before I went back to completing the customer I was dealing withs order. As this male was next in line to be served, I skipped him and went onto the next punter. Part of this round included a drink for the male who was playing with the monitor. I told the punter, that due to his unacceptable behaviour, he would not be served any more alcohol that evening.

A short period later, the Receptionist came through to let me know that she was finished and heading home. She did ask if I was coping OK or needed a hand. I asked her to send the Restaurant Supervisor in straight away. When he did, eventually, show face some fifteen minutes later, the first thing he said to me was , and I quote,"Do you have a couple of cigarettes I could borrow?" I replied, "Sorry, no." With that, I walked out of the bar and left him to it.

After the music stopped, I checked the Restaurant over and ensured that no one was still there. I then made my way to Reception, when I noticed a large group of ten people standing outside Reception. I knew that they were part of the function. I opened the door to Reception and noticed a female standing behind the desk. I asked her to leave, to which she replied, "But someone let me in here." I asked her again to leave, pointed above my head to the security camera and enforced my line with something along the lines of "the Police may be contacting you in due course for a charge of breaking and entering." When she realised (due to her intoxicated levels) that I was being 'serious', she quickly left the area.

The following morning, I was heading into the Kitchen when one of the waitresses was coming out, she said to me, "Why haven't you set anything up?" I told her that I didn't have time to and, as a night manager, I had more important duties to attend to in what little time remained after the last guest had gone to bed. Although I do think that the waiting staff was secretly hoping that I'd brushed, mopped and vacuumed the restaurant, set all the tables up for breakfast and set up the two buffet tables.

The thing that baffles me most, is that if their shift starts at 7am (or whenever they manage to drag their hungover selves out of bed) before breakfast is served at 7.30am. That's a full half an hour to set the place up, there are generally three waiting staff on in the morning, and as the old saying goes; "Many hands, make light work." According to the previous night manager, there was a 'gentleman's agreement' set up, whereby if the night manager set up the Restaurant for breakfast, then it would "get him out of cleaning and vacuuming the rest of the hotel."

Sunday was a welcome break from the previous evening's fun and games. The Relief General Manager was in the Bar, as it was his last night in the hotel, and we had a long discussion about certain members of staff and the way in which the hotel is run. He told me that if he was the GM here, he'd "pick up the hotel and shake it until all the staff fell out and the only ones that remained are the grafters." He then told me to write down all of the previous nights faults and also one which happened on Sunday.

I did this quite happily, and left it with the only decent Receptionist the hotel has (she's not from this hotel, but the same one as the Relief General Manager.) and she assured me that she'd pass it on to him.

When I went into work that night, I had a word with the Relief General Manager, who told me that he had read my reports and was pretty disgusted at the way things were being run. This was due to no fault on my part, but the faults of others. He then told me that he had passed on my reports to the Human Resources department.

So? What now? Well, you'll have to wait until later in the week to find out. I haven't been back there. But as soon as I know anything, I'll be sure to keep you updated.