Welcome to those of you whose curiosity was peaked enough to follow me to this new and pseudonym – ed blogsite. I made the mistake of accepting my place of employment, here on out referred to as… hmmm… TTC (temper tantrum central) on my facebook, and have received nothing but criticism after correction after clarification following each and every entry. Regardless of how neutral or kind I have tried to be, I have been condemned to grief and condescending commentary. That and the fact that I have been experiencing some rather significant personality conflict issues with the owner leaves me with no other option than to air my dirty laundry under cover. I have NO ONE to talk to about this! You, my secret blog readers, are it. And recently the rage is seething and boiling just below the barely pulled together surface grin that I am trying to pass off as a smile.
Being the outsider here allows me to stand back and watch. Watch how people interact. Watch how the staff interact with the guests, the staff interact with each other, the big guns interact with the little guns and how it all fits together. To say that the levels of maladjustment and arrogance are suffocating, well, now that wouldn’t be very nice, would it? So I won’t say it, I’ll just think it, quietly, and write. For the two months that I have been here, the owners have been here for about a month of it as they have travel and other obligations. I’ve had a chance to see the local staff interact with each other and us mzungus as the general atmosphere of the place swings from one extreme to the next depending on who is stomping around the grounds.
Now, from the owners’ point of view, they feel that OF COURSE there is more stress when they are around because nothing gets done, we f**k off, do nothing, and f**k everything up when they are away (direct quotes by the way) so they spend all of their time here picking up the pieces. Ummm… okay. Surprisingly enough, the resort continues to operate, guests come and go, all seem to be very happy, and nothing has imploded as long as I’ve been here. Well, the generator has stuttered and stopped a few times, we ran out of things here and there but believe it or not, Mac was able to get it all sorted out without major meltdown. There’s just no way to describe the bizarre way things operate here and how NASTY people can be to each other. Okay wait, let me rephrase that, how nasty one or two people can to be to the rest of us. When the owners are around, everyone tiptoes very quietly and tries desperately to stay out of their line of vision. As of the last few days, I am included in the duck and run. Not good.
I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly it is that I struggle with so much in terms of the personal interaction. There are a few key traits that have set me off and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to recover and simply accept them as the way the business is run. The list is as follows, you tell me what you think…
1. Name calling. When you are frustrated, angry, tired, put off, busy, moody, or whatever the case may be and you’re dealing with people, calling them names, to their faces or behind their backs as you cut them up to whomever is listening, makes for poor presentation. A common combination of “stupid” and a random curse word is usually the beginning of the rant. There have been a few incidents that I’ve witnessed that have left me open-mouthed and speechless. How can you speak to or about someone like that?! Wow. It makes me shudder.
2. In conjunction with the name calling is the shouting. Not the simple raised voice, I’m getting kinda pissed here, but the full on roar that guests overhear and anyone really who may be in the general vicinity of a few thousand miles. Shouting about how stupid they think someone is, in English or Swahili carries on to ripping strips off the cowering and nodding victim cornered by their present state of rage. It blows in and quickly blows out but it shatters any sense of peace and harmony that was previously intact.
3. Creating problems that they feel need to be discussed, addressed, resolved, discussed, addressed, and around and around OUT. OF. NOTHING. If there is a random comment made or “someone” just happens to be in a mood, it can quickly turn into a huge deal that again, just leaves me standing, jaw dropped. If the mood is good, a sarcastic comment made gets a good laugh and the day carries on, if there was pee in someone’s cornflakes and we haven’t taken note of the brooding black cloud circling the growling head, there is usually silence, a meeting called, and then a talking to. What happened with Max and B was a bad situation turned disaster by decisions made on impulse and reactivity, strong emotional reactivity. What has happened to me was the same. They react without thinking, sometimes try to dig themselves back out, but mostly just carry on making things worse and worse. Shall I illustrate with a couple of personal cases? I think I shall…
As has been mentioned in previous rants and raves, I was asked and then naturally took over some of the general day to day tasks. I am usually the first one down in the mornings so I would get the housekeeping staff and sometimes the kitchen sorted out. This carried on throughout the day. I managed to complete all of my teaching and it worked in nicely with the staff getting to practice their English by asking me for room keys, toiletries, foods, etc. Most evenings, I was asked if I would either help out by tending bar (which was essentially standing behind the bar chit-chatting and handing off the occasional beer) or taking dinner orders if we were busy. Sure. No problem. Been doing it for 20 years, I love it. Guests would ask me things throughout the day as I was often the only one around so I would take care of them, guests needed things from the office so I would get it. I didn’t mind, it was quite good puttering around, needs were being met, people seemed happy. And yes, teaching was still being done.
After the owners returned from their almost three weeks away and the drama was unfolding with the dive team, the first two days back, I did no teaching as the owners were on a mission to straighten this whole place out. There was nothing to be straightened out but the delusionary mania was on whirlwind setting. I was assigned to various housekeeping tasks, inventoried rooms and supplies, set up rooms, sorted things out and a variety of other chores. I ran around like a madwoman, being laughed at for how much I was sweating my balls off (I must have really sweat them off because I checked and nope, I don’t have any) and was fine with this knowing that it was short lived and I would be straight back to teaching, which I was. Max and B were gone within what? Four days of the owners return? I’m pretty sure it was four. The first two days, I was doing as I just described then on with the teaching. On the day following their departure, I was pulled aside and given a talking to about my place here at the resort. I am here to teach and teach only. I am not to be doing anything other than teaching. This went on and on. In my head, I am seeing lists of things that they requested of me since I’ve arrived and more recently upon their return and all of the work I was assigned to, non-teaching related, of course. And I am of course muttering to myself a very bewildered WTF?! Okay, fine, fine. Teaching it is. No problem. So as guests and staff continued to come to me for various items and I advised them that I was no longer able to help, I saw time being wasted and people getting frustrated at an empty office and needs not being met. Not my problem. This is the way things run in Africa.
Yes, this is a long story… bear with me… I’m getting there.
So a couple of times over the last two months, various guests have chatted with me and asked me why I’m not in hospitality as opposed to teaching, suggesting that I look into jobs in big hotels. Seems to fit, have done some type of hospitality job for the last 20 years, maybe this is what I’ve been looking for? I’ve gotten a few email addresses and made a few contacts. Really, just networking, no big deal.
This past week, a lovely couple who live in Zanzibar, acquaintances of the owners, came to stay for a bit. Somewhere along the line, a similar conversation was struck up. As the couple was preparing to depart, the wife had requested my email address, which I had given her, and as she handed it over to her husband, the owner joined us and asked why they would possibly need my contact info. I told him that they knew of a place that was looking to hire and the couple was going to try to help me out for when my time is up here. I saw the black cloud gathering and I bid my farewells quickly.
I kid you not, within 5 mins of the couple leaving the car park, the Mac's cell phone rang, he was summoned to the owners’ house for a meeting, and I knew something was coming. Couldn’t really be sure what it was, but knew the miserable crotch was about to embark on a rampage. In the middle of a class, at 9:44am, I was ordered into the office and my students were instructed to wait at the table. For the next 35 mins I was told that they were concerned as I am not meeting their teaching expectations. Ohhhhhh…. Ooookkaaaaaay. That’s the angle were taking here, is it? Okay. Continue…
So it went on and on, them telling me that they were concerned that I was feeling that there wasn’t enough to keep me busy so I was taking over tasks that were not my place to take over and in turn I wasn’t teaching. I offered them the log I’ve been keeping since my arrival of who and when I have been teaching but funny enough, they weren’t interested in seeing it. This then turned into a conversation about me thinking about a job in hospitality and what a “stupid” idea that is (that lovely word again). They know that I’ve was considering applying for other teaching positions and I was asked what happened to this plan. I said that I was just keeping my options open, looking at all kinds of possibilities as I’m not really sure what I want. WELL! I was informed that I would never get a job in hospitality as I’m not qualified and even if I managed to get a job I would get jacked around and be miserable and heaven forbid I actually manage to land a decent job that I enjoyed, it would still be a bad idea because working in hospitality is a lowly, “dishonourable” job. ***sigh*** okay, okay, okay. What can I say at this point? What is there to say?
I was told to “spit it out” – am I happy here or not?! I told them I was (what choice did I have?) They would find me other jobs to keep me busy if I need to keep busy to stay happy and they want to see more teaching. (sorry, sticking to my 4 hrs a day, thank you very much). When they are gone for 3 weeks and then spend their days from 8:30am until 2:30pm on the dive boat, of course they don’t see me teaching – they’re not here!!! I continued to smile and nod, yessir, yessir all the while trying to figure out when the next flight out is. I knew that once the girls left I would be the next target, I just hadn’t quite worked out what the angle would be. This was the angle. And the game was on.
I returned to my waiting students at 10:22am. They were hanging their heads for me as they were directed by the owner not to move so they were witness to the ridiculousness. They’ve encountered their own ranting rages so the looks of empathy were quite funny. I pulled a face at them, the tension cracked, and we carried on. In the back of my mind, I was wishing that my Swahili included words like “asshole” “douche bag” and “loud mouth”. I’m working on adding them to my vocabulary.
This entry has actually taken several days and several editions to get to this PG-rated version. The day of the scolding and the day after, the owner was a complete prick to me. Wouldn’t talk to me except to snarl a random order of “do this” or “do that”. The final kick to the teeth was the night after the loving and motivational speech, a bunch of guests, Anya, and Brendan were all heading out to the beach to watch the sunset and I was invited to go. I was approached by Mac at my room just before we all were to head out and asked “Ummm… were you planning to go with them?” “Well, kinda. Why, what do you need?” “Ummmm… the owners (insert names here) invited me to go with them and their buddies to another resort for drinks” “Okay, so go.” “Well, we kinda need someone to watch the place while we’re all out” “Sorry, pardon?” “Well, there won’t really be anything to do, but just in case someone needed something, you know what to do.”
My head almost exploded. So one effin day after I got the speech to stay the hell away from any kind of resort work, that hospitality work is not in my future, that I need to focus on teaching and only teaching and I am not to represent the resort in any way, I am asked to stay behind and watch the place. AND THEN! I found out later from Brendan that HE was invited too but decided not to go. All of the “staff” were invited to leave the resort to go to another resort for drinks and I was asked to stay behind, to watch the place and the remaining guests. A case of cool kid syndrome taken to a whole new level.
I could have been a complete bitch and said no. Sorry, I’m going where I was invited and really, it’s out of the realm of my responsibilities but the only one who would have suffered at that point would have been Mac. He seemed so excited to be included in the cool kid party that it just didn’t make sense to complicate things for him. But this, my dear friends, is the kind of bullshit that has brought out violent and revenge filled tendencies. Back and forth, do this but only when it’s convenient for me, arrogance and complete disregard for anyone or anything beyond the end of their nose. And the arrogance is so complete that there is no possibility of even discussing the inconsistency of their expectations of me as they know all, they say all, the logic is modified to fit their current need or state of mind, and we’re all a bunch of effin idiots. It’s absolutely fascinating. A couple of guests who are aware that I’m not allowed to function In any kind of resort capacity were asking me why everyone was away, why I was watching the shop while everyone was away but couldn’t even get them a roll of toilet paper, and what exactly my role was supposed to be. How do I answer that? Seriously. I’m looking for suggestions. Besides a big ole F.U., I’m running out of words right now.
But two days have passed since then and I’m now out of the doghouse and being spoken to and joked with throughout the day. I keep my responses brief and busily stay out of sight. It’s just ridiculous. OH! Did I tell you my birthday greeting from Mr. Owner? “Oh hello, it’s your birthday. “ “Yes, it is.” “How old are you now, then?” “36” “Oh shit, well there goes any chance of you ever having a family, eh?” “Thank you. I’m going diving.” Who says stuff like that?!?!
ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!! Deep breath in, deep breath out. Deep breath in, deep breath out.
Guest after guest has made comment about what an overwhelming, obnoxious, socially inept, arrogant, and abrasive know-it-all he is but they can walk away after their week long holiday. I have nowhere to go. I’m trapped. Actually, that’s a good way to sum it all up – I am trapped. Trapped on this twilight zone resort where it is white king supremacy inside the gates and dusty, devastated, in the middle of nowhere wild Africa just down the road. Can you imagine going to one of those nice all inclusive resorts and never leaving the property? Now imagine it being a not-so-nice resort and not leaving for TWO MONTHS!!! Besides my daily walks / runs in the morning and a couple of quick trips in the car, I have not left the property. Oh dear GAWD I am on my way to the nuthouse. Certified. Done.
Okay. Okay. Okay. It’s over. It’s all okay. I feel better. I’m okay. ***WHEW!*** I’m going to be just fine. The majority of this is all from the fact that there is no one I can talk to. Mac and I get along really well and are each other’s shoulder to cry on, but I’m still very guarded as his loyalty needs to be with his employer and I don’t ever want him to feel stuck in the middle. This entry has been the first real opportunity to let it all out and wow, you all have suffered the consequences. There’s so much more I could talk about, like how I get emails from the friend of the owner who recruited me, whom I have never met but the owner apparently confides in, commenting on what is happening here and my role in it (who are you and seriously, you aren’t even here!), how it costs the owner $300 a month just to have me here, how the physical conditions I am living in continue to deteriorate but this makes me high maintenance, and that I’m supposed to get two days off a week but haven’t taken them because when I ask for them, I get the eye roll and the “really? Well, I guess if you need one but it shouldn’t interfere with your teaching” response. Oh. Okay then. Never mind. I’d love to continue to volunteer teach for six straight months and never leave the plot. It sounds absolutely DREAMY!!! Oops. Sorry. Got caught up in it again. That really was the last of it. I promise.
But as I’ve said before, as the storm blows in, it always blows out, and in the space of me writing this over a few days, I have gone from a useless twat to the best thing that has ever happened to this place. He has been chatting up guests, telling them how much the staff have improved in their English, I was invited on a friends only dive trip, to help out as a DM but who cares?! (turned out to be freaking spectacular!) he has been laughing and joking, being his regular charming and story-telling self, having regular conversations with me as all is now good in his world. It’s full on bizarro. Bi-zarr-O!!! So as the eggshells have hardened and the tiptoes fall to flat feet, all of us around the plot have loosened up a tad but senses remain on high alert as there’s no telling when the next typhoon and all of its accompanying damage will blow through.
Because of all that has been written thus far, you now understand why I’ve had to go incognito to continue my writings. And you have to admit, it’s a little more fun to bear witness to my emotional meltdowns rather than the simple, newsworthy reporting that was happening just previous to the blog diversion. I am feeling MUCH better now that I’ve had a chance to sort it all out for you and as always, I am able to gain perspective and put my head back on straight once I’ve had a chance to let it all out. Not entirely sure how long I will stay, depends on the day and how well I am at controlling my impulses when the next bit of rage is directed my way.
I am currently trying to look at the positives in my present day boss as the thunder cloud has dispersed and I can look back at this and try to see both sides to it all. He can be exceptionally funny and a wonderfully talented story teller when the mood strikes him, he can be generous to a fault as many of his friends come to stay and dive here in exchange for random bits of work around the plot, i.e., fixing some electrical glitches, getting the Land Rovers up and running, and various guests getting discounts on most things, he has been there and done that when it comes to most things so is full of random knowledge (this often contributes to his know-it-all-ness but still, some of it is useful), and he somewhere in there, he can be quite sensitive to those souls who need a little extra attention. Sadly, most of these qualities are lost as he stomps his way around the plot shouting orders and reliving the colonial settling of Africa directing all of us as if we are slaves. He is the poster child for adult ADD and has no filter when it comes to common manners or decency (he will often interrupt or walk away from a conversation whenever another thought compels him) so he comes off as an incredible asshole, stumbling bull in a china shop. He wakes with a roar and rips through the day upsetting everything in his path with inconsistent expectations and self-gratifying urges. He is, quite simply, an uncontained child running wild in his own playground. He comes from money and sees himself as quite hospitable but again, we all see ourselves in the softest of lights. Watching guests cringe as he publicly yells at and humiliates staff or shouts across the dining room to summon whoever he feels like is lost on him. He is the king. Loud, self-absorbed, and proud. When you are on his good side, he makes you feel over the moon as he pumps your ego to new and glorious heights just in time for him to smash it all to bits if you are caught in the midst of his nightmarish and devastating fist thumping. At this moment, I’ve been asked to watch the fort yet again as more friends leave and they head to the other resort for drinks. He acknowledged this time that he is taking advantage of me at least, but still, what choice to I have in the matter? Smile and nod, yessir, keep out of the way.
They are leaving for another 10 days and we all are waiting patiently. It will be so lovely and so peaceful and so quiet as we enjoy the calm then gear up to face another round of spewing, displaced anger upon their return. Now that I’ve caught everyone up on why I have been neglecting the blog, I will soon start writing about the humourous and charming tidbits that have been lost in all of the emotional chaos of the last month. This is obviously no longer a blog as it is nearing novel proportions but as I’ve said, now that the pent up devastation has been relieved, I will check in more often and keep the notes much more light. Thanks to all of you for letting me get all of this off my chest and please stay tuned for the regular scheduled programming. There is some funny s**t that happens here. Later taters!!!
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