And so they arrive

I had heard a lot about how terrible general staff could be. At training the main jist of what was said was 'don't try and like them, don't talk to them outside of work, don't be nice to them, be really hard on them at all times and under no circumstances ever have sex with any of them' (and I didn't, well not really, he wasn't technically MY staff, we were just borrowing him, temporarily)

So on the day that they all arrived I was a little nervous. I think we all were. We compensated for this by getting all suited up, heels and everything. Which seemed to shock and horrify the bunch of bedraggled, tired, wide eyed who got off the coach.

In an effort to look professional, all the managers were desperately trying to hide the stamp from Jack's comedy night which we had been to the night before and which didn't come off. This didn't work and everyone noticed.

We had of course Facebook stalked as many of the staff as we could, but only really managed to find two of them. That hadn't brought us much hope. Out of the two that we had found, both boys, one had really long blonde hair and the other seemed unbelievably posh. And when they arrived DC did have luscious locks and Sir T was unbelievably posh. There were 5 Hotel Assistants, 2 Assistant Chefs and 3 Kitchen Porters (childcare came a few days later). I sent an email to my mum that day describing them as 'young, mouthy and nervous' and they were all of these things. I also later described them as a 'really good and motivated team'.

Out of the 5 HA's 3 stayed to the end (or almost the end)DC, Sir T and H1. I loved all three of them. Each one was brilliant, individual and complete pains at time. H1 spent several weeks trying to pretend to us that she really loved cleaning, which I never believed, but she was good at it and she was very enthusiastic about everything from quite a long time. And it didn't take any of them very long to get over their nervousness - but their mouthiness stayed all season.

In set up week we all went out together for the first time. We were testing out the company's bar crawl. At one point in the night I managed to fall off my chair (because it was oddly balanced on a step NOT because I was drunk). I think everyone was horrified that their boss had just fallen off her chair - no one laughed -I was utterly convinced that chef had done something to my chair, I can't remember why I thought that.

As the staff got more and more drunk they came up to me individually to tell me all their problems. I didn't mind, it was nice to know that they thought they could talk to me. I also, at one point, had to push past a very drunk Sir T eating the face of some female seasonaire. That was slightly unnerving.