The semi-finished hotel has several suites in private locations. Assuming storms have not blown trees through the windows, or the rain isn’t pouring through the roofs, these suites are great for public figures who want a holiday without being disturbed by the other guests. Some of the recent highlights included:

• The 80s band member

The 80s band member came with his family and a very noisy dog. It is often the case that the smallest dogs make the most noise and that happened here. Whenever anyone came past the window or down the stairs, the dog would go crazy. We had to move the people in the next room because of the 80’s band member’s dog. Of course, he seemed oblivious to the whole situation. He also left on the lights in his very expensive car. It wasn’t noticed until after 3am so rather than phone, we wrote a note and slipped it under the door which made the tiny dog react like a murder was about to happen. Once the lights were turned off, we had guide him back to his room in his pyjamas as he was lost. It was a surreal moment.

• The media personality

The media personality is one of those people who have an opinion on everything and are often on TV arguing about things they don’t understand while the host tries to stay interested. As a result, he was very keen to be spotted by the other guests. He asked to be moved out of his secluded suite and into a smaller room not far from the reception. He left his room door open so everyone could see him typing on his laptop. He paraded through the restaurant, getting up after each course and striding around. Our mainly international team had no idea who he was and agreed to selfies out of politeness. I think most of those photos will have been instantly deleted.

• The 70s popstar

The 70s popstar booked not just her suite but also the one next door which she used for storage. She was here for six nights and brought so much stuff it looked like she was moving house. She arrived in a raincoat with the hood up (even though it wasn’t raining) and went straight up to her rooms. My feeling is that it has been so long since she was famous, nobody would remember what she looked like anyway. The 70s popstar had room service three times a day (berries and oat milk) and never left her room, not even to put the trays outside. Housekeeping were not allowed access to clean and as a result, after she left, it took two days to get rid of the smell.

• The ambassador

The arrival of the ambassador needed careful consideration. The police had already filled in an evaluation following two site visits, everyone on duty had been vetted and the ambassador was bringing their own armed security guards who would sleep in the car. If anyone needed access to the room, it had to be ‘cleared from London’, rather than just asking the ambassador themselves if they want extra towels. Perhaps they were just very indecisive. More disappointingly, the ambassador did not spoil us with Ferrero Roche.

Coming next is a 90s rock star who has booked the entire top floor – what could go wrong?

               According to the online dictionary the term influencer means –  “person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media”.

               I don’t understand online influencer culture. Who are these people? It seems like a job nobody applies for, you are an influencer because you say you are. I simply can’t understand why anyone would be interested in watching people opening boxes of free stuff they have been sent by companies I have never heard of.

               At the semi-finished hotel, the arrival of the influencers has been met with a large degree of cynicism. A whole range of ‘online celebrities’ offering a 30 second tik-tok video in return for an all inclusive three night stay via unsolicited emails.

               Many of their ‘brands’ are entirely irrelevant to the business. People describing themselves as experts in fashion, beauty, teddy bears, movie locations or motorbikes offering up their uninformed services in return for free food, drink & accommodation. The email subject line is usually ‘partnership opportunity’ or ‘I can help your business excel’ and is often sent from somewhere six time zones away at 2am.

               What is so extraordinary is the confidence of these people. It doesn’t take long to realise that so many of them have tiny numbers of followers and they have no experience in hotel reviewing yet they still try their luck. Its not unheard of for them to just turn up unannounced and live stream their arrival.

               Sadly, some of them slip through the net and (generally) behave terribly.

• Wanting dishes cooked specifically to fit around their fad diets, often without warning.
• Leaving bedrooms in a terrible state, needing specialist contractors to clean up after them.
• Offering staff members ‘cameos’ in their content instead of a cash tip.

   So many of these requests come in that there is now a person at head office who is employed specifically to deal with them all. One influencer recorded a bad video about the hotel as nobody responded to their collaboration suggestion within 24 hours (even though it was a Sunday), strangely the response, when it did arrive, was a no.

   Sooner or later, the influencer bubble will burst, and these people will have to start paying for stuff again. That day can’t come soon enough.

               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.

Its not every Saturday night that the police declare my location as having a major incident, but this was not just another day. Working at night and sleeping in the day means I am disconnected from what is happening in the outside world (usually this is a positive) so I was surprised to wake up at about 4:30pm and see an amber weather warning for snow in my area. Just on the hills I thought. I was wrong.

I opened the curtains a couple of hours later to discover that while I had been asleep, 20 cm of fluffy white snow had landed in just an afternoon. This was the heaviest snowfall in this area for 18 years and I had to go to work in it.

Perhaps it is the autistic side of my brain which is to blame but I decided to walk to the petrol station before work, something I do every night regardless of the weather. The pavement was unusable, so I walked in the road. The traffic was crazy, backed up for miles. Heavy traffic is not unusual here, busses, lorries, caravans, tractors all using this narrow country road, breaking down, missing their turnings, its all part of life. But this was different.

As I walked, I was stopped by a young woman who left her car to talk to me. She wanted to know how long the queue was. The answer I gave was “as far as I can see”. She left Santa’s grotto at the local garden centre more than four hours ago and has travelled less than a mile since then. The snow was half way to my knee but I kept on walking, I needed my midnight snacks to get me through the shift. A second man stopped me, an elderly gent who had been in his car for eight hours, his journey would normally be about 45 minutes.

I saw three car crashes, I saw people pushing cars up the hill while slipping around in trainers, I saw so many pedestrians. Very few people walk here yet tonight people were walking everywhere, many with suitcases on wheels (which really were not performing effectively in the snow). Cars were being abandoned the whole way down the road. Emergency services were fighting to get through, sirens were ringing out and nobody was going anywhere.

When I got back to the (semi-finished) hotel, insanity had arrived. The General Manager was sitting at the reception desk having sold 22 (semi-finished) rooms to weary travellers in less than an hour. Housekeeping were running around, trying to remember which cupboard the pillow cases were being kept in and chef was muttering about only having ordered enough food to feed eight people.

It was a couple of hours until my shift started but I felt like I could be useful. People who were doing nothing in particular were mobilised to be in the tea team, giving takeaway hot drinks to people who had not left their cars all day. The main door continued to open with people wanting rooms but there were none. It was like the Christmas story. If only we had a stable, they could have used. Instead, people filled every chair, every step, everywhere just getting out of the cold. The coffee machine was heaving under the weight of orders. Oat milk skinny lattes and iced cinnamon cappuccinos were banned. The choices were white coffee or black coffee (or a glass of water).

By 10pm, things had started to calm down. The snow was falling again, and most people had gone somewhere. The general manager had left to gently weep in a corner and the team had gone to bed. Nobody had gone home, they all stayed over, having to make their own beds after a 14 hour shift. The hotel looked like a Christmas card and I started clearing up the mess.

Then a lady came through the door. She was in her mid-70s and alone. She had been stuck in the car for 15 hours trying to do a journey that would usually take 15 minutes. This lady was freezing and terrified. When I said we had no more rooms, she burst into tears. I found her a seat by the fireplace, a blanket, newspapers to read and more tea. Although I was under instructions not to let anyone else in (something to do with fire regulations) I couldn’t turn her away. She slept on that chair, not waking all night.

Someone else who stayed the night despite not having a room was a nurse on her way to a patient. She was waiting for the police to escort her through the nightmare conditions so she could give insulin to somebody in desperate need. 14 hours later, she was still waiting (and so was the patient).

At 4am, I spotted a snowplough clearing the roads and mountain rescue volunteers knocking on car windows making sure their occupants were safe. What I didn’t see was gritting lorries. The news report said there was 200 abandoned cars but that was probably added up by somebody who couldn’t count. The real figure must have been triple that.

That night was spent going out again on a tea run and welcoming weary travellers who wanted to keep warm and use the facilities. The roads were clearing, and people were digging themselves out, the snow was so deep, our shovel snapped but by this point by bed was calling me. Living at the hotel does have some advantages. It’s not a night I want to repeat but it is a night I won’t forget in a hurry.

Jobs I have never considered applying for include,

• Filming the inside of a volcano
• Pet food testing
• Being a living statue
• Fishing golf balls out of lakes
• A night manager

So when the general manager of the new hotel offered me the chance to work through the midnight hours, I had no idea what to think. To help me out, I googled night manager and found ‘an undercover operation to bring down a major international arms dealer’, although perhaps that was just the fictional night manager in a John le Carrie novel. I don’t think I would be any good at bringing down major international arms dealers, I can’t be bothered with running, I don’t drive and the last bus is 7pm.

Instead the night manager role he was offering me, involves working in reception, the bar and some housekeeping, and generally keeping up the same level of customer service that the day shift offers. I liked the idea of working at a slow pace, plodding along on my own, walking around the garden with a torch and missing a majority of the stress. Importantly, after a year in the pubs, it would mean a quieter life. A week later, he phoned with an improved offer including a four-day week and an increased salary. It seemed like he really wanted me to be there, perhaps nobody else applied.

Fast forward four months and I was on my first night shift. The week of shadowing another night manager in a different hotel had not been arranged as promised and my team of four was still just me. In short, I had no idea what I was doing and because it was the middle of the night, there was nobody around to ask, so I just made it up. The hotel was empty as the renovations had overrun so there was not much for me to do anyway. I couldn’t answer the phones (as they didn’t work), I couldn’t check my emails (as my password didn’t work) and I couldn’t check the fire alarms (they didn’t work either) so I swept floors, cleaned windows and generally messed around.

Six weeks later, nothing has really changed, and the hotel still isn’t open. I have got into a routine and the very good news is that the kitchen team has nobody to cook for, so the food is brilliant. My 3am feasts have included steak, sweet & sour chicken and Sunday roasts. There is nobody to check what I am doing, so I spend ages consuming everything in sight – well it is free!

Something else I never considered was that I would never have to attend another meeting as they are always held outside my working hours. I got into the routine of sleeping twice, once in the morning and again in the evening meaning I am free every afternoon which I love. The peace of working at night, is amazing. I walk around the grounds waving my torch at nothing in particular, hearing the gravel under foot, watch rabbits hopping around and as soon as everyone else turns up, I leave.

How it will change when we finally get around to having paying customers, only time will tell, to be honest I am in no hurry for that, but for now, I am as happy as Larry (whoever he is). I just hope to continue avoiding those pesky major international arms dealers.

It was a few months ago that I decided to move on from the rural pub. Honestly, I was a hopeless bartender, I knew it and so did everyone else. A year in and I still couldn’t use a corkscrew, remember how to make a single cocktail and had given up entirely with the coffee machine. It was time to make a change.

               I knew what I didn’t want. Anywhere busy. Anywhere I’d have to find somewhere to live. Anywhere that would need me to operate a corkscrew. But what did I want? The answer came in an all-staff email, the company had bought a new hotel which had been empty for years and were about to complete the renovations. An open day was being held at a local museum (rather than at the hotel, which even at the time seemed unusual) and everyone was welcome to come along.

               The open day was very well organized, there were samples of food & drink, lots of pictures, a competition to win a boat trip and loads of vouchers for local businesses. HR were out in force, big smiles, open body language and welcoming gestures at the ready. The problem was an obvious shortage of candidates. In fact, I was the only one there.

               I couldn’t work out if they were happy to see me or not. Particularly after I said I had no idea what position I was interested in (if any). I did spend a lot of time consuming the samples – in fact, I didn’t need lunch that day – and scooped up as much free stuff as I could. The hotel looked like it would be beautiful, looking out over the water. It had a number of rooms staff could use and was near a major bus route. The problem was, I couldn’t see anything that appealed to me.

               Of course, the fact that I had been to the open day got back to my manager at the rural pub before I had finished my samples and he left me a voicemail wanting to set up a meeting about why I wasn’t happy. To be honest, I think he was more concerned about filling gaps in the rota my leaving would cause rather than loosing my (lack of) skills.

               Three weeks passed, I had looked over the available positions a few times and couldn’t find anything I wanted, but this didn’t stop everyone assuming I was leaving. Somebody even asked me if they could have my room, they seemed confused when I said I hadn’t actually applied for anything, let alone accepted a position. Mainly to shut them all up I applied for a couple of things at the hotel that I didn’t think I was suitable for.

               Another five weeks passed; I hadn’t heard anything. I assumed that was that, no harm done and the boat trip I won for being the only one at the open day was nice. I would carry on looking for something else, using the notebook I also got from the open day. However, by this point even the customers at the rural pub were asking when I was leaving and I was starting to get a little irritated. So, I broke protocol and emailed the general manager of the new hotel directly bypassing the HR system altogether. He replied and to my amazement, he wanted to see me as he had an idea to run by me…

To be continued…