I arrived back at chill on the Thursday night, a day after I was told I had the job. It was a bit surreal coming back to Brisbane because its the first place I've returned to in oz and I knew a lot of people before I left but when I first arrived there were so many new faces and people I knew had moved on so it was nice being back at the same hostel but it felt like starting out all over again almost in terms of meeting people.

The next day I talked to sander who's the boss and said basically andy wouldn't be leaving for another two weeks so I could get trained up slowly over that time so I'm more prepared and if I work 3 hours per day that's my accommodation paid for. So for about four or five days I was either learning how to check people in and out and using the tills then had other crappy cleaning jobs and the likes.

After nearly a week back at chill I was asked if I wanted to work the rest of the week at city backpackers, just a hostel 3 doors up the road that was owned by the same guy who has chill, they said basically it would help me out as I would be doing a lot more productive hours, more training and experience and a couple of shifts over the weekend and most importantly get paid! so when I come back to chill I will be ready to work, also a guy pulled out from the nightshift job at city while he was being trained up, he said it "wasn't for him" which I would find out why later.

So the next day I went to city and did a split shift, 8-4 then 9-12 so I should be more confident on the reception and also know what I'm doing at night, because my first shift was the following day a nice 6pm until 8am which would happen the following two days after.

The guy showing me the ropes was called sam, a Dutch guy who was nice enough but was a bit full of himself, said he trained for the sas or something like that so he had a bit of an ego, he told me why the guy had pulled out of nightshift the night before which I would advise if your squeamish don't read the next paragraph...

The first incident was a kiwi guy with a bag of goon in his hand tried to come into the hostel, because you aren't allowed to bring any alcohol into the hostel Sam went to take it off him but the guy grabbed him by the throat and tried to hit him, later two German guys started having a fight and one punched a hole in the wall outside his room and the last bit is the worst. An Australian woman started vomiting in her room and acting really weird, in a 6 share female dorm so two girls told Sam, the woman was a mess and after ruining two mattresses with her vomit she was moved to a private room and the staff would check up on her every hour to see how she was but about half an hour later she started roaming the corridor without any pants on looking like a zombie with vomit trailing down her mouth and faeces all down her legs and turns out she defecated in the room, on the floor, turns out she had overdosed on heroin and was taken to hospital were the paramedics said she might not make it past the night, she did though and somehow has managed to stay in chill were I'm living!

So now I realise why the other guy left, problem with the hostel is it holds about 500 people, and if there's only one person running the place after midnight it's going to be really difficult if things kick off. You have to be the killjoy and tell people to stop drinking outside after 10pm, stop any fights, clean up any vomit etc, check toilets incase people pass out and then close down and open up all the rooms in the morning, all this and at the same time checking people in and out.

So my first shift on Friday was really busy, but it was more centrered around reception work, I couldn't even sit down or check security cams until around 3am. Saturday it was more about helping out the bar, it was so busy and people just don't listen when they have a drink, and it can be intimidating when trying to tell a bunch of 40 year old men not to drink outside anymore or a really drunk bunch of young lads but I manage to get past all this with no bother. But over the weekend I had to deal with confiscating drink, chucking people out the pool, people breaking a toilet and 6 English lads getting aggressive with some Germans so it was never really a dull moment.

On Sunday it was a lot more quieter but there was a fight that happened but I wasn't around when it happened. Overall nightshift at that hostel was a real eye opener, so many things to do and so busy, perfect training for chill really because I was thrown in at the deep end and chill is a lot more quiet so everyone says my actual job will be a walk in the park compared to that place. Staying up wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, only had one energy drink on the Saturday and Sunday night but saying that you are totally ruined come 8am and you go straight to sleep. Unfortunately some people in the staff room had bed bugs so I couldn't get a proper sleep after my last shift and I hope to god the heroin woman checks out before my first shift.