Difficult times, abuse of certain employers, lack of recognition … From the Pandemic of COVVI-19, many former employees in this sector have converted.
By Jessica Gourdon
A house bought on credit, a permanent contract at the Orpi agency in downtown Aurillac, a van furnished to go on weekends with his companion: this is the new life of Marjolaine Guibal, 30 years old, since that she left the world of the hotel industry. She spent ten years there, including several seasons as a receptionist of a holiday village in Super-Besse (Puy-de-Dôme). “Without the covid, I would still be there!” Ensures this graduate of a license in trade. The pandemic was a click. We had to confine ourselves, the hotel closed, and I had no accommodation to me. I understood that it was no longer possible. “
Like Marjorie Guibal, many employees in the tourism world (hotel, catering, campsites, leisure parks, etc.) have changed their lives in the past three years, accentuating the recruitment difficulties that this sector is experiencing. The long periods of closing or slowing down activity related to the health crisis, in 2020 and 2021, accelerated their awareness, in particular on the impact of their working conditions on their privacy. And this, even if the people we interviewed also speak with nostalgia for their old profession, the collective, the pleasure of the service, the “family spirit” that emerged. Or the feeling of freedom that this possibility of working as seasonal, winter in the mountains, summer in the sun.
“When you are in this sector, you work when everyone is on weekends or on vacation. You miss everything: birthdays, evenings, weddings, life, what!” Expresses Delphine Palatan, 39 years, which, for fifteen years, was a governing in several Savoy hotels. “The covid, it was a moment that allowed me to think of me,” said the one who started a reconversion process to become a trainer, “with normal schedules, Monday to Friday”.
“At one point, I’m tired of sacrificing myself”, continues Rodolphe Lucas Gome, 38, ex-major in a five-star of the Basque coast, and who left the sector at the end of 2020. ” I was doing 40-45 hours a week, I replaced colleagues at the last moment, I said goodbye to all my holidays during the summer … and the Hours sup are not always paid. “Since then, he has created his marketing company Digital.
None of them says he regrets her new life, even Lucie Ha, 30, who specifies winning “a little less” today than when she worked in the dining room. She now officiates in a charcuterie installed in the Halles de Poitiers. “I hire early in the morning, but at least I have two consecutive days of rest. I have my evenings, the schedules are square. For the life of a couple, it changes everything,” she comments.
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