Firstly a quick perv update...
I would like to extend my comments about last weeks guests further and add that JTP (Josh the Perv) was not helped by the fact that A led him on a fair bit. At one point he was helping A with the dishes and asked her whether this would earn him some digestivs after the meal. A's response was to whisper to him 'You'll need to do more than that to earn some after dinner treats' and then wink before loading the dishwasher...provocatively.
Another thing I noticed about staring Stanley was the way that he was somehow ALWAYS listening. A and I would be having a conversation, nothing to do with the guests and every now and then his voice would just answer a question, I didn't even know where it was coming from half the time. On Thursday morning A was sitting by the kitchen door eating a yoghurt and couldn't finish it, she asked me if I would like the rest...before I even had time to answer her JTP's hand slowly extended through the door and plucked the yoghurt from her hand.
I will definitely not miss JTP and his starey ways...but in a weird way I think A really will.
This is going to be a strange week. Unfortunately A got some sad news recently and has to go home for a few days to visit family. I am slowly starting to realise quite how much she does around the chalet... before leaving she left a list of things for me to remember.Things that I am very likely to forget such as 'lock door when leaving', 'turn oven off when finished cooking' and 'flush loo after use'.
Hopefully the list will help me through until she returns on Tuesday but I will give you a mid week update to let you know how I get on.
I just went and did the online shopping for the first time...I am about 100 Euros over budget...guess I better log back in and take off those crab legs and pork roasting joints I orderered for the staff barbeque.
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Friday, 28 January 2011
Best of the Guests and the Return of the Perv...
Sab was gone, I was happy. I didn't realise how much it had affected my week until I finally waved him out of the door. The whole week was a bit of a downer. At one point the guests had asked if one friend from another resort could come and stay the night. As Sab had a spare bed in his room we agreed so long as the visitor didn't bother the other guests. The morning of the arrival we were told he was here... 6 snow boarders came bounding through the door, raiding our fridges, eating twix bars and doing big poos and using all the toilet paper. A went crazy and kicked them out the door, you go girl!
So I was badly wanting a change in vibe and it came with our new set of guests. They were wonderful. Helped with everything. Came out in the evenings and made sure we got absolutely smashed without spending anything. It made us both feel so much better and we had an all round amazing week. By the end it was very sad to see them go and we would have both been happy to have them for another week. A tip just short of 100 euros each made their departure slightly more bareable.
This weeks guests are nice. Not quite up there with the week before but pleasant enough. I'm getting quite a lot of amusement though as we have another perv, and thankfully this time he isn't after me. He seems to have developed a bit of a warm gooey soft spot for my lovely co host. At least I think he has. It's either that or he wants to kill her.
During dinner preparation yesterday I came into the chalet just after A to find her standing in the kitchen chopping some mushrooms with about 6 guests seated in a semi circle around her looking at her like she was putting on a 'Punch and Judy' show. The pervy one was helpfully sitting on our bin, following A, longingly. Each time I needed to throw something away I had to pick him up and pop him on the fridge for a second, but he didn't notice, he was too deeply involved with his stare.
Yesterday A was telling him that she really wants a lesson. His response was to stare deep into her eyes for 17 seconds breathing heavily before saying 'Come up the mountain with me, I'll throw you down something hard.' Now, I've seen this guy ski, and I'm pretty sure he isn't a qualified instructor so I'm not quite sure what he was offering with this. I'll let you come to your own conclusion on that one.
I'm hoping that I won't have to find out if his stare is a loving one or a murderous one.
So I was badly wanting a change in vibe and it came with our new set of guests. They were wonderful. Helped with everything. Came out in the evenings and made sure we got absolutely smashed without spending anything. It made us both feel so much better and we had an all round amazing week. By the end it was very sad to see them go and we would have both been happy to have them for another week. A tip just short of 100 euros each made their departure slightly more bareable.
This weeks guests are nice. Not quite up there with the week before but pleasant enough. I'm getting quite a lot of amusement though as we have another perv, and thankfully this time he isn't after me. He seems to have developed a bit of a warm gooey soft spot for my lovely co host. At least I think he has. It's either that or he wants to kill her.
During dinner preparation yesterday I came into the chalet just after A to find her standing in the kitchen chopping some mushrooms with about 6 guests seated in a semi circle around her looking at her like she was putting on a 'Punch and Judy' show. The pervy one was helpfully sitting on our bin, following A, longingly. Each time I needed to throw something away I had to pick him up and pop him on the fridge for a second, but he didn't notice, he was too deeply involved with his stare.
Yesterday A was telling him that she really wants a lesson. His response was to stare deep into her eyes for 17 seconds breathing heavily before saying 'Come up the mountain with me, I'll throw you down something hard.' Now, I've seen this guy ski, and I'm pretty sure he isn't a qualified instructor so I'm not quite sure what he was offering with this. I'll let you come to your own conclusion on that one.
I'm hoping that I won't have to find out if his stare is a loving one or a murderous one.
Seb/Sab
The week after Patrick the Perv left was a mixed bag. We had a chalet of 5 policemen and women and a 5 year old girl and a group of 7 young lads and ladettes, the 2 groups didn't mix especially well. One good thing was that the 5 year old was desperate to help us out with anything she possibly could so we pretty much didn't have to serve or collect a single plate the whole week.
Unfortunately the week was made slightly less favourable by one particular guest, an Australian by the name of Seb. He was one of the lads, 19 years old his name was actually Sab, but everyone prounounced it Seb. That annoyed me for starters.
The group were blessed in that on the first night we had our first snow fall since Christmas. This was a little too much to take for young Sab who ran outside, bumping into beams and walls as he went and started throwing snowballs at anything that moved. Myself and A had been up since 5am and were sitting in deck chairs having our after work, wind down cigarette. Sab approached us with a look of malice in his eyes balling snow. 'Don't even bother, we're not playing', A warned. He then proceeded to throw one at A and one at me from a range of about a foot.
'This is War.' he shouted.
Now, I don't know about anyone else but in this situation, I am pretty sure it was down to A and myself to decide whether or not this was war. This was Sab's first strike. The next came the following night...
It didn't help that during service he would just bang a wine caraffe on the table and shout my name until I filled it. I was already feeling quite anti Sab at this point. After work that evening a group of us all piled into my flat for some drinks and a bit of a social. I was having a lovely time until I turned to my left and there, in my bedroom, my personal space, away from work, was Sab, sucking on a cigarette and ashing on the floor. Not happy.
The final straw came on Wednesday morning, mine and every other member of staffs day off. The only possible opportunity for a lie in the whole week. This particular Wednesday however I was awoken by a thick Australian accent at 9am shouting 'KYLE, KYLE' (my roommates name), 'KYLE, LET'S GO RIDING'. He had come down to my flat and walked into our space without a care in the world. Kyle, also not at all happy with the situation had apparently drunkenly agreed to go out with him the next day.
As I prayed for him not to enter my room, Kyle managed to get rid of him by rambling drunkenly in Welsh for a while. I now firmly lock the door every night before bed.
The next day, in a quiet revenge attempt, I stole a pair of his socks, ha, take that Sab.
Unfortunately the week was made slightly less favourable by one particular guest, an Australian by the name of Seb. He was one of the lads, 19 years old his name was actually Sab, but everyone prounounced it Seb. That annoyed me for starters.
The group were blessed in that on the first night we had our first snow fall since Christmas. This was a little too much to take for young Sab who ran outside, bumping into beams and walls as he went and started throwing snowballs at anything that moved. Myself and A had been up since 5am and were sitting in deck chairs having our after work, wind down cigarette. Sab approached us with a look of malice in his eyes balling snow. 'Don't even bother, we're not playing', A warned. He then proceeded to throw one at A and one at me from a range of about a foot.
'This is War.' he shouted.
Now, I don't know about anyone else but in this situation, I am pretty sure it was down to A and myself to decide whether or not this was war. This was Sab's first strike. The next came the following night...
It didn't help that during service he would just bang a wine caraffe on the table and shout my name until I filled it. I was already feeling quite anti Sab at this point. After work that evening a group of us all piled into my flat for some drinks and a bit of a social. I was having a lovely time until I turned to my left and there, in my bedroom, my personal space, away from work, was Sab, sucking on a cigarette and ashing on the floor. Not happy.
The final straw came on Wednesday morning, mine and every other member of staffs day off. The only possible opportunity for a lie in the whole week. This particular Wednesday however I was awoken by a thick Australian accent at 9am shouting 'KYLE, KYLE' (my roommates name), 'KYLE, LET'S GO RIDING'. He had come down to my flat and walked into our space without a care in the world. Kyle, also not at all happy with the situation had apparently drunkenly agreed to go out with him the next day.
As I prayed for him not to enter my room, Kyle managed to get rid of him by rambling drunkenly in Welsh for a while. I now firmly lock the door every night before bed.
The next day, in a quiet revenge attempt, I stole a pair of his socks, ha, take that Sab.
Saturday, 8 January 2011
Real News
C’est moi, A.
J keeps grumbling that I’m neglecting the blog, but the truth is I’m intimidated by his ‘hilarious’ anecdotes about Gregor and pervy Patrick.
I’m going to deliver an informative, factual account of recent events instead, and not even attempt to be funny.
J and I are getting into the swing of things with regards to work life, we are getting in for dinner service at 6pm and usually out by 9pm, which is a vast improvement on our previous 5-10:30pm timing. Morning service is still pretty slow going, in at 7:30 and out at 10:30/11ish.
We argue ALL the time whilst working, over really stupid things like who gets to eat the last leftover canapé. I called J selfish last night and we didn’t speak for the last 2 hours of service. He is very greedy though, whilst sitting on a chairlift he often pulls something from his pocket that he’s stolen from the chalet, and as I have taken responsibility for the weekly shop/budget control (much to the amusement of my colleagues who think I fancy the finance guy. I don’t) this annoys me a lot.
Luckily our guests seem to find the bickering amusing, I suspect they don’t realise we are being serious. We were interrupted in the middle of a massive argument (over a sandwich) the other day by our guest who told us we were a comedy act.
Fortunately the minute we leave the chalet the tension disapparates (is that a real word? Or a harry potter word?) and if things are particularly bad I stick on a bit of Marvin Gaye, and pour J a glass of port (which he’s developed so much of a liking for that we’ve had to replace the ‘Duck in a dark port sauce’ with ‘Duck a l’orange’ for several weeks running now.)
Last night we all went to an open mic night and J sang quite a few tunes, much to everyone’s amusement. It was a good night, which was a relief, as last time we went out J managed to get in a fight. Everyone tried to break it up except for the Essex Girl who actively encouraged it.
My lovely flatmate took a tumble down some steps and broke her foot though, which was very sad to see. Third injury among staff this week – I am definitely buying a helmet, I have started venturing into the snowparks and attempting little kickers so I would be an idiot to not get one I guess. Hopefully tips this week will pay for it, but I’m not optimistic as our guests this week are new to chalet-holidays and probably don’t realise its customary to tip the host. We have made a small fortune in babysitting and sandwich-making over the last few weeks though!
Anyway, this is bare long, I need to go rescue tonights dinner from the finance guys sink, and then go have a nap, theres been no snow since Christmas Day and its pretty icy out there, the bottom of my skis are all scratched up and need a bit of TLC before I take them out again.
Love Love Love to all!
ps: I'm back to italics as apparently my lack of continuity in font choice was irritating one reader... seriously Colbeck, get a hobby. x
Patrick the Perv
It is nice to use someone's name when addressing them. It makes your encounter more personal. But there is such thing as over using a name. This is the problem I have had with one of my guests this week.
It was nice at first, I'd get in for morning service and be greeted with 'Good Morning J...going out for a ski today J?' Then in the evening it would be 'Hello A, nice day A? What's for dinner J?'. But after a while I begin to feel like my name loses meaning.
I had a strange moment with the same guest last night. The conversation went like this...
P: Evening J, loved the cake today J.
J: Oh you mean the flapjacks? Glad you enjoyed them.
P: They were lovely J. Nice and sticky, just how I like it J.
* DRAMATIC PAUSE *
P: Do you like it like that J?
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SAY TO THAT!??!
I was on the verge of telling him that last week they came out 'too hard' but thought this wouldn't be the wisest response so in the end I just told him that last week my flapjack resembled a brick and so I took them out early this time. I then proceeded to slowly turn my back and pretend to wash an already clean saucepan.
It was nice at first, I'd get in for morning service and be greeted with 'Good Morning J...going out for a ski today J?' Then in the evening it would be 'Hello A, nice day A? What's for dinner J?'. But after a while I begin to feel like my name loses meaning.
I had a strange moment with the same guest last night. The conversation went like this...
P: Evening J, loved the cake today J.
J: Oh you mean the flapjacks? Glad you enjoyed them.
P: They were lovely J. Nice and sticky, just how I like it J.
* DRAMATIC PAUSE *
P: Do you like it like that J?
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SAY TO THAT!??!
I was on the verge of telling him that last week they came out 'too hard' but thought this wouldn't be the wisest response so in the end I just told him that last week my flapjack resembled a brick and so I took them out early this time. I then proceeded to slowly turn my back and pretend to wash an already clean saucepan.
Thursday, 6 January 2011
The Chronicles of Gregor
Happy New Year from the alps! We are now halfway through our third group of guests. Things are going very well except for last week, A decided that she didn't really like 3 of the guests (a sweet 8 year old girl, a middle aged friendly teacher and a lone travelling cross country skiier named Bob) and therefore just didn't bother cooking them a dessert...out of hatred. I then had to take them aside and break the horrible news to them. All but one of them cried and Bob told us he had been looking forward to Panna Cotta all week long, none of these people left us a tip.
It has been a very eventful time here so I will focus on one particular event of the last couple of weeks to tell you about. A colleague of ours, named Jay funnily enough, stole our chalet phone a couple of days after christmas. I don't know why he decided to do something so mean, he muttered something about christmas blues and not recieving the tractor set he asked for, whatever.
Anyway he decided to go on a massive off piste run with our phone in his unzipped pocket, bad idea, an hour later he came and told us that our phone was halfway up the mountain in a treacherous rocky off piste area and we were never going to see it again. These phones cost 200 Euros to replace so nobody was particularly happy about the situation.
The next afternoon, quite a few of our colleagues recieved a mysterious phonecall from our lost phone. The man on the other end was a thick accented Slovakian named Gregor. As Jay was the one that caused all this trouble we decided it was best that he deals with Gregor.
The next 2 days saw Jay spending a lot of time on the phone to our Slovakian friend trying to organise a meeting place where he could go and retrieve the lost phone. During this time Jay learned a lot about Gregor and a budding friendship developed. It turns out Gregor is a piste basher who works all over the French alps. His wife left him for a bouncer at Dicks Tea Bar and his choice of headwear is a fez, 'like a camel'.
So Jay finally managed to arrange a meeting time and place with Greg, he was to meet him at midnight at the South Eastern side of the white christmas tree in Mottaret centre and if he was lucky, Greg was going to take him for a ride on his piste basher. Jay stayed in for the evening waited patiently for Gregor's call, all the while getting more and more excited for his ride on the piste basher. He called round all of our colleagues and told them the exciting news. It was the talk of the resort... At half past 11, Jay recieved a heart breaking phonecall. Greg couldn't make it, there had been an avalanche in Courcheval and he had to go and do some emergency bashing.
A heartbroken Jay went to bed with the promise of a phonecall from Gregor in the morning. The phonecall came and another meeting was arranged. This time Jay was to meet Gregor outside a bar in town. Jay was already going to be at this bar with all 30 of our colleagues for our staff christmas dinner so it was perfect.
4 pm arrived and Jay stood outside, wearing his reindeer antlers (Gregor asked for him to wear something recognisable) looking for a burly Eastern European man wearing a fez (like a camel). A phonecall from Gregor arrived...it was at this point that I headed outside to greet Jay, the lost phone attached to my ear, putting on my most convincing Slovakian accent, apologizing to a red faced Jay for not wearing my fez.
Turns out it isn't that difficult to find a lost mobile phone off piste.
It has been a very eventful time here so I will focus on one particular event of the last couple of weeks to tell you about. A colleague of ours, named Jay funnily enough, stole our chalet phone a couple of days after christmas. I don't know why he decided to do something so mean, he muttered something about christmas blues and not recieving the tractor set he asked for, whatever.
Anyway he decided to go on a massive off piste run with our phone in his unzipped pocket, bad idea, an hour later he came and told us that our phone was halfway up the mountain in a treacherous rocky off piste area and we were never going to see it again. These phones cost 200 Euros to replace so nobody was particularly happy about the situation.
The next afternoon, quite a few of our colleagues recieved a mysterious phonecall from our lost phone. The man on the other end was a thick accented Slovakian named Gregor. As Jay was the one that caused all this trouble we decided it was best that he deals with Gregor.
The next 2 days saw Jay spending a lot of time on the phone to our Slovakian friend trying to organise a meeting place where he could go and retrieve the lost phone. During this time Jay learned a lot about Gregor and a budding friendship developed. It turns out Gregor is a piste basher who works all over the French alps. His wife left him for a bouncer at Dicks Tea Bar and his choice of headwear is a fez, 'like a camel'.
So Jay finally managed to arrange a meeting time and place with Greg, he was to meet him at midnight at the South Eastern side of the white christmas tree in Mottaret centre and if he was lucky, Greg was going to take him for a ride on his piste basher. Jay stayed in for the evening waited patiently for Gregor's call, all the while getting more and more excited for his ride on the piste basher. He called round all of our colleagues and told them the exciting news. It was the talk of the resort... At half past 11, Jay recieved a heart breaking phonecall. Greg couldn't make it, there had been an avalanche in Courcheval and he had to go and do some emergency bashing.
A heartbroken Jay went to bed with the promise of a phonecall from Gregor in the morning. The phonecall came and another meeting was arranged. This time Jay was to meet Gregor outside a bar in town. Jay was already going to be at this bar with all 30 of our colleagues for our staff christmas dinner so it was perfect.
4 pm arrived and Jay stood outside, wearing his reindeer antlers (Gregor asked for him to wear something recognisable) looking for a burly Eastern European man wearing a fez (like a camel). A phonecall from Gregor arrived...it was at this point that I headed outside to greet Jay, the lost phone attached to my ear, putting on my most convincing Slovakian accent, apologizing to a red faced Jay for not wearing my fez.
Turns out it isn't that difficult to find a lost mobile phone off piste.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)