Great Queen Street is Great!

It was a rainy Friday, I was struggling to make my way through the wet and narrow streets just behind Piccadilly Circus with my, from now on, nice-but-also-very-comfortable-although-not-suitable-for-rain-at-all shoes.
I should have seen it coming that this rain wouldn't be bringing any good news.
It was Friday 13th and I suddenly knew I had three weeks to say goodbye to my beloved "lifelong" shop.

Leaving Great Queen Street is not easy. I was told already by some colleagues, but still you don't know how hard it is until it's your turn. 

There's something special in this shop: The team is simply amazing, even though it keeps changing there's always this good atmosphere... I spent a lot of time in the past thinking who could be that key person that sticks the team together but those people that I could point as "the ones" kept leaving and new people coming and we always had a great team. There must be something in the water...

In my particular case, I'm grateful that I could work there for two years because I could actually grow up and mature as a person. I'm nothing of that shy little girl that entered GQS's door for a Discovery Day on a Thursday of September 2011. 

I have to say by the way that it was one of the worst Discovery Days that I've seen so far... I still don't know why they hired me. I was sooooo shy, plus my English wasn't good that time. But they said YES and I started working there, in the box section hand in hand with the TL. I remember I stayed 2 or 3 days with my trainer and then the day I was alone I was so late that they had to call my trainer to come early to help us with production. (I have to say in my defence that although it was September, it was sunny and therefore very busy).

Those were some of the happiest days I spent there, the beginning every day in box section, I could see how I was slightly getting better, the breakfast sitting by the window watching the people pass by... The jokes and laughs in the kitchen.... We never stopped doing them, it's just that the first ones are the ones that you end up missing the most, I guess. The good old times.

As time passed by, people came and went and I started taking more responsibilities. Every time I was stepping up I couldn't believe it and I used to think that it would be the last step, that I would get stuck. But it wasn't like this, they kept giving me challenges and I kept on taking them because I wanted to give back some of what that shop gave me. Also there's some kind of interior pride that makes me want to fucking achieve a challenge when it's given to me. 

And that's the story of how I became TL, because, well, it was time to give back... to my team and my shop. And those were also some of the happiest days in itsu. 

It wasn't easy... it was very hard actually. Lots of headaches, lots of things to keep in mind, every day was a battle: Fighting, pushing... I used to have this sentence in mind that I read somewhere: "It's a fucking hell, but I love every single damn minute". That thought kept me fighting, and every day when I was going home (some days I was happy, some days I wanted to die) I was thinking: "Tomorrow we will do it better". I was never happy with my performance, there is always something to improve.  

But after all, I would like to think that I didn't do that bad, I'm quite proud actually. I ran GQS's kitchen from middle of May to September and we broke our record sales' week! Not only once but twice! Which is gonna stay at least until next summer (well, if they could break it earlier I would be very proud of them!).
I'm already very proud of my guys, whenever we went through hard times we stuck together as a proper team and we gave our best. I can't ask for more. They are astonishingly amazing.
I hope they are gonna stick together this time once again and they are gonna stand up and take care of my kitchen when I'm not gonna be there anymore, because if they don't... I'll go there and I'll break their legs. I know they can do it.

And this is my "brief" love story with Great Queen Street. Who would have thought that this shy girl who almost didn't make it through the Discovery Day would end up becoming TLK? Sometimes I take a look back at these two years and think "What the hell Laura, how the f**k did you end up here?" And there's still a lot to come... But I don't wanna stop now, because I'm fucking enjoying every single damn minute of this fucking hell.