It has also been because this year I have not quite known where to start. Life was more complicated this season. A lot more complicated. And it has taken me a few weeks to simply get over the whole experience. I took a week off when I came home and that week mainly consisted of me sitting down in various places in my house and waking up several hours later with a member of my family laughing at my ability to sleep anywhere. My body simply shut down, able to rest properly for the first time all season, knowing that my work phone had been handed back and wouldn't ring, that no staff would knock at my door demanding my attention, that I wouldn't hear the sounds of the children in the nursery next to my bedroom screaming or voices of parents complaining. It was like the deepest silence imaginable had descended on me and it was complete and utter bliss.
It was complicated because it was constant, it was complicated because of a series of unpleasantness, it was complicated because there was a man who had the ability to really bloody piss me off at times and complicated because I liked him enough to let him really bloody piss me off. It was complicated because you're not really supposed to start something complicated with someone who is technically a member of your own staff.
But first an introduction to some of the characters that will feature in this year's story. I had four main members of staff, all 18, all just as irritating as each other, all very different, both in their persons and the way they were irritating. And all wonderful and kind-hearted and hard working
Two girls, one blonde one dark, Two boys, one blonde one dark. An apprentice plumber and electrician, a future accountant (and possible world leader), a sex mad man hunter and the little boy in the big world who became the big boy in the little world and who is now, well on the way to conquering it. Four eighteen year old, hormonal, over tired, excited, bewildered children rushing head long and dazed into adulthood.
There was also the kitchen team, the Head Chef (thankfully not a drug dealer this year) A man who I platonically adored for his friendship, his loyalty and his food (I taught him the meaning of the word platonic sometime mid season so I hope he still remembers). He also had a wicked sense of humour which no one wanted to be at the receiving end of and he had the was the image of the chef through and though (don't be lulled into a false sense of security by how nice I have been about him, he could be wicked if he wanted). Swearing and crude behaviour were as prevalent in our kitchen as they are in other kitchens.
And two commis chefs, bi-polar opposites, AJ the unlikely object of my occasional affections and the other one, one of the strangest individuals I have ever had the dubious pleasure of knowing well. A twenty year old masturbation addict, who believes that he lost his virginity the season before, but wasn't quite sure, but from what he could remember the girl in question was overweight and not really to his very accommodating tastes. I liked him, despite his complete social awkwardness, despite the fact he asked too many pervy questions and despite the fact I once caught him masturbating while I was talking to him. But more about him later.
What really took me by surprise at the start of the season was just how scared my four members of staff were of me. It was actually really funny as I think I am about as scary as Winnie the Pooh. I had decided that I should start the season being professionally distant and I wasn't aware of just how this would come across. It became painfully obvious that these people were terrified of me to the stage that when I walked into the room all of them would visibly stand up straight. It came to a rather unpleasant head to me one night when, a couple of weeks into the season, I decided to go out with everyone after work one day (I did not do this often) and one member of staff, drunkenly whispered to my lovely bar supervisor (who thankfully wasn't scared of me and was actually a great friend) 'I just don't feel that I can be myself because Cat is out'. The Bar Sup related this story to me in fits of giggles and I instantly felt about a hundred years old, completely guilty that my mere presence in a bar was ruining people's evenings and slightly curious because I had just seen the girl in question make out with some stranger and so, I wondered, if that's what she does when she feels like she has to be on best behaviour, what does she do when I'm not there????
The only person who found people quaking at my very presence in the room as funny and unfounded as I did was AJ. He had worked briefly at my hotel last year and so had seen me in my first few months in 'management', when I was frankly, a bit shit. And having someone who did not think I was Cruella was a complete and utter relief and it was nice to have someone to talk to normally.
We had known each other the year before, but as he had moved onto a different hotel in Meribel quite early on, he had not had a huge effect on my season and I had mainly encountered him when he was absolutely and completely wrecked. I have since talked about him to both the Rep and the Childcare Manager about him and they both said the same thing, 'He was always nice (pause) big drinker'. But at the start of the season he was a complete and utter breath of fresh air, and also as we knew a lot of the same people, he was someone to talk to and reminisce with.
Now come mid January I was getting a little fed up of being view as the 'past it old lady' by my group of staff who had barely gone through puberty and saw being 25 as the same as being 125. And I started to have a few very dangerous thoughts about wanting to do something to shake things up and stop acting old. In truth I wanted a night off being the 'manager' and to just do something stupid.
I decided to get drunk
but just how drunk I actually became was a surprise to more than just myself.
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