A Reader Writes In: Luggage and Bellmen

Father comments on wheeled luggage...

The end of a golden era for the bellman came with the arrival of the wheeled luggage bag. Most old-school hotel bellman are in the retirement home for hospitality people, where they are still trying to help new arrivals with their luggage.

Hospitality never goes away.

As a former bellman it makes me sick to be in any airport and watch 200-pound grown men pulling roller bags smaller than a kid's lunchbox. This is why the distaff side owns the world; their roller bags are the size of a steamer trunk. YEA!!!

Father Weighs In: Front Desks

After my last post on what makes me cringe at a Front Desk (aromatic leftovers, etc.), my hotelier father weighed in on his front desk favorites (and not so favorites):

-- Junk behind the F/D: telephone books, items still waiting to be picked up by guests who stayed in the hotel two months ago.
-- Front desk agent on the computer checking you in, never looking up. I could be an 800-pound gorilla or wielding an axe and they'd never know it because they never look me in the eye.
-- Swallowing the last of dinner as the agent comes out of the back room (complete with garlic breath).
-- In the old days, breathing in the the last puff of smoke from the front desk agent's last cigarette as they emerge from the back room.

Good Stuff:
-- Smiling at you.
-- Always looking the guest in the eye or two if possible
-- Being somewhat sincere and not scripted

News Item: We Marry Our Parents?

My dad lived in the motel his dad ran. When I would hear the old chestnut that we choose spouses that remind us of our parents -- like this story does -- I used to laugh and think, well, I'll never meet a man who grew up in a motel!

Until I did.

Letter from Father

Dear Alysia,

Your recent post on what you don't like in a hotel room (yours being "crunchy carpet") got me thinking about my disdain for blackout drapes.

Why do I not like hotel blackout drapes? Let me count the ways... First I like to wake up to the sun in my eyes, the way humankind has been waking up this way for a million years. Why should a man-made piece of fabric stop this natural occurrence?

Second, most blackout drapes do not fit hotel windows properly. Not at all. The drapes then let in ultraviolet infrared radiation rays that are most annoying if one must sleep in the daytime (airline crews, night auditors).

If you agree with me, please call me 24/7 to exchange our mental distress on this most important subject.

Yours,
Father

(More about Father: In hotel business for several decades. Likes: bell carts with unsqueaky wheels, un-yell-y guests, a full house on a weeknight. Dislikes: waiters who say "no problem" when a customer thanks them for delivering a meal, walking a guest, blackout drapes.)

Letter from Father

Alysia,

Your recent ghost post got me thinking about hotel night auditors, a truly misunderstood group. I mean, who comes to work at 11PM and goes home to sleep at 7AM? No wonder they can be unfairly portrayed as a tad grumpy by fellow hotel employees.

However, they have more ghostly encounters than any other group of people in the world; after all, it is called the graveyard shift. Case in point: a friend of mine who worked the night audit at a Southwestern property was visited every Saturday at 2AM by a long-departed lady in white; she would quietly appear at the top of an abandoned staircase and then disappear.

I know this fellow and he is not prone to hallucinations. I believe that a hotel's supernatural beings do their hallway meandering in the early morning hours because some living guest has occupied their room for the night. Having worked as a hotel night auditor in my college days with only my NCR 4200 machine to talk to, I also had strange encounters, including a visitor from another world who came by to just wave hello.

Simply put, hotel night auditors and hotel ghosts are certainly two misunderstood groups who are simply looking to find a "soul" mate between 11PM and 7AM.

And next time you are in a hotel and cannot sleep at 2AM, come on down and visit with the night auditor. They only want someone to have a spirited conversation with. Grumpy? Maybe a bit but with good reason. It's a long night...

Love,
Father

(More about Father: In hotel business for several decades. Likes: bell carts with unsqueaky wheels, un-yell-y guests, a full house on a weeknight. Dislikes: waiters who say "no problem" when a customer thanks them for delivering a meal, walking a guest, blackout drapes.)

Save the Hotel Carpets!

When my father, a longtime hotel man, strides down a hallway -- and with his fine suits and tall stature, my father truly strides -- he keeps to the edges, nearly clinging to the wall. Is this a secret General Manager walk? Did the daily dramas of hotel life finally make him lose his mind?

Nope. The man refuses to travel down the middle of a hallway as he does not want to further wear down the center strip of carpet where everyone else walks. Thousands of guests, thousands of feet, bye-bye lustrous carpet. And he holds that even one pair of feet can make a difference. Mad? Genius? Yes.













Couldn't every hotel benefit by asking guests to walk to the side? I always do wherever I stay. Should I ask for a Carpet-Saver's Discount?