Overnight Shifts

Where to begin? So much has happened over the last few weeks, yet finding the words to put it into a post is really difficult. So here goes.

Since we no longer have a night cleaner at The Beehive, I've been on a lot of night shifts (often starting between six and eight o'clock in the evening). and have thus learned a lot on how JD Wetherspoons function in terms of cleaning. The pub has just recently started closing at one o'clock in the morning for a couple of hours. This means that for the four hours we're closed, the cleaning can get done without having to worry about asking people to move. We used to stay open twenty four hours and when we were cleaning the seating area (where the tables are) we'd have to ask people to move so that we could hoover the carpets, as well as sweep and mop the floors, wipe the tables and make sure there's condiments on the tables. Sometimes people would get a bit annoyed about being asked to move so soon after having sat down. Now they get annoyed when the bells go (one to announce the final order and one to announce the end of service) or when we warn them that they need to drink up as we're closing. We often have quite a few people walking in, right when we've closed the bar, but are waiting for the last customers to drink up and leave. Once we've closed we often put the radio on (or in my case, a Spotify playlist or podcast), and we clean. Someone is always on the floor to clean, hoover, sweep and mop, etc, and there's always someone on the bar. The bar's cleaning involves cleaning the entire bar (emptying drip trays, wiping all the surfaces, etc). One thing a lot of people don't realize how easily lager gets everywhere. This is why we clean the bar every night. Most alcoholic drinks have sugar in it and this attracts flies. So if we leave the bar covered in platters of lager, it just increases the fly population. So you can tell if a bar has been cleaned properly or not depending on the amount of flies around the bar. No matter what my close down job is, I always try to make sure I've got enough time before the end of my shift for a manager to have a look at what I've done, to check if I've forgotten something, or haven't cleaned something.

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Trivia

Something I've been asked a few times since I started working at The Beehive is why JD Wetherspoon is called as it is. The founder, Tim Barton, gave his pubs the name of a teacher who told him he wouldn't amount to anything. The initials were taken from J.D. 'Boss' Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard (1).

The Beehive Pub was named after the original Gatwick Terminal. It was in operation between 1936 and the 1950's, when the A23 (a motorway) was rerouted and the Beehive was cut off. It still stands and is currently the offices for a local solicitor's firm. You can still see the Beehive, if you drive through the business complex, City Place (2).

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In a way, I feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to all that's been happening recently. I'm going to post several blog posts over the next few weeks to bring you up to scratch, even if I write them in bulk and then schedule them to be posted, rather than leave writing for as long as I have. To ensure you don't miss out on anything, please subscribe!