First week of work

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First week at Beaumont-Hamel

After a relaxing Sunday off in Arras - during which I did in fact manage to sleep lots and go to the downtown market (more like a big garage sale) - it was time to get to work!

On Mondays, we always have a full staff day. For the Beaumont-Hamel site, this means that we have 5 guides working at once (instead of the usual 3). We were fortunate enough to have this first day in uniform to shadow the summer guides on their last day. The visitors kept asking "How many of you work here? You guys are everywhere!" I guess when you can run a site at 3, having 10 guides (5 summer guides, 5 fall guides) in a single day is a bit of overkill...

We spent the day trying to get the hang of the Beaumont-Hamel tour and operations. We each are assigned a position, either "entrée", "accueil" or "caribou" and basically, when one gets cold, we radio in and switch it up! Good system!

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Tuesday, the first official day of work for most of my colleagues, was my day off. I spent most of my day freaking out about having to give a tour as of Wednesday. I studied my bricks, wrote my tour outline and went into town for a break.

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My first day at work happened to be a day where only 1 other girl (Trish) was working. Two-guide-days are rare, if not impossible at Beaumont-Hamel. However, I think it's safe to say that we got the hang of it pretty quick and rocked it by the end of the day! Our supervisor Louise (elle me fait penser à toi Grand-Maman!) is definitely to thank for this.

By the end of the day, I had given my very first tour to a group of British visitors and had been given an award! My colleagues have started a "Golden Star Award" system : every evening, we are awarded with a special prize (ex: "Ice Ice Baby" award, for having kept my cool). Surprising how much it can make your day better to have that little bit of positive feedback.

Day two and three on the job have been just as good. I gave a tour to a 25 person group yesterday (British again) who were very enthusiastic about the site. Today, I had a family of 6 British visitors.

We have a competition at work to see how many people we can get to cry during our tours or explanations of the site. (This is not to take away from the seriousness or tragedy of it all. It simply is a good indicator that we have properly gotten our message across). My first "victim" was a 30-year-old man who came into the visitors' centre looking for general information about the site. In 5 minutes, he was all chocked up. It's not hard to understand - that is pretty much how I reacted when I visited the site 3 years ago.

Moving in

On Wednesday night, we finally got to find out our room assignments for the semester. They've been decided, by our managers, based on our personalities and social interactions during the past week (similar to our site assignments). I was put in a double room with Gorana, a colleague of mine from this summer on Parliament Hill. Having worked with her since May, we get along really well and I'm really happy to be roommates with her. I am in a house with 7 people in total, on 3 floors. Most importantly, the kitchen has 2 fridges, a freezer, a beer fridge and a dishwasher. Score!


Made myself supper for the first time in the house today. Tortellini = yummy warm food. The microwave-able dishes were really getting to me.

Keep you all posted!

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Photos

Beaumont Hamel team
First day in uniform and on the site!