Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Campsite Wardens - Not finished yet!

Well, no-one can accuse us of sitting on our laurels! ;)

After quitting the job in Cornwall we were a bit down, but mainly because of sitting back and reflecting over the recent events. Although we were bucked up a bit by comments by friends and fellow members of Club Motorhome and also offers to park up on their drives should we need somewhere - Huge thanks to all! Caroline got back onto the internet and looked at a couple of campsite job finder type websites and found a likely looking position in Norfolk of all places, so ideal for seeing the family before we do eventually head of into Europe again.

I telephoned the site and had a chat with the owner who sounded very positive and he subsequently emailed some details of the job to us. I returned our CV and said that we would be interested should they wish to interview us.

Nothing more happened for a day and we thought that was it - but no worries, we'd just go and see the folks and forget about work for the time being.

As we were packing to leave the site our mobile rang and it was the Norfolk site owner saying that he was pleased to offer us the job and gave us a start date and an invitation to visit beforehand to look around and iron out any queries that we may have.

In a much more buoyant mood we continued to ready ourselves for the off and said our goodbyes to the other (nice) staff. We were actually quite pleased that apparently the other wardens were now less than impressed that they would be working all the shifts, 7 days a week until there was some time for the management to find replacements for us - shame (shouldn't gloat really but hey-ho). We were also told that we would be very welcome should we wish to return next year.....

Anyway, we have called in to see some friends who are campsite wardens in Stratford on Avon for a couple of days en-route to Norfolk and are enjoying a bit of R&R in the sunshine. B)


Sunday, July 7, 2013

Campsite Wardens - We Quit!

A long, tedious and thoroughly boring story about matters so petty you wouldn't believe led us to the point of saying 'Enough!' on Friday - so I won't go into minor details.

We're very fortunate to be doing this work by choice rather than necessity otherwise such an outcome would have left us in the lurch. We've actually enjoyed the job as previously posted and haven't minded helping out with whatever jobs were necessary to make the campsite work properly. The problem has been in the form of one of the other workers who is known to be a moaner and somewhat of a difficult character. Unfortunately we have had to share our duties with this person and have been regularly undermined in our efforts.

This culminated in an official (friendly) meeting to get the matter sorted over a cup of coffee and biscuits, at which the other party (and husband) walked out in a huff refusing to discuss any issues. Management were appalled apparently but not prepared to make any further efforts to resolve the issues.

Anyway, rather than continue to work in an unpleasant atmosphere which basically casted a cloud over this otherwise lovely environment we decided to be the ones to quit as the others were more senior and solidly installed in the warden's lodge and obviously weren't affected by their own behaviour - I guess we gave the management an easy way out.

We've been offered the opportunity to stay on 'camped' as long as we like but we've felt a couple of days is long enough and we're moving on tomorrow - a burden lifted!

Last day on site

Has it put us off being campsite wardens? - No

We have generally enjoyed the work, the surroundings and actually the campers too. More than once we've been thanked for everything we've done. Its been fascinating to watch visitors come and go, those that you would hardly know were there and others that you just know are going to be labour intensive from the moment they arrive until the moment they leave.

Would we do it again? - Certainly

We have sent our CV out again so we'll see what happens. We're a little older and wiser now so may ask a few more probing questions to avoid a repeat situation. But if nothing transpires we will just continue our family visits then head south again into Europe a little earlier than we had planned once the van's annual service and MOT is out of the way.

Ready to hitch up and we're off