Tricky times are behind us

Not too many entries for a few weeks, because it’s been the worst 3 weeks so far, we just didn’t feel like it.

Before we got here we were told from other wardens that the staff could be a problem, they were right!

We lost the Head Ranger a month ago, he had to leave because of his family, this was a real blow to us because he was very, very good, hard working and had control of the rest of the rangers. We advertised but couldn’t get the quality of person needed for that post, so we then advertised for a ranger and employed a young lad of 22. He had good boat skills but came with a health warning, he was known to be disruptive and liked a drink. At the interviews he came across very pleasant and said that his drinking days where over, he was the only one we interviewed that could do the job.

To cut the story the short he made our life a misery, he was disruptive, he also had a negative effect on one other member of staff, who has no personality of his own (which is OK because I can control him) but parasitizes other peoples. It got to a stage where it was extremely difficult to remain in control. It’s not at all like working at home where the staff want to do well and achieve, here is like working with delinquent children and being friendly just lands you in the shit! It ended with our boat engine going up in flames, in the fuel store with all the petrol for the boat stored in it, 6 full gas bottles and the 5000lt petrol tank directly outside. If it had gone up, which we can’t understand why it didn’t, it is hard to imagine what the consequences would’ve been.

We sacked him.

We now have an extremely good new Head Ranger, Tony, who just wants the island to do well, he’s very interested in wildlife and is personally ambitious, this is just the sort of person we can work with, with Tony’s help the island is calm again and the setbacks sorted.