The Staff Block

               One part of the semi-finished hotel that is operating at full capacity is the staff block. It has enormous rooms, mostly ensuite that come with sofas, fridges, TVs, and free Wi-Fi. However, I chose a tiny room above an office without all the amenities because I (correctly) assumed that the staff block would be the scene of constant madness and working at night means it will be me who must deal with it.

               It is a large building, 23 rooms, mostly single occupancy although a few people share. It has the feeling of a university hall of residence in décor and also in the age group of the occupants. Moving in day was chaos. These young adults turned up all at once, being driven my family members with mountains of possessions in bin bags, wheeled suitcases getting stuck on the gravel path and regret at not asking if there was a lift before deciding how much to pack. People brought their own office chairs, air fryers and TVs (even though the rooms have them). One lad even brought an air rifle, which was immediately confiscated by the manager.

               Fast forward a week and the place was a tip. The washing up rota had been discarded, and empty cans and bottles filled every corner. Since the hotel was ages behind schedule, there wasn’t a lot for these people to do so they filled their time partying with the inevitable consequences. Every night on doing my rounds I would be dealing with people crying, refereeing shouting matches or calling ambulances. All of these I would write in my nightly reports which became ‘must reads’ for the management team the next morning. The regularity of the visits from the emergency services (including for a girl who accidently drank bleach) meant the manager needed to call a crisis meeting.

               The residents of the house were summoned into the restaurant and the manager laid down the law. The idea was everyone would be given the chance to air their grievances, so everything could be out in the open. This was a terrible idea as the meeting descended into anarchy. Fortunately, I was asleep and missed it all, when I woke up I sent the managers a message how it went and when nobody replied my fears were realised. Somebody was accused of being a drug dealer by one of their housemates, somebody else was exposed as stealing from the bar and three people stormed out (two of them never returned).

               One thing that became apparent is that these people need things to do so they are not all in at the same time. We then embarked on a work creation scheme, finding a whole load of fairly pointless time filling tasks for them to complete to keep them busy. It wasn’t quite digging holes and filling them in again but it wasn’t a long way off. They inventoried everything in the hotel (even though we already knew what was there), they were set off on a load of pointless training – the chefs were taught how to take a telephone reservation for a room while the receptionists were shown the correct method of cleaning cocktail glasses.

               People carried on leaving/being fired at a rate of knots. Perhaps two rooms a week got a new occupant. This in itself gave the team things to do as they cleared up the inevitable mess that was left behind, withholding deposits gave the hotel an important revenue source (which was handy as nothing else was ready to be sold).

               I was asked to check on the staff block at midnight, 2:30am and 5am each day. I never had any idea what I would be walking into but over time I developed an incredible fondness for these young people. They started to confide in me, ask my advice (and drunkenly ramble in my direction), I began to enjoy their company. I found myself saying “you need to wear shoes if you are going outside”, “do you have a coat?” and “please don’t eat that, its mouldy”.

               My transformation into a father figure for around 25 people who are half my age isn’t something I saw coming but its one of my favourite things about my job. The other is not having to live with them.