Ireland | Students Blog | Glion Institute of Higher Education

(Goodbye and thank you! (hopefully translated correctly, if not, I apologize))

Hello everyone!! Can you believe it? A year ago I was still nervously awaiting the beginning of my journey into the hospitality industry and now I have finished the first two semesters. I can honestly not explain how happy and incredibly in awe I am, as to what I have seen and experienced throughout the past year. I met the most fascinating people and got to know oh so many different personalities. I took my first steps in the hospitality industry during a very interesting, all be it not always easy, internship in a lovely hotel in a country I had never been to before. Of course, through all of this and with the help of the courses in the first semester, I have already accumulated a whole lot of knowledge and have learned more about my own preferences in the industry.

In my last blog, I left off with the start of my night shift, so I thought I would tell you a bit about those interesting nights. Honestly, I have to say that the beginning of the night shifts was quite difficult seeing as you rarely see other people and simply due to the fact that your daily routine is somewhat turned upside down. However, after a few nights I had gotten more used to this spooky shift and was not as tired, as in the beginning.

Overall, I was able to perform a large part of the night audit during these shifts, which was definitely more than I had expected and gave me a good insight into the nightly tasks. My dancing and singing manager also helped a lot in making the night a lot more entertaining. Yes, you read correctly, my manager was actually always very upbeat and decided to keep himself awake by singing. I honestly do have to say that I admire the people who constantly work overnight, such as the overnight housekeepers and overnight managers, as well as those who always have to change their shifts, constantly shifting from early morning to night shifts, such as the security people, as it is a very hard job to do in my opinion, and these people’s lives are obviously a lot different from others. All in all, I feel that my night shifts were a very valuable experience, but definitely did not turn into my favourite shifts overall.

After my night shifts were over (all in all I was on night shifts for about three weeks), I was introduced back into ‘normal’ life, which actually included the occasional rays of sun. Not too many of course, it was Ireland after all (no, the rain is neither a prejudice against the country, nor a myth!), but now and then the sun did decide to say a short hello. The day shifts were all very regular and those where I was allowed to work at the desk by myself were especially exciting. Then, at the beginning of December, the hotel started to fill up. Those busy days, where we had people queuing up at reception were definitely the most fun, but also the most nerve-wracking, all while being very good days to get used to quite stressful situations. Then as the gorgeous Christmas trees and the lovely holiday decorations were put up and the Christmas music finally started playing (personally, I would have started playing the music at the beginning of November, but for some mysterious reason my colleagues were not that enthusiastic about my genius idea), I realized that my internship at the Ritz-Carlton was coming to an end and that I would actually get to go back home.

A few weeks later that is what I did. After a tearful goodbye from my lovely colleagues and friends, I packed my bags, which were of course overweight due to the unwillingness of the scale at the intern house to cooperate and therefore caused a bit of trouble at the airport, and after all this finally headed back home to Germany and later on to South Africa, which is where I am now.

All in all I have to say that the internship at the Ritz-Carlton honestly helped me to learn a lot about hospitality and gave me a very good insight into Rooms Division, while my friends and colleagues made my time there all the more special, which I can not thank them for enough.

With this I wish all of you a wonderful New Year filled with joy, good health and success and I will write my final blog, once I am back in Switzerland.

Have a lovely week!

Lea

Dia duit from Ireland!

I hope everyone who was so lucky as to have a summer vacation or holiday, had a great and relaxing one!

Personally, I only had five days at home (not to complain, as five days are by far better than no time at all) before I embarked on the plane and then on to the next step of my journey to Ireland.

Sitting in the plane, I wondered about what awaited me in the green country and which challenges I would encounter in this new environment, which I had been looking forward to seeing ever since I signed my contract a few months back.

Upon arrival at the airport in Dublin, I already met two of my very friendly, soon-to-be colleagues and housemates and we made our way to Bray, one of the larger towns in Ireland, where we were to be picked up by the guest service manager of the hotel.

After a warm welcome, we were dropped off at our home. More precisely, we were deposited in one of the four intern houses, where we had some time to settle in. As it turned out, one of the girls I had already met at the airport, Ornella, was in fact my new roommate; a surprise that I was very happy about, as she is an immensely kind person. I guess I am always really lucky with my roommates! Altogether there are seven people living in the house, which honestly does take some getting used to, but is a good and interesting experience, once you get adjusted to things. If you are in need of some solitude once in a while though, you can just take a stroll along the beautiful Irish Sea, which is definitely one of the advantages of living here.

The next day we discovered our place of work for the next six months: the absolutely gorgeous and idyllic Ritz Carlton Powerscourt near the charming village of Enniskerry.

After a short orientation and “meet and greet” with all of the other interns, we followed a more thorough orientation, where everyone was introduced to the Ritz Carlton principles and the different staff members. Then, we were immediately introduced to our departments.

I found out that I would start in housekeeping and move on to front office roughly three months later. I was also very excited to find out that even within the housekeeping department I would get the opportunity to work in different areas, starting in public ones and then moving on to working as housekeeping coordinator.

The first week consisted of a cross training and introduction to all the different housekeeping fields, such as the afore mentioned public areas, the housemen and the room attendants, which was quite varied and a good way of getting a quick overview of everything. I was also amazed by the kindness of everyone working in this department, as I was treated in a very friendly manner and welcomed into the team openly and immediately.

The second week then consisted of a cross training in front office, once again just to get a first impression of things, after which I then moved back to working in public areas in housekeeping, as well as learning to work as a room attendant, which I honestly have to admit really is an extremely exhausting and challenging job. My next stop will now be the laundry, after which I will then be trained as a supervisor, so I definitely can´t complain about monotony.

I hope you got a good first impression about my internship and I will keep you posted on my experiences here.

I also want to wish all new students, which will be starting their life in Glion very soon, the best of luck and a great start!

Lea