new hotel

I got into the swing of things quite easily, as all the hotels nowadays have much the same menus, and I could not understand why we couldn't serve more typical Scottish food, but realized that the owners had learned through their experiences what was best.
I was a bitty sceptical about Lorna's way of talking just a wee bit nastily behind the Staff's backs, telling me that one of the barmen, who only helped out at night, and whom I always loved before starting to work there for his humor, and friendliness, was not doing his work, and stood smoking outside all night long, keeping on telling me that he was as slow as drain water, and when I told her that I thought he was brilliant as a barman, she was not happy with me at all.
A young boy called Andrew was helping out over week-ends as kitchen porter, and when we were alone in the kitchen, I found him a very apt learner, and eager to please, but I noticed that the moment Lorna came in, he started shaking and making the most unnecessary mistakes, whereupon Lorna would start shouting at the poor child, upsetting him so much that he would make a mess of everything I ask him.
Slowly I started realizing that Lorna was extremely unfair when it came to this boy, who was working to pay for a computer, and he told me one day that she used to be like that with a young girl who used to work there also, until she walked out, but he really wanted the computer, and when she started on him he made a choice to he stick to it. I just loved this boy's ability to stick to his job under this circumstances, and decided to try and talk to Lorna about it. Liz told me not to stick out my neck, as it was none of my business, and she had heard that this woman never took any lip from anybody.
But I did try, and just got a good mouthful from Lorna, telling me that the staff were her responsibility, and if she was not happy with somebody's work, she has the right to treat that person accordingly, but I thought that if she wasn't happy with a person, she should let him or her go!
Actually, I think she knew deep down that this young boy was a good worker, and it seemed to me that she was just looking for someone to take out her frustrations on.
The other woman working there, Mary, was small, and she and Lorna have been friends for a long time, and every evening after dinner was over, they would open a bottle of white wine, and finish it while clearing away. Mary was real nice, but I was startled when she disregarded my name, and called me Hen, but I soon realized that some people do call women by that name. Actually it was quite sweet!
All in all I was quite happy, until just after I started, Lorna told me after the week-end to clean the fryers. She then gave me a blunt knife, a bundle of steel wool, some scouring liquid, a lot of old papers, a bucket with hot water and a cloth, telling me to scrape off the sides of the pans with the blunt knife, and then scour it clean with the steel wool! The insides I had to put in the washing up zinks with deepio and hot water to soak!
I was aghast, as this would take ages to do, and as she had already asked me to make a chicken liver pate and a chicken and leek pie inbetween my other things, I was not happy! Nobody who had not worked in a kitchen could imagine to what hardness the oil would burn onto the sides of the pans, almost like a very hard kind of plastic.
So I sat scowling for almost an hour before I decided to take matters into my own hands, made a paste of deepio and water, and spread it onto the burned on oil! I went on with my other work, and after twenty minutes I rubbed off the mess, as the deepio softens the oil, and rinsed the pans out! Voila! That is how every other hotel does it, and I was amazed that Lorna used that strange and time consuming way!
But as the days rolled on, a lot of things became clear to me!