In case you hadn’t already gathered, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I haven’t quite been feeling myself lately. But in the job that I do, it’s always important to try and put a front on no matter how bad you feel. But I’m sorry to say that I appear to be failing miserably.
I knew it was bad the other night when the boss was about to ask me to do something, then came out with…
“Oh… no it’s ok, you’re depressed aren’t you? Don’t worry I’ll do it”
He then scurried off around the corridor leaving me sitting wide eyed and dumfounded whilst looking around to see if anyone else had heard what he had said or if it was just me. I’m still struggling to believe it actually
I must admit however I didn’t really help myself the other day when my fellow receptionist Sarah made, what I realised rather too late, a joke about crying in the back office listening to the same Phil Collins song 50 times.
Rant:
“I can’t believe Simon told you about that the little twat! First of all I listened to that song 6 times not 50 and second of all I’d already finished crying when he came into the office so he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about!”
The gobsmacked look on her face quickly confirmed that she in fact had no idea about the incident in the back office the evening prior. That she was simply speaking in jest about a typical scenario that one who is feeling depressed might find oneself in.
Following that rant, myself and Sarah quickly ascended into a Phil Collins Medley. “Against all Odds” “Separate Lives” “One More Night” that kind of stuff. The new conference lady just looked at us like we’d gone stark raving mad but it was the best chuckle I’d had in a while
I’ve got a week off from the hotel very soon which I am looking forward to immensely. I haven’t really got much planned but I am anticipating a lot of conversations with friends and family members beginning with sentences like:
“Is it 7 am or pm”
and
“Hypothetically…What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without brushing your teeth?”
and
“Don’t put that in the bin I’m saving it”
Personally, I do think that a bit of mild depression every now and again does have it’s positives. Your skin clears up cos you’re not wearing make up, you catch up on a bit of sleep and your phone bills go down cos you have no desire or interest in talking to anyone. Well, most people at least.
It’s these positives that I need to try and focus on until I’m back to my normal, eccentric self. The other day I dropped a pen on the floor and welled up as I asked myself “Why do bad things happen to good people” and that behaviour just won’t do.
I need to snap out of it very quickly I think, before I find myself at the point of no return. Or as our good friend Mr Collins says… In too deep.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Sunday, 7 March 2010
With a little help from my friends
A great writer once said that the great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.
At this moment in time I have to say that I am feeling quite the opposite, in that my home life is currently acting as a refuge from the hotel. What with the departure of yet another receptionist, a £200 unpaid room bill, and the silent treatment from our leader, I’m starting to wish that things were different for me, I’ve considered writing to Liz Jones (one of my many idols) and asking her if she fancies a “life swap” where she can take over my 50 hour working week in exchange for letting me hole myself up in her desolate country house like a crazy eccentric with nobody but the animals to talk to (I’ve always preferred animals to people)
Last weekend our part time receptionist checked somebody in without taking any method of securing payment. It’s easily done, when you’re busy on reception, you take people in good faith and just hope that they’re honest enough to pay the bill on departure. In this instance, I’m afraid to say that the guest wasn’t. And so it has been left to me and the part time receptionist to retrieve payment from the guy, currently to no avail.
This kind of thing has been happening a lot lately. People going without paying. And I have to say that I’m not surprised that the boss is getting fed up of it. But what he doesn’t realise, is that I’m getting fed up of it as well.
To make it clear, the only people I blame for these mishaps are the people who do the midnight flit without paying the bill. They have no idea of the repercussions they leave behind, although I doubt they’d give two hoots if they did.
But as I said before, at the moment my home life is the refuge from the tedious mess which is my work life. On Saturday, my gorgeous 6 year old niece had a joint birthday party with another little boy in her class. On the morning of the party I went to my sisters house to join the committee of people designated to assist in decorating the church hall where the party was being held. And as I stood with a mug of tea in my hand waiting fro my sister to give us the OK to get cracking, I made the stupid mistake of asking her what she had bought the other little boy for a present. The sequence of events was as follows.
Sister pulls stretch Armstrong style toy monkey out of birthday gift bag
Sister takes each of monkeys arms and pulls vigorously in outward direction
Sister loses grip of monkey subsequently smacking Aunty in the face.
In a reflex defence from being smacked in the face, Aunties hand holding mug of tea is raised in the air, subsequently pouring over aunty, and over child
Although child is aware that her bare arm is drenched in tea, she is at first oblivious that it has also stained white tee shirt underneath party dress
Aunty then points in dismay to tee shirt to make child aware that party clothes are ruined
Child beings to cry.
What can I say except that nobody was injured, the party clothes were changed, and I think I laughed more that morning than I have done all week.
Good friends and family are sometimes all the refuge you need when work gets a bit too much. And what with my gorgeous little niece, my comical big sister, and of course, my butterfly guy, I’m pretty certain that one way or another, things will be back on track, very soon.
At this moment in time I have to say that I am feeling quite the opposite, in that my home life is currently acting as a refuge from the hotel. What with the departure of yet another receptionist, a £200 unpaid room bill, and the silent treatment from our leader, I’m starting to wish that things were different for me, I’ve considered writing to Liz Jones (one of my many idols) and asking her if she fancies a “life swap” where she can take over my 50 hour working week in exchange for letting me hole myself up in her desolate country house like a crazy eccentric with nobody but the animals to talk to (I’ve always preferred animals to people)
Last weekend our part time receptionist checked somebody in without taking any method of securing payment. It’s easily done, when you’re busy on reception, you take people in good faith and just hope that they’re honest enough to pay the bill on departure. In this instance, I’m afraid to say that the guest wasn’t. And so it has been left to me and the part time receptionist to retrieve payment from the guy, currently to no avail.
This kind of thing has been happening a lot lately. People going without paying. And I have to say that I’m not surprised that the boss is getting fed up of it. But what he doesn’t realise, is that I’m getting fed up of it as well.
To make it clear, the only people I blame for these mishaps are the people who do the midnight flit without paying the bill. They have no idea of the repercussions they leave behind, although I doubt they’d give two hoots if they did.
But as I said before, at the moment my home life is the refuge from the tedious mess which is my work life. On Saturday, my gorgeous 6 year old niece had a joint birthday party with another little boy in her class. On the morning of the party I went to my sisters house to join the committee of people designated to assist in decorating the church hall where the party was being held. And as I stood with a mug of tea in my hand waiting fro my sister to give us the OK to get cracking, I made the stupid mistake of asking her what she had bought the other little boy for a present. The sequence of events was as follows.
Sister pulls stretch Armstrong style toy monkey out of birthday gift bag
Sister takes each of monkeys arms and pulls vigorously in outward direction
Sister loses grip of monkey subsequently smacking Aunty in the face.
In a reflex defence from being smacked in the face, Aunties hand holding mug of tea is raised in the air, subsequently pouring over aunty, and over child
Although child is aware that her bare arm is drenched in tea, she is at first oblivious that it has also stained white tee shirt underneath party dress
Aunty then points in dismay to tee shirt to make child aware that party clothes are ruined
Child beings to cry.
What can I say except that nobody was injured, the party clothes were changed, and I think I laughed more that morning than I have done all week.
Good friends and family are sometimes all the refuge you need when work gets a bit too much. And what with my gorgeous little niece, my comical big sister, and of course, my butterfly guy, I’m pretty certain that one way or another, things will be back on track, very soon.
Monday, 1 March 2010
And another one bites the dust
It’s always confusing to me why people find it so difficult to just be straight and upfront if they’re unhappy in a situation. Myself included.
I mean… you lot must have been there? When there are 2 of you involved in a situation and one or both of you think that something in that situation should or needs to change and/or move forward but neither of you do anything about it.
You don’t want to be the one to mention it because you’re worried that you may have read the signals wrong and so you wait for the other person to say something which of course doesn’t happen because that other person either
A) Thinks everything is fine the way it is
B) Wants things to change but at the same time is worried that they will potentially ruin something which in it’s own little way works fine
Or
C) Is hoping that you will be the first one to bring it up so that you can take responsibility if it all goes tits up.
It’s situations like these that make my life so complicated. Like there’s an elephant in the room that you both know is there but for some reason don’t talk about it. I’ve found myself in a similar situation recently. A situation which has resulted in me not only questioning myself as a person, but also losing a receptionist which on reflection I think I could have perhaps prevented, had that elephant in the room just been talked about.
The receptionist who I am talking about only joined us around a month ago. Pretty little thing. Bright, smart, great with the customers. The only problem was that for some reason, she seemed to think that shift times were more of a guideline than a company requirement. She would think nothing of strolling half an hour, 1 hour, 2 hours late with no apology or explanation. She actually came on shift 20 minutes late once when taking over from me after I’d been on the early.
“Hiya! Oh Have you lost weight?”
“Yeah I have! Why are you late?”
Do you know what I mean? That’s what she was like.
Anyway this sort of thing continued and all the while I jut thought she was a bit flaky. So I spoke to her about it and was promised that it would stop. What I wasn’t aware that when the lateness stopped the sick days would start, causing me even more problems than before
So as you can imagine I was in 2 minds what to do about the whole thing. I had heard through the grape vine that she was unhappy with us, our little family. That she’d told people she was ready to walk and was coming to work with a sick feeling in her stomach every day. That’s not right after just a few weeks is it?
There were a couple of times when I had the opportunity to speak to her about it, but didn’t. And why? Well… the reasons I gave earlier. Partly hoping she would bring it up so I wouldn’t have to feel responsible if it went tits up, partly hoping that if we brushed it under the carpet things would improve, so why make an issue of it?
In hindsight, I wish now that I had taken a different approach. Maybe called her to tell her that her work was appreciated. Asked her if there were any problems she wanted to talk to me about. Not to say that I wasn’t livid about being messed around by her unreliability, but now I’ve calmed down I’m wondering if maybe there was a hidden reason behind why. Maybe she found herself sitting there some days physically not able to face coming in, I hate the thought of anyone feeling like that. But I didn’t say aaything. And why? Guess the elephant was in the way. That’s the only reason I can think of.
I think had this receptionist known me a little better, she would have know that I understand that sometimes it’s more difficult than you realise to come out and say what you really feel. And I would have respected her for telling me the truth. Maybe she was worried that I would disregard her feelings as being ridiculous and tell her to toughen up. Maybe she thought that I would tell the whole world what she thought about it and cause her even more problems. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe.
Wouldn’t it be easy if we lived in a world where there were no elephants in rooms and where people were just honest and upfront. It would avoid so many problems, or at least I think it would. Or would it end up causing them? Who Knows?
What will be will be, what is meant to be will happen, and every day is a challenge. I’m going to try very hard to put the whole thing behind me and move on to the next thing.
After all, I’ve got my own elephants to deal with. As well as these damn butterflies in my tummy.
I mean… you lot must have been there? When there are 2 of you involved in a situation and one or both of you think that something in that situation should or needs to change and/or move forward but neither of you do anything about it.
You don’t want to be the one to mention it because you’re worried that you may have read the signals wrong and so you wait for the other person to say something which of course doesn’t happen because that other person either
A) Thinks everything is fine the way it is
B) Wants things to change but at the same time is worried that they will potentially ruin something which in it’s own little way works fine
Or
C) Is hoping that you will be the first one to bring it up so that you can take responsibility if it all goes tits up.
It’s situations like these that make my life so complicated. Like there’s an elephant in the room that you both know is there but for some reason don’t talk about it. I’ve found myself in a similar situation recently. A situation which has resulted in me not only questioning myself as a person, but also losing a receptionist which on reflection I think I could have perhaps prevented, had that elephant in the room just been talked about.
The receptionist who I am talking about only joined us around a month ago. Pretty little thing. Bright, smart, great with the customers. The only problem was that for some reason, she seemed to think that shift times were more of a guideline than a company requirement. She would think nothing of strolling half an hour, 1 hour, 2 hours late with no apology or explanation. She actually came on shift 20 minutes late once when taking over from me after I’d been on the early.
“Hiya! Oh Have you lost weight?”
“Yeah I have! Why are you late?”
Do you know what I mean? That’s what she was like.
Anyway this sort of thing continued and all the while I jut thought she was a bit flaky. So I spoke to her about it and was promised that it would stop. What I wasn’t aware that when the lateness stopped the sick days would start, causing me even more problems than before
So as you can imagine I was in 2 minds what to do about the whole thing. I had heard through the grape vine that she was unhappy with us, our little family. That she’d told people she was ready to walk and was coming to work with a sick feeling in her stomach every day. That’s not right after just a few weeks is it?
There were a couple of times when I had the opportunity to speak to her about it, but didn’t. And why? Well… the reasons I gave earlier. Partly hoping she would bring it up so I wouldn’t have to feel responsible if it went tits up, partly hoping that if we brushed it under the carpet things would improve, so why make an issue of it?
In hindsight, I wish now that I had taken a different approach. Maybe called her to tell her that her work was appreciated. Asked her if there were any problems she wanted to talk to me about. Not to say that I wasn’t livid about being messed around by her unreliability, but now I’ve calmed down I’m wondering if maybe there was a hidden reason behind why. Maybe she found herself sitting there some days physically not able to face coming in, I hate the thought of anyone feeling like that. But I didn’t say aaything. And why? Guess the elephant was in the way. That’s the only reason I can think of.
I think had this receptionist known me a little better, she would have know that I understand that sometimes it’s more difficult than you realise to come out and say what you really feel. And I would have respected her for telling me the truth. Maybe she was worried that I would disregard her feelings as being ridiculous and tell her to toughen up. Maybe she thought that I would tell the whole world what she thought about it and cause her even more problems. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe.
Wouldn’t it be easy if we lived in a world where there were no elephants in rooms and where people were just honest and upfront. It would avoid so many problems, or at least I think it would. Or would it end up causing them? Who Knows?
What will be will be, what is meant to be will happen, and every day is a challenge. I’m going to try very hard to put the whole thing behind me and move on to the next thing.
After all, I’ve got my own elephants to deal with. As well as these damn butterflies in my tummy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
