Employment at luxury-hotel chain the White Lotus has its perks: You’ll be working in a once-in-a-lifetime locale, so breathtakingly beautiful only the wealthiest white-collar criminals and most emotionally unstable heiresses can afford to be there. I’m also assuming there is some kind of employee discount and maybe a daily coupon for grab-and-go coffee. Yes, you’ll have to deal with finance bros, influencers, and every version of girlboss under the Hawaiian sun, but you’ll probably also get a 10 percent discount on massages, so catering to knock-off Gwyneths — and a teensy annual murder on the premises — could be worth it!

We’ve visited three different White Lotus locations so far: Maui, Taormina, and Thailand. While there was a higher body count in Taormina and Thailand, in terms of work culture Maui seems to be the most loosey-goosey of the resort locations with the staff going down K-holes and sleeping with guests in beachside huts. Taormina is much stricter with a boss who plays favorites and has no qualms reassigning staff based on her own whims. Thailand seems to be somewhere in the middle, with staff expected to serve guests’ every whim and dodge some gunfire here and there. With the third season of The White Lotus coming to an end, it also happens to be the end of Q1 — time to get those early staff reviews done and see who is really climbing the ladder in the luxurious and only slightly deadly White Lotus industrial complex.

Armond (Murray Bartlett), general manager at the White Lotus Maui

Armond was likely on his way to the unemployment line when he met the business end of a steak knife courtesy of newlywed guest cum archnemesis Shane Patton (Jake Lacy). Shane and Armond were already in an escalating war of wills about slights perceived or otherwise as Armond tried to cover up his error in not booking the Pattons the Honeymoon Suite and Shane’s absolute unwillingness to let it go and be anything other than a total dick. The instinct here would be to side with Armond, who was driven mad by years of catering to privileged, ungrateful guests, but objectively his final days on the job (and on this very earth) were an unmitigated disaster. I mean, he was killed (sad!) while hiding in a guest’s room after shitting in his suitcase. Hilarious? Yes. Justified? Sure. The kind of thing we’re looking for from the general manager of one of the finest resorts in all the land? Decidedly not. Even if Armond hadn’t been brutally stabbed by a guest, his *checks employment file* falling off the wagon, stealing a pharmacy’s worth of narcotics from a couple of college students, and exchanging sex and drugs with one of his employees in favor of preferred scheduling are not cause for celebration or promotion. The least troubling thing he did all week was aggressively hit on straight, married Steve Zahn. He did send Lani flowers after she nearly gave birth in his office, though; that was real senior-leadership material.

Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius), health mentor at the White Lotus Thailand

While Armond’s missteps are due to a clear mental breakdown, Valentin’s stem from treachery and desperation . Other than the small, but unignorable fact that he is part of a burglary ring targeting the very hotel at which he works, Valentin seems like a great employee! On one hand, he’s the most requested health mentor at the Thailand White Lotus; on the other, that popularity is almost certainly coming from his Reiki healings, which align the chakras in both spirit and loins. That kind of popularity among high-paying guests can ignore plenty of infractions, including going above, beyond, and into the pants of any number of television stars to boost Yelp reviews. However, no amount of stellar comment cards can overcome the tiny detail that he is at the very least an accomplice to armed robbery. Five-star reviews are great, but putting Aimee Lou Wood’s life in danger is where any sane employer would draw the line.

Pee Lek (Yothin Udomsanti), head of security at the White Lotus Thailand

You know what they say: Shit rolls up hill. If Gaitok is letting robbers in and out of the property and losing guns left and right, unfortunately, the buck stops at Pee Lek, the head of security. He should have known what he had — or didn’t have — when Gaitok tried to quit. No raise!

Kai (Kekoa Kekumano), server at the White Lotus Maui

This is a tough one. Kai seems like a sweet kid — a diligent server, a talented performer, loyal to Paula despite being tempted by her best friend, Olivia (played by Sydney Sweeney). It’s just that he did commit an actual crime on the premises. And, as stated earlier, that’s one of the tougher things to ignore in a performance evaluation. For the right employee, you could look the other way at smoking some weed on the job or sneaking into a vacant room for an afternoon roll in the hay with a vacation girlfriend. But no matter how pure his intentions or how terrible the Mossbacher family, it’s hard to justify aggravated assault. Someone at White Lotus, LLC, really should update the employee handbook because this seems to keep coming up.

Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), security guard at the White Lotus Thailand

Unfortunately, and I genuinely hate to say this, raises aren’t given out at White Lotus HQ to the cutest cutie to ever be cute. If they were, Gaitok would be seeing a 100 percent increase in his paycheck and measuring curtains for a corner office. Alas, raises are based on merit and not on your ability to woo global superstars with your hometown charm. Pound for pound, Gaitok is the worst employee we’ve seen at a White Lotus property. Security guard just doesn’t seem like a natural fit for Gaitok’s disinterest in safety, both as his primary job function and as a societal construct. By Gaitok’s own admission, he doesn’t have the stomach for violence, an ancillary possibility of being the first line of defense at a resort for the über-wealthy. Heck, he even tries to quit! Yes, Gaitok receives points for his unexpectedly good marksmanship, but sadly, that skill is rendered Mook — I mean moot! — by losing the gun in his possession to a potentially homicidal guest treating lorazepam like a tin of Altoids and letting a motley crew of burglars onto the grounds.

Ultimately, though, Gaitok is able to trip up the ladder, embracing his dormant violent side, winning both the girl and a cushy promotion to official goon on the private security of Sritala Hollinger, now widow and sole owner of White Lotus Thailand. In theory he should be No. 1 on this list as the only employee we ever get to see get a promotion, but we have to take into consideration the cost of his very soul.

Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore), general manager at the White Lotus Taormina

Valentina, beloved and put upon as she is, took the most hits upon reevaluation. Operationally, there’s no one touching her; you just know Valentina runs the White Lotus Taormina with a tighter grip than any mob boss in a 100-mile radius. She doesn’t feel as beaten down by the guests as Armond over at the Maui property; in fact, she thinks nothing of telling Tanya she looks more like Peppa Pig than Monica Vitti or fighting with Dom about allowing Mia and Lucia access to the property. No, for Valentina, her light is dimmed by being a woman constantly besieged by dumb, horny men and her own long-suppressed lesbianism. Ultimately, this is what drives much of her less-than-stellar behavior, even if it’s more palatable than some of the questionable moves made by other staff. We’re rooting for Valentina, but reassigning Rocco to the Beach Club in order to distance him from her crush, Isabella, is bad staffing at best and a misuse of power at worst. She wields said power in a similar way when she moves onto Mia, firing lounge singer Giuseppe upon his return from the hospital so her new girlfriend can have his gig. Fortunately, Giuseppe seemed to really be phoning it in at the keys and on the mic, but it’s not the world’s best look for our gal.

Giuseppe (Federico Scribani), lounge singer at the White Lotus Taormina

Playing the piano and singing Italian jazz standards at the White Lotus Taormina seems like a pretty good gig. Giuseppe starts off on the wrong note — sorry — with Mia, mistaking her for a sex worker and getting a drink thrown in his face. In a way, Giuseppe is a casualty of Mia’s rise and didn’t do much wrong other than be a horny old white man standing in the way of a more talented, younger woman. And for that we say arrivederci, Giuseppe!

Dillon (Lukas Gage), server at the White Lotus Maui

It’s not so much that Dillon deserves a raise or promotion for any of the work we see him do at the White Lotus Maui. He seems like a competent enough server, and sadly, a man bun in Hawaii is not solid enough grounds for denying a performance-based salary increase. What we do see him do is blow rails of ketamine and get rimmed within an inch of his life by Armond. On its face, not great. Upon closer examination, though, that debaucherous behavior came as part of a sex-and-substances bender with a side of sexual harassment from his boss. I’m not saying a promotion to head server with a 10 percent salary increase would be hush money but …

Fabian (Christian Friedel), general manager at the White Lotus Thailand

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Fabian seems like an affable, slightly odd guy, but he’s missing that killer instinct that his counterparts in Maui and Taormina bring to their roles. To Fabian’s credit, he hasn’t referred to any guest as a cartoon pig or been chin deep in a single employee butt. Getting through a week without sabotaging a honeymoon sunset cruise with an unhinged, grieving daughter hoisting her mother’s ashes overboard puts him legions ahead of any of the other general managers we’ve met thus far. That’s not to say Fabian doesn’t have areas for improvement: His dismissal of Belinda’s concerns about Greg/Gary’s murderous past wasn’t the mark of a true leader; ultimately, the basement of expectations for any vacationer or employee is to not be murdered in one’s bed. At the end of the day, Fabian is just a man with a song in his heart who wants a picture of television’s Jaclyn Lemon for the White Lotus website.

Thidapon “Mook” Sornsin (​​Lalisa Manobal), health mentor at the White Lotus Thailand

Gaitok might not be great at his job, but he’s got great taste in women. No matter how beige the uniform, it’s nearly impossible to stay out of superstar Lisa’s gravitational pull. (Unless you’re Walton Goggins on a revenge-seeking mission against the man who killed your father.)

We don’t actually see all that much of Mook doing her job other than participating in some of the traditional Thai dance performances for guests and trying to get surly Rick to do a biometric reading. Rick’s disinterest in anything to do with the wellness happening at the wellness resort and Chelsea getting wrapped up in Ratliff brother incest makes for a pretty easy week of health mentoring for Mook. We get the impression, from her Lady MacBeth–ing Gaitok to be more ambitious and ruthless, that she can handle much more.

Lani (Jolene Purdy), trainee at the White Lotus Maui

We didn’t get to see enough of Lani to know if she’d be a good employee or not: Memorably, she went into labor on her first day as a trainee. Iconic behavior as far as I’m concerned. If your water isn’t breaking day one, are you even making an impression at your new job? As a corporation, the White Lotus, LLC, needs to take a look at its cultural footprint and its impact on the socioeconomic ecosystem as one of the biggest employers in the area. What kind of vibe is White Lotus putting out that Lani felt she had to hide her pregnancy in order to get a job there? As far as commitment goes, you can’t get much more committed than raw dogging contractions and basically giving birth at the poolside bar. If the powers that be were smart, they’d give the new mom full maternity leave and a raise upon her return.

Rocco (Federico Ferrante), concierge at the White Lotus Taormina

Rocco seems like a dream employee. A simple guy who wants to do a good job at the concierge desk and not be the killed messenger when he informs his boss of multiple dead bodies floating ashore on the Ionian coast. It’s unclear if his relationship with Isabella has been an open secret or if general manager Valentina is just blind to it, but either way, it doesn’t warrant getting banished to the Beach Club. Look, if I’m putting my HR hat on (which is actually a headband because hats are definitely not part of the approved White Lotus employee dress code), Rocco needs to keep his personal life outside the doors of the White Lotus Taormina. Valentina may have ordered you out of the front desk to keep you away from her crush, but stay at your newly assigned post and stop dragging sand all over the lobby just to flirt with your fiancée.

Amrita (Shalini Peiris), meditation teacher and spiritual leader at the White Lotus Thailand

Amrita should be catching the eye of the White Lotus HQ simply for keeping her cool for so long in the face of the gunshots that ring out during her season-opening meditation session with Zion. Earlier in the week, she dug in deep with the surly, reluctant, and vengeance-focused Rick. Though his main communication with girlfriend Chelsea was mostly a series of grunts and sighs, with Amrita, we saw Rick open up. Who among us would not be healed by Amrita looking deep in our eyes and saying: “You have touched my heart. And I hope you hear me when I say, ‘You are not stuck.’” Sure, that didn’t completely work on Rick, as he still high-tailed it over to Bangkok with the intent of committing patricide. That’s not Amrita’s fault; even a master in the art of Buddhist practice and meditation can’t fix a middle-aged white man with daddy issues. Unfortunately, Amrita was a sliding-doors part of Rick and Chelsea’s tragic ending. What could have been if Amrita, whose job by definition is an intuitive healer, had taken a few minutes to chat with Rick instead of sitting him on the bench of destiny on the corner of karma and tragedy?

Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul), wellness expert at the White Lotus Thailand

Is there a promotion available for the dreamiest staff member? If so, Pornchai is first in line. Let’s list his talents: incredible with his hands, can tame the wildest lizard on the property, and even though those weren’t euphemisms, seems like quite a tender lover. That last one isn’t necessarily part of his job description, but in the case of two consenting adults who work at separate White Lotus properties on the other side of the world from each other, it’s, at the very least, a bonus. If management was smart, it’d lock Pornchai down with a sizable raise as consolation prize for Belinda leaving him in the same position she was in on the shores of White Lotus Maui: heartbroken by a wealthy guest with empty promises.

Isabella (Eleonora Romandini), concierge at the White Lotus Taormina

Perhaps the purest soul in the entirety of the White Lotus properties. Gentle-natured, her biggest strike is dating a co-worker. Otherwise, she’s just a concierge out here trying to get through her shift, build a life with Rocco, and learn at the feet of her boss, Valentina, even if said boss would like her to do a bit more than learn. Isabella’s a keeper with an assistant-manager title in the near future.

Pam (Morgana O’Reilly), health mentor at the White Lotus Thailand

If you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life and there’s nothing Pam loves more than a digital detox. Anyone assigned to the rapidly fraying Ratliff family deserves a promotion, if not some hazard pay. If anything, let’s get Pam into a role that is a mandatory reporter because she should be calling child-protective services for the adult Ratliff children and getting paid to wrestle the lorazepam out of Victoria’s steely southern grip. Personally, I know I’m not cut out for this line of work, as I would’ve folded like a cheap beach chair at the withering glare (or is that a smile?) of the Ratliffs upon the resort-mandated cell-phone collection.

Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell), spa manager at the White Lotus Maui and work-exchange student at the White Lotus Thailand

Of course she’s No. 1: She quite literally got the biggest raise of them all — a cool $5 million for looking the other way at one teeny-tiny murder! And name a time Natasha Rothwell has appeared onscreen and not deserved a raise, promotion, and throne to sit upon. Whether she’s at her wit’s end as a teacher in the Love, Simon-verse or being an underappreciated employee at the JFK airport in How to Die Alone, whatever you’re paying her, double it and add two weeks PTO. In her off-hours, Kelli on Insecure was peeing herself after getting tasered at Coachella, but from nine to five, she’s an accountant trying to get her friend’s finances together and slaying an abacus (I don’t really know what accountants do).

The same goes for Belinda across two seasons — and locations — of The White Lotus. You’re not sending just anyone to a learning retreat at a sister property halfway across the world. It’s clear that Belinda is a valued member of the White Lotus family. And while recognition — and a trip to Thailand — is nice, let’s add some zeros to her paycheck that don’t come from quasi-blackmailing a murderer. I believe it was Shakespeare or Batman arch villain Harvey Dent who once said: “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” But it was Belinda Lindsey who said “Can’t I just be rich for five fucking minutes?” Yes, you can, Belinda!

 Q1 is coming to an end, time to evaluate job performance for all 17 White Lotus employees we’ve met so far.