Benjamin’s Musings

gift baskets

The world behind the scenes in the hotel business is something I don’t think many people really understand.  I have been working for a major hotel chain, which shall remain unnamed, for the summer so far.  I am sure that everyone has seen the specials and news reports about the horrors of the hotel business, but I don’t want to talk about that.  From where I stand in this whole thing, I really seen more interest in the actions of the customers who frequent the hotel than anything the staff does.  

I think there is something special for most people in even the thought of staying in a hotel for a night.  Most of us feel a certain degree of freedom because we are not obligated to clean or maintain anything else in our lives while we stay there.  Most of us just enjoy this experience to a certain point and then just settle in.  For others though, the hotel experience is a place where anything is fair game.  I have turned some rooms over that looked like someone had gotten in to a street fight inside.  I have turned over rooms where it looks as if the little single room had a whole extended family of pack rats living inside for years without sunlight.

One of the most curious phenomenon of the hotel experience is the interaction of the staff with business people.  At our hotel we have conferences every weekend and business offices that hold meeting s every day of the week.  These aren’t the most exciting things to oversee and help with, but there are some perks.  Whenever these meetings get catered the staff always ends up with a huge free breakfast. There was one time that we were hosting a conference where every one in attendance got a corporate gift basket.  These corporate gift baskets were chock full of fun little items that included food and other cool vouchers for stuff in town here. I was really excited to see that when we were turning over the rooms, there were about fifty of these gift baskets left behind.  This was spread out among the staff of twenty service people.  It’s a pretty cool world behind the walls of freedom.