Work News
- Rachel King
- Oct 23, 2019
- 3 min read
Time of Employment at The Beehive: Three months and one week!
Greetings, friends!
A lot has happened since I last wrote at the end of August. Life is going well. I'm working full time as a bartender at one of the JD Wetherspoon pubs at Gatwick Airport, The Beehive. I also passed my probation assessment last week, which means that I'm a fully fledged member of staff. I love my job despite it being a busy, hectic job. I'm often doing afternoon and evening shifts but have my fair share of early morning starts and overnight shifts. Working in a busy international airport, with flights departing daily for main different destinations from places as close as Glasgow and Edinburgh to as far away as Los Angeles and Hong Kong. This brings in a lot of international travelers from all across the globe and from all walks of life. It leaves quite a buzz, and since Gatwick is EasyJet's base airport (if you can call it that), we get our fair share of stag and hen do's who meet at The Beehive before passing through security and a trip that will probably be forgotten due to alcohol induced blankness, as almost all these parties will start drinking as soon as they walk in, no matter how early it is in the morning. They'll likely be drinking through out their trip away and this will often lead them to dress the groom up (if its a stag do) in some rather questionable attire (as babies or chicken to name but two). The women usually just wear matching t-shirts or frills etc.
Working in an airport is always exciting but it has its challenges. Within the first week of my having started working behind the bar I had someone tell me that I should find a new job because I didn't really enjoy working at The Beehive, which is completely untrue. I honestly love my job and I told him as such. He didn't believe me. I've also had people be rude to me, often people think that its "okay" to be rude to the servers at the airport because they aren't going to see them ever again. This isn't always true. If you fly out of Gatwick every time you go on holiday and you always pop into one of the pubs before you travel, there's a good chance that you'll be served by someone who's worked there for several years. Some of my colleagues have been at The Beehive for years and years. It honestly doesn't hurt to be polite and friendly to the bartenders, especially at the airports. You don't know the shifts they've had or what's happening in their lives. My job has led me to believe more and more in the statement "treat others how you want to be treated." Don't be rude to the server because something was wrong with your food and the blame the fact you just got off a very long flight. I've heard that excuse before. There have been stories of people being banned or had service refused for being rude. Anyway, I just wanted say that, not to make you feel sorry for me or anything but just to bring awareness
I don't think I've talked about getting tips on here before. Often people don't think to ask about a "Service Charge" and because of this, we don't tell them that they can tip the server and the floor staff. We all have little tip boxes that sit on our tills, if we're on the bar, or they sit at one end of the bar if we're running food or cleaning tables. Occasionally people leave their change on the tables for us, or they'll tell us to keep the change. It's a way of appreciation that the Americans have gotten right. Almost every time I served Americans who have just gotten off flights from the USA, they'll tip me, as its part of the culture in the US. I should point out that my salary is good enough that I'm not dependent on receiving tips as I have done in the past (I've had jobs when I was on minimum wage and my tips help make ends meet for Andy and myself), but its always nice to get a couple of pounds as thanks for my work.
Before I sign off I'm just going to say thank you for reading this post. I know its been a while but I'll attempt to write more regularly.
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