Santorini: Good news & Bad news

Well this is my second post about my job in Santorini and I have to declare these:

Being a receptionist is much more difficult than what it seems. I have a small expoerience in that section but nothing like that. The hotel I'm working for is a high profile establishment (Starwoods Hotels) with dozens of rules and standarts about how the hotel should operate and what we can and can't do. I'm always worried I'm going to brake one or two and get in trouble.

This job turns out to be harder and more challenging but at the same time I really like it there. The manager is a very nice and friendly girl with tons of understanding. The thing is we (me and the other receptionist) are totally inexperienced and quite frankly I don't get how we got the job in the first place. My quess is they waited untill the very last minute to find personel and so they had to make do with whoever was available. That is very good for me, because I'm learning a lot of new things and my time in this hotel is something that will look good on my resume, but I' m afraid it's not so good for them.

We received some training in a program called FIDELIO, (very famous in the hotel industry). Sixteen hours to be precise that was hardly enought but time was of the essence. We've been given a few simple instructions and that was it. Naturally when the time came I wasn't ready and neither was the other girl. That was on the 15th of this month. Things weren't looking up and the manager and her supervisor decided that we needed some more training. That's both good and bad. It's good because I feel confident that with a little bit more guidence and supervision we will both improve. I most definitely will. I need someone to show me the ropes and I've been told I'm a slow learner.

But at the same time it's bad, because it means that our performance so far is seriously lacking. F we could do what we were hired to do we wouldn't be needing any more training, would we? I really wish I was a star emploee but it's painfully obvious that I'm not. Anyway, I really like this job, I want to be good and not suck at it. And I will. On the bright side I received my first tip for this season: 10 euros. It's not much but at least it's an indication that I'm not totaly hopeless.

Another thing that is trobling is that the hotel was not really ready to accept guest yet. The facility is simply not ready. There are dozens of small technical problems that crop up every day. So far every guest has some sort of complain and the complimentary dinners and cuts in the prices of the rooms in order to apease the unsatissfied guest are a daily phenomenon. Today is the first day that we haven't heard any complains, but of course I left at four in the afternoon. The hotel has only 18 suites and it will be full tommorow. Hopefully things will improve and whatever needs fixing will be fixed and whatever needs doing will be done soon and we won't have any more unsatisfied guests.

Here is the website of the hotel: http://www.mystique.gr/