– There have been episodes that have been so bad that employees do not want to work at the checkout anymore. I’ve seen colleagues cry after being scolded. This is what Jacob Berhane Beyene (20) says, who is in his fourth year as a park worker in Bø Sommarland in Telemark. Most of us remember the first summer job and the desire to do our very best. Then it is also easy to forget that you yourself were new once, where you are hungry and stressed in a kiosk queue and think the young person at the checkout is doing a bad job. Employees in Bø Sommarland talk about tough experiences. – It’s a pretty shitty feeling to be scolded, really. You are brand new and think you have done a good job, but then someone comes and says that everything you have done is wrong, says Beyene. Bø Sommarland has 14 different restaurants. Still, there is a fast queue. Photo: Tore Jonssen – Bad feeling The 20-year-old already has several years of experience as a seasonal worker in what is one of the country’s largest amusement parks. There are many nice days, but also days where the lump in the stomach grows large. – You are dragged down quite a lot, and have a bad feeling inside you. Also, you are very afraid of making more mistakes the rest of the day. It can bother you for several days, says Beyene. What would you do if a customer in front of you scolded the summer substitute at checkout? I had not interfered I had said that this is not decent behavior I had waited until it was my turn and said a few words of support to the summer substitute Show result Being put to the test Director of Bø Sommarland, René Langeveld Sas, says that the yelling fortunately does not is something they experience every day. – But it happens, unfortunately. We get a lot of feedback on long waits in the food queues. Sas says that they have close to 300 seasonal workers. Many are young and inexperienced. – There are very many good experiences during a day, but it is experienced violently when this is your first encounter with working life. Here you are really put to the test. – What do you think about the park’s responsibility? – We as employers prepare our employees for various situations they may have to deal with. At the same time, I believe that each and every one of our guests must take responsibility for their behavior. Bø Sommarland’s manager, Rene Langeveld Sas, says it’s busy when 3,500 guests enter the park every day. Photo: Grete Ingebjørg Berge / news – Tell in an adult way One of those who has put into words the adults’ behavior during the summer holidays is Eli Landsdal. She has many years of experience as a permanent employee in the management at Bø Sommarland. In a post on social media, which has received a lot of attention, she asks adults to think twice before scolding an insecure 17-year-old summer substitute. «For where you stand this summer, with irritation that increases in step with the degree and yells at a new employee who does not know the difference between barbecue or Viennese; It could be your daughter or son in just a few years. Eli Landsdal with his son in Bø Sommarland. Photo: Privat Landsdal says she wrote the post because she has looked closely at how hard the young people work. – They do their very, very best in an extremely demanding environment. And I do not mean that you should accept everything, but I do mean that you should speak out in an adult and responsible way. Here you can read the whole post: Dear adult Now we enter the most demanding time of the year – summer vacation. The time when in three small weeks we will create wonderful memories for small and large children that they can brag about to their friends when they return. And perhaps you have saved up for an activity that will meet the requirement as the family’s highest grail of holiday activity. The demand for perfectionism is high! And that means that you probably expect everyone you meet to serve you with the utmost degree of professionalism, service-mindedness and joy. Before you fall into the trap of going to a kiosk queue a little too late, when the kids’ blood sugar is already on a crash course and the sausage you get is two degrees too cold and the soda has barely reached the fridge before it was served to you by an insecure 16-year-old in In their first hours of working life, I want you to think about this: What do you expect from yourself in your job? Do you get slack to make mistakes, or is it okay for customers to scold you for being open to something that is obviously a human miss? How was your self-esteem in the first month of your current job? Or, if you can manage, what was self-esteem like the first month in a job with an employer who was not a parent or grandparent and the work tool was a lawn mower? Did you come in like a comet and show the experienced what they did wrong, or were you insecure and afraid of making mistakes? And last but not least, how do you want your children, who this summer are going to whine about you ordering food too late because they were hungry a long time ago, to face working life for the first time? Because where you stand this summer, with irritation that increases with the degree and yells at a new employee who does not know the difference between barbecue or Viennese – it can in just a few years be your daughter or son. Who in their first encounter with working life realizes that it is perfectly fair for an adult to scold you full skin for being so useless and have not learned anything. A summer job for a 16-year-old can at best mean 40-50 days of work, but for most more 25-35 days. Because there is something about working hours and holidays and a few such laws you should abide by. There are not many days to develop into a gourmet chef. And especially not if the experience the youth has is to grease their own slice of bread. It is also not a long time to know the price of all 2400 product lines in the small kiosk the young people are in. And at least not know all the uses, technical specifications and ingenious fun facts. I have worked 5 years in Bø Sommarland myself, and I have seen with my own eyes how extremely skilled the employees are! They do not have your experience and knowledge – that would be strange! But they have the will to stand, they do their very, very best in an extremely demanding environment! There are not many eateries that can match the pressure of an eatery in a family park between 2pm and 4pm in high season. I can guarantee that! And that applies to Bø Sommarland, Dyreparken, Tusenfryd – yes, simply all family parks. The young people who get such summer jobs and who endure with a smile – they are heroes! And they come from these jobs and into the adult work life with great professionalism and a sickly good work experience. These are people you want to hire! So I hope that you who read this are helping to give them the start in working life they deserve! And I do not mean that you should accept everything – but I do mean that you should speak out in an adult and responsible way. And maybe it is the general manager or human resources manager who should have feedback? Maybe you should wait until your blood sugar has risen and you can see the case with a little lower blood pressure before you leave the cone in the back seat on the way to where you should be the real reason why you are annoyed, have a short temper and explode on an insecure 17-year-old? Some recent tips from an experienced park user who works in both Dyreparken, Tusenfryd, Legoland and Sommarland and other parks we have visited: Bring some sliced fruit and vegetables – it has saved many long queues. And plan when to eat! Fill up the water bottles at home and get refills along the way. Some parks, such as Sommarland, have their own taps for refilling bottles, in others there are many who help in kiosks to refill for you (but do not sneak in front of an already long queue to ask for refills of water! Show queue culture and go to a kiosk with little or no queue) Go upstream – start farthest from the entrance and work your way back to the entrance. Check out what activities it is appropriate for your family to use before arrival. Arrange a meeting place if you get away from each other. In addition, you may want to show your child what the people who work there look like / what uniforms they wear and tell them that the child can ask them for help in finding you again. And last but not least, make sure your kids have a great time! What you experienced as magical when you were a child, your children experience as magical now – even if it has lost its magic for you! All the kids really want is for us to experience something together, without having our noses in a mobile phone! So – picnics in the garden, spending the night on a trampoline, swimming in the pool, waking up for a night bath, fishing for crabs or buying an extra large ice cream – these may be the experiences your child remembers as the best from the holidays, even if you hoped it would be the activity you put 90% of your holiday budget in, plus a little extra credit card fun in. The kids are simple like that! Good holiday. – Challenging Also in the Zoo in Kristiansand, young summer substitutes have experienced similar situations. – It is clear that it is challenging, says marketing and communications director Anniken Bjørnstad Schjøtt. She says that this most often happens in the high season. For example, someone may start arguing about the height requirements of the water park. – Therefore, we try to prepare the summer substitutes for it. Among other things, with a course on how to handle difficult conversations. Photo: Håkon Raa / news The managing director of Tusenfryd, Bjørn Solli, says that difficult situations also arise with them, but that things are generally going well. – We have had some challenges with sneaking into the queue at the beginning of the season. I understand that guests do not like it. But the employees have handled this well, says Solli. Ask people to care Figures from NAV show that from January to May this year, 46,500 summer jobs were advertised in Norway. LO’s summer patrol is close to young people in summer jobs. Sindre Hornnes, youth councilor in LO, says they think it is sad and unpleasant to hear about the experiences from Bø Sommarland. – In most industries with customer care, such situations can occur. People who behave that way need to sharpen up. Hornnes says they encourage people to care and speak out if they come up in a situation where an employee is scolded. – But should not an employee tolerate being talked to, when the queues are long and mistakes are made? – There is a big difference in the way you react. You can take things up in a nice way with folk customs and give feedback, but it would be wrong to scold someone, says LO’s youth councilor.
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– A pretty shitty feeling, really – news Vestfold and Telemark – Local news, TV and radio
