So a few more little stories. Before Ian left (I have been christened “New Iain” by everyone), we popped into the McD’s in Bourge on our way to Mirabel. It became painfully obvious through our dire pronunciation of French that we were actually English. Of course, the staff spoke English so took our orders in our mother tongue.
As I turned to take my food to the table, the guy behind stepped up to the counter and said, “Do you speak French?” before rattling his order off. I guess they get a lot of tourists in there.
Right now I’m sat in a hotel in Les Arcs, unable to connect to the internet despite there being a wireless connection. It’s about as dodgy a one as I have found and we’ve managed to get two machines onto it, though it’s taken (quite literally) hours to manage.
We were expecting two plugs from Misco which would have allowed us to send the internet signal from the reception area to the training area via the mains electrical wiring (seriously!), but these haven’t turned up. We ordered them with 24-hour delivery nine days ago. After four days they said they were having trouble processing our credit card and… oh! As we were on the phone, it received clearance.
Expecting it to arrive the next day, we changed the delivery address to Les Arcs and breathed a sigh of relief.
Only it didn’t show. So we called them and they seemed genuinely puzzled that we’d expect a 24-hour delivery to arrive the following day. English! *Tut* Obviously, it should arrive the day after.
Only it didn’t show. Again.
This time they told us that the truck with our package in had been stolen. Two days previous.
So here I sit, all those days later awaiting a 24-hour delivery package that’s now 192 hours late and counting. I wouldn’t mind so much if there was anything else I could do but all my work relies on this connection. And I didn’t have time to copy a load of films over from my large hard drive in the office before I left either.
Hey ho.
Aside from that, I beat the snow up and it looks like it’s going to tank it down overnight. This may make it a little difficult for me to get away tomorrow, but I might end up staying to deliver PCs anyway. As I arrived, one of the last coachloads of staff was being dropped off. Around 700 reps, chalet staff, porters and the like all turning up for their season – the jobs I’d originally applied for!
It had been a long journey for all of them – coach from somewhere in the UK – and the logistics of housing this flood of people was down to a handful of staff. In addition to that, they have to sort out uniforms, food, directions and – over the next week – training.
So far we’ve had a few no-shows, which is normal, and a few drop-outs – also normal.
It really is pretty impressive watching all the things that go on behind the scenes in resorts like this. I guess we don’t think about it when we book our tickets and turn up. We just expect a clean room, some food and someone to point us in the direction of the slopes. The number of people involved, though, is surprising.
Well, I now have two hours to kill before dinner and not a lot else to do aside from keep kicking at this dodgy wireless on the off-chance it finally works.
Wish me luck.
