How Can I Help?

13th January, 2013. 8:07 pm. Use the stairs!

I am a receptionist in a small budget hotel in London. I like this place - we are cheap, receptionists can afford to be funnier and more personal than any other large hotel chain girls, and we don't have to wear uniforms. Yet hotel is a hotel - things have to be done in a certain way in any such institution, and guests, whatever the price, surely are expecting a gold bar for a penny. Or at least a remote for the telly.

I started here round 6 months ago after a jobless period and stubborn certainty that going back to waitressing is not a good plan for someone with a plausible experience in admin and office, so I stuck to my plan and got what I wanted - a position behind the front desk. One of the reasons was my phone-phobia - I was afraid of picking up the phone. Now, I know that it may sound silly, but it was really hard for me to speak with people without seeing their faces, so I figured out that being at the very hot spot of such exposure would rid me of this nonsense. It sure did. But about that - some other time.

My shift begins with checking the cash in the till, printing out registration cards, registering new bookings, then usual - giving out keys, taking copies of IDs, etc, etc. But just sometimes.. Well, quite often really, unusual tasks happen. Like today.

Our hotel has a very nice lift. It's small, cozy, and, I have to say, it possesses a mind of it's own, not to mention it is very old as well. And on a lazy Sunday morning like it was today it decided to get stuck with two passengers on board. Usually what we would do as lovely reception angels that we are, we'd go into the engineering room, restart the lift, and it would run again - kind of like rebooting your PC if it's groggy. Unfortunately this time it didn't do what receptionist wanted it to, so she had to call an engineer. In the mean time the two unlucky, but very healthy ladies in the lift, and I'm saying "healthy" because that will give you an idea of their size, started panicking and feeling a little bit short of breath, because they were told that it would take an hour for the engineers to arrive. Our cleaning lady was trying to calm them down whilst speaking through the door, and poor receptionist was abusing engineer's mobile every 2 minutes checking how far they were.

Obviously most strong language was being heard from the lift, waking up guests and making everyone feeling either sorry or angry (at the receptionist of course :) ). And suddenly after about 40 minutes... the lift started working. Didn't I tell you - a mind of it's own! Furious Maltese ladies jumped out of it, sweaty, nervous and most unhappy, word exchange happened, apologies and such. Engineers arrived and did some maintenance, bye and see you later.

Now, never say this to your guests, but what happened was - one of the ladies had pushed the emergency stop button with her quite apparent bum in that very small lift and it stopped the whole thing. Rebooting it did not help because she was doing it over and over again.. Don't laugh. We didn't. But, dear dear guests, if you see that it's a small one, and you only have to go down one floor, why don't you use the stairs instead?

So the problems were the size and the day. Our lift is popular for causing people to giggle, I am sure, it loves it, but I am of the sensitive type and I tend to take such giggles quite personally. After all, this is where I work and hotel has it's own charm about it. But what can you do! Now, the Sundays are quite bad for having unusual problems, because the receptionist on shift is mostly on her own at the weekend. Aforementioned large hotel chain girls probably would have help team assembled in 15 seconds, and that is their big plus at hand, but we.. while we get to not wear uniforms, still it's the ability to sort such stuff out ourselves without disturbing supervisors, or God forbid, The Boss. Takes some stamina, you know, and a clever mind!

Now that I can pick the phone up without hesitation and even play with the cord or do my nails (I never do such things though, honestly!), I've realized that there are so many other, more important things to be worried about. Nobody is going to have a heart attack on the phone from a heat stroke, no-one's going to throw their dirty blanket at you or burp in your face on a Friday eve. Phone is easy. It's the real people I have to be strong with. And while maintaining the reputation of the loveliest receptionist in the hotel, every day I am learning bit by bit that as much as it is important to make sure that the guests feel treated well and fair (and are paying their bill), this is still a business we are running here and sometimes guest's comfort has to be compromised and some requests ignored.

P.S. We've just had a guest requesting hotel staff to take the carpet out of his room. A carpet, the whole thing. Just no. We do apologize sincerely.

Till checked, everyone checked in, I can go home now!

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