This holiday is very much needed. In less than twenty-four hours I should be well on my way across the Atlantic for a week of sun and thrill rides. In a way it has come at a good time, because work is becoming evermore stressful, but in another way it is most unwelcome as for the next two weeks there is an air of uncertainty over my future.

I need a promotion desperately, and am willing to take pretty much anything right now. So long as it encompasses more money and authority then it is a step forward. Right now, all the extras that I do that are above and beyond my pay grade are simply not worth my effort. I get paid the same wage as all the other food and beverage guys and yet do more work.

In the last two days I have found out that a guy in my place is being given the position as assistant food and beverage supervisor, or something like that. The question begs – assistant to who? It’s certainly not me. I don’t think it would be the General Manager either because he doesn’t spend any time in our department to oversee anything. The only other possibility is assistant to a new Operations Manager, who I have heard rumours of. There was even a mention of a new one being in place by the time I got back from holiday, and any ops manager who comes along will surely be putting in a significant presence in our department in our very heavily food and beverage orientated hotel.

This fucking pisses me off. Days after the new General Manager arrived I explained to him, quite clearly my position within the hotel. He said he wanted to offer me a title which assumed new responsibilities, many of which would be totally new to me. I would relish the challenge, moreover because staying in this dingy little workhorse position for another 9 months would be a severe waste of my skills and determination.

To come in to work and find that a position that I was on the brink of being offered has been given to someone else; a person who has limited experience in the role and even less in the department is frankly insulting. For all I know, this person is more suited and more able than I am and for that it is only right that he should get the job ahead of me. What angers me to the point of wanting to make my views heard in extremely loud volumes is that for months and months and fucking months, I have been holding everyone’s shit together and getting sweet bugger all in return for it. If the General Manger and the new supervisor think, for a single second, that I will continue to do all the extras that I do for nothing then they are sorely piss ignorant.

Duty Manager shifts? Gone. Including myself, there are only four people who do late DM shifts and I do a minimum of two a week, and often three. Ordering stock, cellar control, cleaning schedules, stock takes? Do it yourself.

What really concerns me right now is that my career progress has hit a severe roadblock. The only route for progression has been sorely snapped up by some unknown and assuming all the responsibilities I took on are handed over to him, then it’s almost a demotion. All the efforts and hard work have not just been a waste of time, but a waste of my sorry state of a life.

I am going to enjoy one week in Florida and consider my options for another. If necessary, time will be found to speak to the GM in person. Put simply, if things go as I think they will, I will have absolutely no choice but to move on to somewhere else. I’d like to see them try and get through Christmas without me. I am no longer willing to clutch on to the weakest hope that hard work will ultimately end up in a better future, because that ship is sailing further and further towards the horizon and pretty soon will be so far out that it will disappear altogether.

I did take a mad sense of satisfaction when ripping up the idiots guide to EPOS till programming I had typed up before my final shift tonight. He had wanted me to sit and go through it with him at the PC, in case there was anything he wanted to change or add whilst I was way. When I had no time to do that, he told me to write a step by step guide instead – because having no time to show him in person obviously means I have time to write him a list of do’s and don’ts. Staying up late in true good kid fashion, I made said guide and placed it in his tray. Minutes before walking out tonight, I took it back, slashed it in to a few dozen pieces and neatly deposited it in to the recycle bin; a necessary action that leaves me still as the sole holder of the most important information in the entire industry – how to take cash.