A Testing Time (Part One)

The semi-finished hotel has recently invested in a boat. Sadly, the boat is not seaworthy and can’t be insured to sail. The captain (who had already been employed before the problems emerged) is having a lovely time doing nothing. This didn’t stop us from having a management meeting onboard. Our boat trip went ahead as scheduled, just without going anywhere. The meeting took three hours and (predictably) achieved nothing. The same two or three people talked at length and the rest of us considered just falling overboard and swimming home.

One of the results of the meeting was that the manager decided we needed to improve our communication. Nobody else seemed to be in agreement but our opinions were not requested. The easiest way to have done this would be to keep the meetings shorter and stop the same two or three people talking at length. This, however, was not the decision that was made.

Instead, we got an online personality test to complete. I somehow managed to miss the email and failed to meet the deadline. This resulted in a series of angry emails (which didn’t really help with improving our internal communications) and I completed the test in a hurry at 4am during a night shift while doing something more important on another computer.

About two weeks later I was summoned to another hotel, by a motorway junction that was more than an hour away, along with my colleagues, for a “day of learning”. The start time was brought forward an hour to 8am which was, presumably, to allow the manager to give a very lengthy introduction while the rest of us sighed and looked at our watches.

It was explained that the online personality tests had been fed into an artificial intelligence system (at a cost of £99 per person) and the system has automatically generated some statements which will explain to us what our personalities are. It was very unclear why we just didn’t use horoscopes from a newspaper at a cost of about £2 and we could have all been home by lunchtime. I would assume the results would have been a similar level of reliability.

The first four hours were spent explaining, in vast detail, what the four main personality groups are. They were all given colour names – red, yellow, blue, green – and we are all a combination of each. Red personality types are impulsive, blue personality types are planners, I have already forgotten what the other two mean. We got blocks of duplo of each colour so we could build our personalities. By this point, I excused myself to go to the toilet. I wasted about 15 minutes, when I got back, the same two or three people were still talking and nobody seemed to have noticed I had gone.

Then it was announced that after lunch we would find out the results of our online tests… I could hardly wait…

To be continued…

Some Brothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em

The day had started off with a phone call from my boss.

‘Have you left yet’, he asked.

‘Yes, I am on the train’ I replied.

‘How far away are you?’

‘Far enough’.

               Family occasions are never something I look forward to, I would quite happily miss every marriage, christening and funeral that comes my way. The noise and the crowds don’t suit me well, so I try and keep out of sight. Luckily, living in a rural part of the country away from the rest of the family makes this easier, however as I was forcefully told by my mother ‘it’s not every day, your brother gets married’.

               I have managed to avoid many of these relatives for years. ‘Why do you never bring anyone along’ they ask as I squirm. ‘You need to get married to carry on the family name’ like their entire gene pool rests on my shoulders.

               The ceremony was to be held in a converted barn, high in the hills, up a narrow lane which featured around thirty cows who just starred at us throughout the proceedings. The journey was marred by an argument over what the word is for the party after a wedding. After a lot of shouting it was decided the word was ‘wake’. I gave up and put my headphones back on.

               The night before all this had been full of drama as the rings had gone missing. Furious text messages went back and forth amongst the various members of the wedding party to try and establish when they were last seen and whose fault this was. Dad stepped into the fray and volunteered his ring as a replacement which was a great idea except it was stuck on his finger. A lot of tugging began; washing up liquid, margarine and vegetable oil were slathered everywhere, in the end an elderly auntie ended up tearing it off with such force that Dad’s finger was broken alongside most of the crockery on the draining board. I was despatched to find the address of the minor injury’s unit and to top it all off, the ring didn’t actually fit. The rings turned up magically overnight in a box of kid’s crisps nestled between the Monster Munch and the Quavers.

               Our family has previous in this respect, last summer my cousin lost his wedding rings between leaving the house and arriving at the church. They had to order new ones from Amazon Prime which arrived directly at the church with less than an hour to spare. The delivery driver received a round of applause. Nobody told the bride her ring cost £15 until their reception was in full flow. I am waiting to read an article in a local newspaper that the rings were found with a carrot having grown through them.

               The ceremony itself was best described as eccentric. It was presided over by a celebrant who spent a great deal of time describing what a celebrant actually was (I was none the wiser). They walked down the aisle together, the bride fell over her shoes and the song they chose for us all to sing was ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by Rick Astley. A choice that had an accompanying dance routine which the already drunk bridesmaids interrupted proceedings to teach us, sadly they couldn’t really remember most of it.

Our chief bridesmaid, Hannah, is the 16-month-old daughter of the happy couple and had been put through intensive walking training. She was one of those babies who is very happy crawling and has no interest in being on two feet, however a chief bridesmaid crawling down the aisle is no good for the photos so for the previous three weeks, every time she crawled she was picked up and put on her feet. You Tube videos entitled ‘how to get a baby to walk’ were closely examined and even the nursery staff were recruited into the mission. Sadly, this was all too much for Hannah herself who when the big moment came, fell asleep and had to be carried into the ceremony.

               Fast forward a couple of hours and the reception was in full flow. Much like the rest, it was non-traditional and had a sports day theme with bean bag throwing, a three-legged race and the bride tore her dress doing a tug-of-war. The hog roast caterers finally arrived, two hours late and Hannah decided this was the perfect moment to take her first unaided steps. Of course, the photographer missed it.

               Before I finally left Dad announced he had lost his nutcrackers. Quite why he brought nutcrackers to a wedding is unclear, but they had gone missing. We all had to go looking for them, like an odd treasure hunt. He even got the DJ to make an announcement to see if anyone had found them. I am sure some of the guests thought it was another party game. Around 20 mins later, he realized they were in the hotel after all. This was the last straw for me and I left to go to bed for the night.

               In the taxi back, I realised that perhaps I should have told the boss the truth, which was that I was still at home when he called and could have gone back to work after all.

A Day Nearby The Races

               I have always enjoyed strolling around a small cathedral city. Bath, Oxford, York, Durham and Norwich are all among my favourites, so I decided to try and add another to my list, Chester.

               The day started with a very pleasant surprise; the 10.50 train was on time! This was something I wasn’t expecting. Finding any train at all comes as quite a shock, let alone the one I was planning on using. However, it was packed with travellers and these people were loud. I had failed to realise that today was the day of the Chester Races.

               Despite it being nowhere near lunchtime, my fellow travellers had already consumed a considerable amount of beer (judging by the cans that were rolling down the aisle) and had started singing in that weird shouty way that only happens around sports. Looking for something quieter, I moved into a different carriage. This went well until a hen party arrived who were drinking directly from two open wine bottles. Again, this was still in the morning. It is crazy that in 2024 this kind of drinking is still acceptable on public transport.

               Anyway, we got into Chester railway station, and it was a crush. The queue for the toilet was huge (I decided not to wait) and the queue to get through the ticket barrier was also enormous (I had no choice but to wait). Then outside were the ticket touts yelling at the drunks to see if anyone still wants a ticket, I can’t really imagine going to the races without a ticket and just crossing my fingers something turns up, but then I also can’t really imagine going to the races at all.

               Chester city centre is lovely, I had a walk along the city walls, down the river and through the medieval streets. There was a busker selling CDs, desperately hoping to find somebody who still has a working CD player. There were people sitting outside eating lunches, trying to protect themselves from seagulls and jumping dogs belonging to strangers. It feels like eating lunch outside could be a round in an ITV gameshow, whoever eats the most of their sandwich before it gets carried away wins a prize.

               I had a look at the Storyhouse, a gigantic modern arts centre housing the city library, theatre, cinema and restaurant. It’s the kind of place you could spend three hours just looking for the exit. On a whim, I watched a play on the fourth floor performed by an amateur company. The theatre had long benches to sit on and no middle aisle. Luckily it was only 50 minutes until the interval as I realised, I still hadn’t been to the toilet. The play was great and by the time it finished, the city seemed to be quietening down. Perhaps everybody had finally made it to the races.

               On my way back to the station, I saw two different people vomiting in the street (it was about 4:30pm) and decided to try Chester again another day. Any other day, just not race day.

Bank Holiday Blues

               Last week the local news reported that we have had 200% of August’s normal rainfall in the last ten days. Roads have turned into lakes (complete with ducks), campsites have flooded, railway lines are closed, the local festival was cancelled, and the tourists are staying at home.

               One of my more eccentric colleagues at the semi-finished hotel is convinced that all this rain is caused by the government seeding clouds to prevent climate change. When I pointed out that the government can’t even organise a GP appointment let alone prevent the effects of global warming, he just walked off.

               A side effect of all this rain is that the busses are a nightmare. Nobody is walking anywhere and every bus stops on every corner. A five-minute ride into town now takes twenty minutes. Of course, the tourists we do have, all need to have a discussion with the driver about where they are going (very often they have no idea) as they run across the road to leap on, only to discover it’s the wrong bus. It would be quicker to travel down the road by canoe.

               This is proving a challenge for the semi-finished hotel as everything is leaking. Water dripping from the ceiling, window frames, light sockets and anywhere else it can find. The manager has invested in extra buckets. People are asking for the heating to be turned up and we have removed the portable radiators back out of storage. I saw somebody wearing a hat and scarf in the restaurant. The outdoor lights are operated by sensor, so they only come on at nighttime. This week they have been on all day.

               Of course, next week the children return to school so it will stop raining and a heatwave will emerge. I think rain hates children (also cricket matches and Wimbledon). If it’s enough to persuade my colleague that its not caused by the government flying planes through clouds (that nobody ever sees or hears) remains to be seen.

Exploding Chicken

               I have always found eating a very functional thing, like dressing or washing so I wouldn’t say I have any feelings about it. Going to restaurants has never been something that particularly interests me, and neither is cooking. For me food is no more than refuelling (and something that often slips my mind).

               Because of this I don’t have many particularly strong memories about meals. There was a Christmas dinner that sticks in my mind because it wasn’t until 3pm which I felt at the time (and still feel now) was much too late to have lunch. What we ate or who was there, I am not clear about.

               After a lot of thought there is something, I remember, food wise from the cruise ship days. We had the same menu as the guests which meant the dinners were on rotation, we had the same menu every week for months on end meaning that we got to know exactly what we wanted before looking at the menu. The table we always sat at was the circular one in the middle, it was the biggest table and closest to everything on the buffet.

               It fell on ‘Island Night’ which was our outdoor deck party. The band played and we had to dance with the guests from around 8pm till midnight. The thing with parties is that they are only fun if you want to be there. Doing this week in, week out for years, it quickly became one of my least favourite things. In fact, it got to the point I used to ask to be sent to the Alaskan cruises just to avoid having to go through the ordeal as it would be too cold.

               The chicken kiev though was a high point. We would gather as a team and everyone ordered the same although inevitably everything would be delivered separately along with a glass of free wine, once tasted it became obvious why the wine was free. The cutting of the chicken was as much of a performance as the cutting of a wedding cake and as everything came out of the kitchen one at a time, we went through it several times a night because as the knife came down, the dinner would explode.

               The buttery liquid inside would squirt out at speed often in several directions and we had to be ready to avoid being splattered. We would hold napkins in front of us and hide behind them until the impact had been made, then emerging to survey the damage. Then another kiev would be presented to one of our table mates and the process would be repeated. It was tricky to get the first one as there would be so many interruptions to eating, it would be cold before you finished.             

  I remember asking the chef how it was the velocity was quite so strong, but he didn’t seem to understand what I was on about. Perhaps he didn’t know either, it remains one of life’s great mysteries.  

The Annual Edinburgh Blog

               I have been going to the Edinburgh Festival for many years now and recent visits have not gone well. There was the time I had a near breakdown regarding the volume at a Burt Bacharach concert and the time I managed to twist both my hips and hobbled for days before giving up and going home early.

               This year I decided to try a new tactic, getting a hotel in the suburbs rather than the city centre. I went for Portobello which is a beautiful resort with a sandy beach only a short bus ride from the heart of the action. The hotel room was lovely, I could watch the cruise ships going by from my bedroom window although it did appear from the size of the bathroom that the builders forgot to put it in when the building was converted and it just got squeezed in later. It was so small; the door wouldn’t open the whole way without hitting the shower cubicle.

               It would have been easier to find my way to the hotel if I had remembered the name of it (or, indeed, which bus I was supposed to get) and since I still haven’t got the hang of putting credit on my phone, I couldn’t just look it up like everyone else in the country. Instead, a taxi was the way forward. The city was packed with people and the taxi rank was empty, so I tried a new plan, just going to a nearby hotel and getting them to order it for me. Hotels always have taxis on speed dial and often get a commission so don’t really mind making the call. It worked a treat.

               Once I got to my correct hotel, the lady behind the reception desk didn’t have a working knowledge of the English language (which is something I imagined should have been picked up during the recruitment process) so checked me in through gestures and Google Translate. Fortunately, I didn’t have any particularly challenging queries for her and the process seemed to work. Later I noticed a sign had been placed on the reception desk saying that if anyone had a question, they should ask it after 10am tomorrow.

               I only saw five shows over the three days I was there (and I only fell asleep in one of them). Not long ago, I would have seen five shows every day. I honestly enjoyed it more doing less rather than stressing myself out, checking my watch obsessively and getting annoyed at the slightest delay. Instead, I spent a lot of time wandering around, taking in the atmosphere and not checking my watch nearly as often. The shows were fine, nothing massively exciting to report, in fact although it was only a couple of weeks ago, I am struggling to remember what I actually saw.

               One thing I do remember clearly is winning a baseball cap in a quiz held on the street which I wore all day in spite of the fact that it was raining. I did overhear one woman (who I assume was from California) asking her husband why he had brought her to Scotland during “the rainy season”, for context it was August. I hate to think what she would have thought in February.

Another Week, Another Course

               I have written before about the various first aid courses that I have been sent on over the years. My certificate needs to be renewed every three years, but it feels like I end up doing a course much more than that. This is because the expectations of what we should do in an emergency keep changing. We don’t practise mouth to mouth anymore due to the infection risk. We now only give the patient (or their family) the bandages rather than apply them ourselves. Pretty much the only thing that we are still required to do is call an ambulance, something that I don’t need a daylong training session to learn.

               However, the most recent first aid course was different as it was for mental health, rather than putting arms in slings or performing CPR to the rhythm of Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. The venue was at the head office. I managed to persuade them to let me stay in a nearby hotel the night before (with dinner and breakfast). I thought I might as well get this to work in my advantage, particularly as nobody told me I was signed up to the course and it was in the middle of my holiday.

Does anyone ever want to be in a room like this?

               The training venue was essentially a large foyer between a call centre, the toilets and the coffee making facilities. This meant there was a constant stream of people trying to discretely pass by eating sandwiches while the instructor discussed the major causes of suicide.

               Of all the things that I hate the most about these corporate training courses, dividing into groups, writing on flipcharts and then telling the group what we wrote is my least favourite. Nobody ever wants to write; nobody ever wants to present and the whole thing is pointless as the rest of the group can just read what was on the flipchart anyway. This course spent the entire morning doing this. One particularly odd exercise included drawing the various symptoms of depression using stick figures. We all just stared at each other blankly. That was until somebody from the call centre tripped over a chair leg and dropped their coffee on the floor.

               Then it was lunchtime. This was provided by a local bakery and way too much food was brought into the training room by a stressed looking woman in a Fiat Punto. Nothing was labelled so we all had to guess. The sausage rolls were a hit, the egg sandwiches weren’t. A particular mystery was an ice cream container filled with miscellaneous crisps. There were at least two (possibly three) types of loose crisps all just mixed together. Obviously, food labelling rules don’t apply here, which is odd because I have done a course on that topic in the same room only a few months ago.

If I were Prime Minister, I would ban flipcharts, it would instantly improve the wellbeing of the nation.

               The afternoon was taken up with case studies. Long videos of people talking about their experiences in more detail than was necessary. The woman next to me fell asleep. Once all that was done, the instructor announced that we were running behind, so we had to cover eating disorders, bipolar, self-harm and psychosis all in about half an hour. The woman next to me woke up. Then we had to do a test. Fortunately, it was multiple choice and so easy that it felt like they were written by the same people that do the competitions on Lorraine or Loose Women. During the test there was an interruption as somebody from the call centre wanted to know if they could have the leftover sandwiches. We all passed (even the woman who had been asleep).

               I have just found out that we have another course next month, learning insights. I think I will book a medical appointment that day, no idea about what issue but I have a couple of weeks to decide. Wish me luck.

Service Please

               I have never met a chef who objected to being called “chef”. No matter how senior in the kitchen team they are, calling them “chef” is always fine. ‘Morning chef’, ‘thanks chef’ and of course, ‘yes chef’ are normal things to say to anyone wearing white standing near an oven. It’s odd, we would never define other people by their job role – ‘thank you HR advisor’, ‘yes procurement officer’ or ‘morning systems analyst’ would all be very strange, but chefs are different. Plus, it has the added bonus of nobody needing to remember their actual names.

               I was discussing this phenomenon with somebody from the restaurant team at the semi-finished hotel and they felt that not only did they not know the names of most of the chefs, but the chefs also don’t know the names of the waiters either. They just yell ‘service’ at anyone they see, regardless of how busy that person is or what their job role actually involves.

               A more serious reason behind some of this is that due to a variety of circumstances, staff turnover is extremely high in food service businesses and learning names can be tricky. It is not unusual for a new chef to arrive without knowing where anything is or how to make many of the dishes on the menu. The person who was supposed to show them didn’t turn up (or has been poached by a place down the road offering an extra £1 per hour) meaning the new chef is in at the deep end.

               The waiters may not be in a better position either. On a summers night I visited a small pub for dinner, the place was packed, and a young lad (approximately 19 years old) was running round in a panic. I would have estimated that there should have been four of them but it seemed to be him on his own. Then his mother arrived to help out. Although it quickly became clear that she had never worked a pub shift in her life and had no idea how to do anything. Even pouring lemonade proved a challenge for her.

               There were danger signs. The table I pre-booked wasn’t set (or even clean), nobody seemed to have food in front of them and the young lad looked on the verge of tears. I was tempted to volunteer but maybe that wouldn’t have been too useful either. I would have ended up tripping over an excited dog with a tray of glasses. When the waiter took our order, we were told there were no chips as ‘the chef can’t find them’.

               This kind of thing is happening all over the country. Good people trying their best, but the industry is severely understaffed. The politicians tell us it’s “unskilled”, yet I wonder if they can tell the difference between Coke and Diet Coke by sight alone. And if they can, perhaps they can help chef find the chips.

Four Years Ago Today

Here is something I wrote four years ago today and didn’t get round to doing anything with. It is quite amazing how much the world has changed since then and also how little I have changed.

…

               I have been incredibly lucky during lockdown that I have been able to get outside every day for my state mandated walk. In fact, don’t tell anyone but I am usually out for longer than the hour I was allowed. I am such a rebel!

               Over the last few weeks, I have been swerving kids on bicycles, keeping a wide birth of the cows (and their deposits) and remembering to open gates with my elbows. I noticed this week, the government put out advise for people who go outside to ‘regularly wash clothing’ and thought what it says about the state of the country, which meant that particular piece of advice was needed.

               While wandering through fields and passed housing estates things that caught my attention have included a man wearing wellington boots even though it hasn’t rained in weeks, the young girl with a chalk stick decorating the pavement who shouted ‘Daddy, how do you spell NHS’ and a woman who nearly leapt into a hedge when somebody on the other side of the road coughed.

               My sense of direction can be a weak point, I remember hearing (about 30 years ago) that looking at a map makes you a target for muggers and that has lodged inside me to such an extent that I frequently wander around with no idea where I am. My inner confidence is that I will work it out eventually and if all else fails, I find a building. A building must be somehow connected to a road, by following a road, I will find a road sign and assuming I recognise somewhere on the sign, all will be fine. It was not long ago, I accidentally wondered into a stranger’s back garden. Luckily, nobody challenged me as I went round the side of their property to find the road.

               I have no idea about varieties of plants, birds or any other kind of wildlife. As a rule of thumb, I can distinguish between a squirrel and a butterfly but would struggle with any further detail. This is possibly because Mum was always a keen gardener and that must have put me off. To help with this, I got a book with pictures of varieties of trees and creatures, but it is too heavy to carry around. I should put this on my to-do list, along with cleaning behind the fridge or finding an ISA but I think having a nap will always take priority.

The Best Days Of My Life?

               The old saying goes ‘school days are the best days of your life’. I think this is about as true as carrots helping with night vision or crusts making hair curl. I hated school.

               I think I had already figured out that most of the things we were learning would have no practical application in real life. Knowing the symbols for elements on the periodic table, the cause of an oxbow lake or the relationship between Hermia and Helena in Midsummer Night’s Dream were all pointless. This took all my interest away from whatever the government decided that we were being taught.

               My last day at high school was an odd one. We had a big assembly and all the students I expected to stand up and read their own poetry did exactly that, lots of people (including the drama teacher) cried and I just couldn’t get it. What were they all upset about? Are they really going to miss hours of essay writing, trigonometry or hockey in the rain?

My walk home that day was possibly the happiest I had ever been. I knew I had exams coming up but didn’t care, the worst was over. The exams themselves didn’t seem to make any lasting impact on my memory, other than a fire evacuation part way through. We all left the exam hall part way through and were forbidden from speaking to each other on the playing field. A ban on birds eating worms may have been more successful.

Exam results day also seemed unnecessary. I left it most of the day before working up the effort to go back to school to collect the envelope, it just didn’t seem important. It was only when I started getting phone calls from concerned family members that I finally went but by then I had heard the usual news reports about exams were getting easier and so our achievements were worthless, and I think I agreed.

I did fine in my exams and since then nobody has ever asked what grade I got in my religious studies GCSE, which is good as I really don’t remember anyway. I believe that since then, teachers have tried much harder to make education more relevant and engaging which can only be a good thing. I wonder if the teenagers today still know what an oxbow lake is? I don’t think it would be a negative if they had no idea.