I’ve been following the situation and social media chat back in the UK about unskilled workers not being allowed to enter the UK after Brexit… this unskilled workforce that the government are talking about seems to be mainly targeted at the hospitality industry. And while it is true that many people who start out in hospitality do so without a university degree or other higher education, for example as a student job (just like me), unskilled it is not!
In my opinion, it is disgraceful to call a waiter or a chef unskilled – or anyone working within hospitality for that matter. It is a tough job which requires many, many skills, a hell of a lot of knowledge and impeccable behaviours. Meeting guests’ expectations – well, actually the aim is always to exceed them – is not easy!
My Sunday, for example, included the following…
- a couple of guests requested that instead of driving to one of the other Tanzanian camps the next morning, they would rather fly to the Singita property in Rwanda (bearing in mind that there are no commercial flights here in the bush!)
- a waiter was taken sick, so needed to source a replacement quickly
- a German guest was also sick and needed a paramedic to be called
- guests in one of the cottages reported no hot water
- power cuts during dinner service
- monkeys bathing and soiling in one of the guest pools
- and the most surreal of all, a guest lost her front tooth on her dinner plate, which was cleared before she noticed it… this was followed by a desperate (and rather disgusting) search in the kitchen food bin until the tooth was found – but then what!? How to affix this tooth in the middle of the bush with no dentist around the corner? She was devastated and cried her eyes out…
But when I said goodnight to all 22 guests, they were happy (OK, the guest with the lost tooth maybe not happy as such, but at least she’d stopped crying)! They had had their dinner on time, the wine tasting activity was lovely, and the entire team felt we’d had a successful evening. That requires immense skill, teamwork, flexibility, people skills and unbelievable service attitude from everyone, at all levels. There were so many moving parts and so many people to deal with – both guests and staff.
And that night when I went to bed and read some more of these ridiculous ‘unskilled’ statements, I just got so furious that I couldn’t get to sleep!
So, to those people who think they are more important and have a more skilled job, than the people I work with, I’d love to see you handle an evening like that!
OK rant over and back to work!
BETINA IN AFRICA 