Hotel Front Desk
Los Angeles, CA
Male, 27
For the past two years I've worked the front desk at a boutique luxury beachfront hotel in Southern California. My job can range from simply checking guests in & out to many other duties, including: pretending I work in different departments so that behind-the-scenes chaos is never seen by a guest, shielding guests from stalkers that come looking for them, and picking up used drug paraphernalia from a trashed room. Ask me anything.
I buy them, only because there is generally a new person or persons staying in each room on average every three to five days, if not every day, and I don't have any idea what they decide to do in there or what their personal hygiene standards are. I've found a used condom under a bed of a room thought to be ready to sell, which was pointed out to me by the concerned father of two that checked in with his family. On the flip-side, the massive amount of fluids, etc are probably being found on areas that housekeeping isn't trained nor told they have a need to clean, but that a guest thought would be a good place to deposit said fluid(s). By and large, the surfaces that a sensible person comes in contact with are probably cleaner than the ones in that person's own home, because they're cleaned so frequently and professionally. If I find something gross, I will be the first to point it out to housekeeping if not clean it up myself.
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At my property thankfully we have duvets that are completely washable and that means we DO wash them. That being said, at cheaper hotels and especially motels, ownership or management are going to cut corners, including not washing the duvet covers. In most cases, it's in the best interest of a hotel-owner to do so but one place that gets almost ZERO attention are the couches and chairs! Those in most cases don't need cleaning unless something is visibly wrong, so you can imagine how much unseen filth is on those! Not a place to do anything naked...
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According to the site: "Hotel Managers have given no official answer to this question. They have provided front desk clerks the ability to upgrade rooms at their discretion and as long as that continues the Twenty Dollar Trick will continue to work. We have heard that the Flamingo has forced banned all the front desk clerks from upgrading patrons to the Go room." -http://thetwentydollartrick.com/ Where I work, management would frown on this, and all upgrades fall into the same process as to how to give them to a guest. Like most perks, the closer to sold out the hotel is, the harder it is to offer anything extra to a guest that hasn't arranged it in advance. When a hotel has many rooms to sell, often it's easier to sell the lower-priced rooms, so placing the person who has a special occasion, OR, who happened to have slipped you a $20 ostensibly to be nice, in an upgraded room, benefits you the guest, but also leaves the hotel with lower-priced rooms open which sell faster and help fill up the hotel.
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The simple answer is, most of those who succeed in hospitality careers do fit your description, and naturally gravitate to these jobs. If the hiring manager at the hotel wants to keep up at all with the increasingly competitive market, the demand for the best service, and wants to differentiate their brand and property from another, then I would give the credit first to the person who is actually as you described above, because it can take a lot of resolve, cunning, and resourcefulness to remain that way given what a front of house job requires daily. Second, I would give credit to the brand itself (Hyatt comes to mind, as does some other brands which take a lot of time ensuring their employees are properly selected, outfitted, trained, and managed), and lastly I would credit the hiring manager who made the ultimate decision to bring those qualified and moldable candidates aboard.
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3D Games Developer/Programmer
How does 3D fool the human brain into seeing an extra dimension?
Professor
How do you prevent cheating and plagiarism these days?
Security / Bodyguard
Have you ever had to disarm an attacker?
People definitely do carry an air of entitlement with them if they have accomplished a certain feat in life. But I have seen both extremes, and one fact holds true: the people who have REALLY made something of themselves, and are actually worthy of praise and great treatment, KNOW it, and don't have to speak it out loud. The guests who are barely there and are desperate, or worse, might have once been to a certain level and are now a has-been, are the worst people to deal with because they are bickering over every little detail, yet have very little to offer to their professional peers, much less society. These are the hardest guests to deal with, but after about 6 months on the job they can be spotted a mile away and my emotional and mental guard are already up before they hit the desk. Real accomplishment, ethics, and honor are worn on someone's shoulder, and don't need to be mentioned out loud. I have had firefighters, cops, soldiers, working class and other honest people stay with us and I have gone over and above to help them with anything they need, because they almost always NEVER ask for anything out of line. It doesn't bother me, however, if I do get one of the people who is obnoxious and entitled, because I have always felt that if I let it get to me, I wouldn't be any better than that person.
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Using a vacant room for anything other than prepping it for the next guest could land someone in a lot of trouble, however if it is a slow time of year and there is a bank of rooms that haven't been occupied in a while, then some hotel managers are okay with their employees eating their lunch in such a room. That policy would vary and likely would not fly at a larger, more corporate and branded hotel. As far as using a vacant room for napping, drug use, or other unprofessional activity, it's just a path to trouble for anyone doing it. You will see some hotels have live-in managers, or a rotating shift of managers that stay the night, especially on weekends, so that there is someone close by for emergencies, but all of that is pre-determined and sanctioned by upper management. I personally don't want to stay in the hotel any longer than I'm paid to, so I would prefer NOT to spend the night there, that's my personal feeling on it.
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I agree it could be a real special request gone answered. I love that kind of humor coming from a prospective guest, and if the room is booked out enough in advance it becomes a personal challenge and team-building activity among the front desk to out-do one another in how close we come to meeting that guest's request. Of course if it's a ridiculous or snobby request, that is just asserting a guest's power prior to check-in, that person will get a stiff official-sounding answer as to why we can't fulfill it. Whimsical and creative and honest wins, in this case.
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