Two months down; three to go. In reality, there’s less than that since a season worker inevitably amasses extra hours given the nature of the tourist-based activities and France’s 35-hour week. These are never recompensed in cash at the basic wage level, only in hours free to be taken at a quieter time or just as likely, at the end. To date I have 34 since I worked on both the major feast days at New Year. So, perhaps, two and a half to go. Can I last? Ten more Saturday arrival days, some of them at full capacity; ten more sets of names to associate with 66 apartment numbers (who’s in D-21 this week?) ten more semi- fictional apologetic reasons why the big bay windows in B15 don’t quite shut when we’ve waited half that number of weeks already for the constructor’s joiner to come. Ten more weeks of Saturday morning apartment checks, dashing from one to the other so people can have their deposit restored and leave on time. Ten more weeks of repetitions of the frequently asked questions, trying with some success to answer each as if it is heard for the first time. They rank like this: the time of the Residence bus that goes up and down to the ski lift (and why there is no bus in the middle of the day), how the sauna booking works (the free session should really be taken on Sunday, madam, but just this once..), whether there is Wifi connection in the apartments (No), how to order bread for breakfast (please pay when ordering) and what time the swimming pool closes.
The answers to all these and more are posted up around the place so I conclude that the QA process counts as an essential conversational need to relate to the staff personally, which is fair enough and is probably why a receptionist is preferred to a tv monitor. There are only five of us when all present and often no more than three; Marie-Francoise, the ‘gouvernante’ who cleans all the pool areas daily and deals with the cleaning teams on Saturday changeover, Olivier N who is the beleaguered technician, replacing dozens of lightbulbs, explaining how the combined oven\microwave works, tuning in clients’ televisions back to French stations after a Dutch family has skillfully set every channel to suit themselves and clearing snow from the front of the building (every day now), Olivier J, the bus driver who also runs errands to the village and is much loved by the clients even if he does forget to post letters and collect newspapers. Then there is ‘la responsable’ who when present sits in her office two metres behind me and points out whenever I put a hasty looking tick in a box or fail to write on the lines. Little things matter a lot in offices I’ve discovered. And me, always out front fielding the same questions with a measure of assurance by now. Changing careers really is a most interesting experience.
The morning discipline is unvarying, six thirty start, out to the car at seven twenty so as to be at work with time to lay out the ‘boulangerie’ order before eight o’clock. The car is permanently grubby in spite of occasional use of the jet spray at the garage and the rear and front wipers leave smeary arcs on the glass and it’s usually too cold to use the screen wash. The wheel arches are packed with grey snow, though four new snow tyres this winter means I drive a lot more happily. We are back to ‘Siberian’ temperatures this week and snow down to the plain. When walking about in snow and ice I keep in mind survival tips which are largely agreed to be a good idea – never walk with your hands in your pockets as a fall could result in a broken elbow, avoid carrying anything in your arms if possible for the same reason, wear a hat and from my own experience, check that the loop of one bootlace does not catch on the hook of the other boot. These days I check mine every time.
The work is repetitive there is no doubt. One way I have found to combat this is to be observant, to notice all things: the way the sunlight now shines through an amber glass bowl on the draining board, the patterns formed by snow clinging to vertical rock, the colour of the sky at daybreak and at dusk. We are not the only ones hanging in there in the winter season. Birds weighing five grammes are already shouting at each other by seven o’clock each morning to show they’ve survived the night. Within a few minutes of waking they have to find food and water. How do they do it when it is frozen? So I like to think that my balcony tray is making a contribution to their survival in the winter. The deer are down in the village most nights. I came upon a large family group one evening and got out of the car. They immediately stopped still and stood silently amongst the apple trees in the orchard below the road, watching me, all heads turned as if for a photograph. In the full moonlight I could have taken a sharp picture in black and white. I suppose, like the wild boar, they can smell the fallen apples, left on purpose by my neighbour Denise. When they finally moved, their hooves made crunching sounds in the snow. Hoof prints show that they move closer to the houses in the night too. The female fox, seen a few times, moves closer still and will take food from a hand. Scuffling in the snow over a biggish area reveals that the wild boar are food hunting even at the end of the day. The ones I have seen look pretty solid.
The other way to deal with the repetitiousness is to remember to find my Zen. I have learned a lesson from a story by a British Buddhist telling of his training as a monk. He had at first felt rather offended by some of the simple tasks he was made to do, for example sweeping and raking fine gravel with a twig broom. The activity seemed beneath him, insufficiently demanding of a person of his qualities and he performed it carelessly, and therefore badly. Then he realized that there was pleasure and satisfaction to be found in fashioning the broom correctly and in taking care to do the task well. In future I shall do the same, especially with the tedious bits if that is what it takes and be the best receptionist. I will get those ticks to fit inside the box. After all, for the wildlife which I have observed, lasting the season means survival in the harshest sense. I only have to neaten my handwriting.
* * *
copyright Julia Austen 2015