The Monster Boss Story

Do you have a favorite boss? I was thinking about this question at work the other day. The funny thing is, if you watch TV sitcoms, it seems that everyone has a cranky, crazy boss. But is that the reality? It's not exactly true at my housekeeping job. I have so many "bosses", per say, that it gets a bit ridiculous. I mean, there's the housekeeping managers, then my "boss" who is actually in charge of both the maintenance and housekeeping departments...but after that, there's layers of bosses going higher and higher up the company and pay scale, and so it goes. I guess you could say I'm at the absolute bottom of the hotel hierarchy. Usually, it doesn't bother me. Fortunately, I don't have one of those raging sitcom TV bosses, with the blazing red faces, spittle flying from their mouths as they holler insults your way. And I don't have a workaholic boss who snaps at you the second you take a break. Although I honestly have experienced both of these types over the years, today I can proudly say that I am evil boss-free. The only "boss" that I directly report to every day is a manager, and there's three different ones; not one is especially intimidating. All of them are middle-aged women, usually willing to compromise on scheduling, availability, and your attendance at meetings. One of them is particularly anxiety-ridden, and she can occasionally fly off the coop when it comes to heavy attendance at the hotel or employees not cleaning things "just so". But that's understandable; I know I'll be more than set in my ways when I'm older. I'm already a stubborn, crazy redhead. No, I've definitely had worse bosses.
There was the one who never paid me all the money he owed because his business was in the process of going bankrupt when they hired me (wish they'd told me!) or the one who made poor little 15 year old me cry because I didn't exactly know what bussers were supposed to do when there was only two tables at the restaurant (how did I know you weren't supposed to just walk around looking busy?). The one I remember most distinctly is from my first housekeeping job. I started out at this resort with my best friend, Thea. We liked cleaning, and this was a great gig. The pay rate was higher than I have yet to see again as a housekeeper (even though this was nearly 10 years ago), and the boss was super flexible and welcoming. In the morning we arrived at a little building I called the "Housekeeping Lodge", where we hung out for maybe half an hour at the start of the day (all the while on the clock, of course). We cleaned in teams, carrying little buckets of cleaning supplies and bags of rags around to the various resort buildings. They had a unique set-up at this place, fairly old school and small town in style. It went like this: the "Housekeeping Lodge" would get a call from the front desk the moment a guest checked out. Then the boss would assign a group to go to that room (or suite or cabin). The other groups would wait for the next call. I'm not even sure if the place had a computer when I started there, even though this was 2003. One other nice thing about this hotel is that we had people called "runners" who would race from building to building on little golf carts to remove the soiled towels and linens for us and to leave clean ones for us to arrange, which made our job so much easier.
Once given a destination, we'd wander over there, crank some tunes on the radio, and dance our way through the cleaning. When we finished, we'd call up the Lodge for our next assignment. Usually, they hurried us over to the next place, but often there wouldn't be another check-out yet and we'd have some time to kill. We could watch TV, lounge around, chat, etc. Like I said, we had it good. But, for the most part, this didn't discourage hard work. Because we knew it was a relaxed atmosphere, we took the time to clean and clean well. We enjoyed working for the hotel, and so we treasured our jobs and worked hard. We always received compliments from guests about our great rooms, and people who stayed once always returned. It continued this way for at least two years. My best friend and I (along with a few other friends and acquaintances who came to work with us over the years) worked there in the summers mostly, and occasionally during weekends in the school year. We were only high schoolers, so we didn't need a ton of hours, but we were saving up for our own cars, so work was somewhat of a priority.
Unfortunately, one year the worst possible thing happened. A new owner took the resort over, kicking out most of the previous hierarchy, including our beloved boss. Within a matter of weeks, our hours were cut, our wages were reduced by about $3/hr, and we were no longer allowed to work in teams. Several workers from all areas of the hotel either quit or were kicked out. The relaxed work style of our previous management was, strangely, blamed specifically on the members of the housekeeping team who had been around the longest, which included myself and several friends. Being the young and the lacking in power, we were the easy target. As a result, quite a few of my high school-aged co-workers quit, including by best friend. I was grimly determined to stick it out through the end of the summer, not thinking I would be able to find another job at this point. I wasn't happy about my decision; I only did it out of necessity to save up for college. But the new owner was nasty! The schedule was completely out of whack, with a strange scattered arrangement as far as start times went for employees. Constantly, the schedule called for the freshly-hired middle-aged housekeepers to come in earlier and get more of an advantage as far as hours went. I, as a younger, apparently more dangerous employee, was forced to come in later, although I left at the same time as everyone else, earning only half of my usual hours at a third less pay. It was blatant discrimination against the younger employees, although I didn't know how to put it into words at the time, and all I felt was distressed. One day I dared to come in an hour earlier in protest, and, man, that nasty woman tore me a new one! It was awful! She almost made me cry, too, but by this point I was a high school grad and too proud to cry in public. I just couldn't believe how we were being treated. Every priviledge was being taken away. We used to have free access to the hotel fitness room and pool; now merely asking about the anemities led to our boss glaring down at us in disgust. The new hires didn't understand, but I knew how things used to be, how much happier everyone had been, how much friendlier the atmosphere had been. Even the guests could sense the change; families who used to leave with a smile and a "thank you!" call to us as they drove away now sped off in their SUVs without a second look. And it was all caused by a change in management.
Incredible the kind of impact a boss can have on a place, despite the feelings of the majority of workers below him or her. I guess the hardest thing about this story is that even now I don't know what I should have done differently back then. Should I have quit immediately and risked not finding a replacement job mid-summer? Should I have tried to go higher up? I don't think I could have; this boss was the boss and hotel owner's wife, if my memory serves me correctly. Maybe I should've gathered a gang of housekeepers to protest and we could have walked around waving signs. But they likely would've fired us and hired replacements. I don't know. It doesn't bother me much anymore, but to this day I still feel bad when I think of the more pleasant memories associated with my first two summers at that job paled by the harsh contrast of my final summer there. I hope that if you ever get the chance to be someone's boss, you become a much more positive influence on the place you take over. You'd be surprised by the kind of impact you can make.

Work It

I think, no matter who you are or where you come from, that everyone should work at some type of menial job, preferably while in high school or college, but certainly later if you miss out on the possibility sooner. Ideally, it would be a menial job involving physical labor and a low wage, but if one or the other isn't possible, that's okay, too. I definitely think that it makes you a better person if you have to get through some sort of tedious, low-paying job to make end's meet for awhile. I'd bet that the most personable millionaires in the world are those who have worked their way up, starting at the bottom. That's why, despite the rough days, I as the ever-intrepid professional housekeeper persevere in my work in the hope of becoming a better person.
Unfortunately, some days I run into the type of people who apparently don't share my work ethic. Take today, for instance. I was cleaning along, minding my own business, when what should I stumble across but a rude note. Ah, yes. Why is it that when people have something nice to say, they so often say it directly to your face, but when they want to be harsh, they have to write it down so that it seems engraved in stone and plastered to your mind's eye for hours, if not days, maybe years? In my line of work, I leave notes for the hotel guests, welcoming them, asking if they need anything, you know, the usual maid niceties. As a result, I occasionally get back friendly comments from passing guests in the halls or in the form of notes - "Oh, thank you for that lovely note!", "You're so sweet!", "We appreciate the extra coffee!", etc. But some days, duh duh duh, I get the rude note. The one today actually wasn't half bad as far as rude notes go. Actually, this one was more silly than rude. A bit embarrassing for the guest, I might add. First, I want to point out that this note was found by a tip. Yep. Probably not what you're thinking, though. This tip was precisely 13 cents. Aw, you shouldn't have. No, really, you really shouldn't have; it's awkward for the both of us.
Before I continue I should also point out that people do typically leave notes with tips. I love those friendly notes with little "thanks" or "great job" in the corner alongside a crisp $5 or $10 bill. Those are my personal favorites, just saying. But some people leave little awkward tips like this 13 cent one, and then the notes they leave act as some sort of sad excuse for why they are not leaving any more than that. Usually these notes just make me sigh and shake my head, because their reasons fall flat or have nothing to do with me. For example, one note read "Room too expensive" alongside a beautiful penny. Uh, thanks...? I'm sorry that I didn't run downstairs upon your arrival to remind you that this is one of the most expensive hotels in town and that you passed about twelve of the city's economy motels, hotels and lodges on your way to this spot. I might be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain that when you reserve a hotel, they tell you the room price. Maybe they've changed that since I've last checked. Maybe there's now something called "Mystery Reserve" where you aren't told the price until check-out and then it's like, BAM! Surprise: $5,000! Yay!
And you're like, AH! $5,000! Dude-what!?!
That would be kind of cool, but mostly inconvenient. Anyway, I am getting off topic. Today's note was interesting. One of my favorites so far, and I've seen some trophy notes over the years, not to brag, of course. This one read, "The fan was way too loud so I can't sleep. I can't get it to turn off and it made the room too hot." Interesting. I know what you're thinking. Actually, I don't; I can't vouch for that. But I'm guessing some of you may be thinking how on earth a fan makes a room too hot. I honestly don't know.
So there are two things that could qualify as "fans" in the hotel rooms that I clean. The first is just the common air vent in the bathroom, which helps with ventilation during showers, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary. The second is part of the heating and cooling system, also nothing abnormal. We are required to set this system to 72 degrees with the fan on during the winter. I wasn't precisely certain which one the note referred to. I doubt it was the one in the bathroom, since that one is turned off and on by your typical American-style light switch (strangely enough, the light switch is different all around the world - who'd-a-thunk?). Obviously, this fan is not at all difficult to adjust. But then again, the heating and cooling system has a big blue button on it that says "fan". With one push to the "fan" button, it is turned off. With one push to the "power" button, it is also turned off. Those are, in fact, the only two buttons besides the up and down heat control button. I'm not sure which fan the guest couldn't turn off. Maybe he was unfamiliar with the typical light switch controlling the fan in the bathroom. Perhaps he was foreign and didn't recognize our fancy pants American light switches. Or maybe he wasn't sure if the "fan" button on the heating system did in fact mean "fan" and was too nervous to touch it. Either way, I hope that the 13 cents he left me was worth the hard time I am currently giving him.

Housekeeper's Resume

Like I said, I've got those ten valuable years of back-breaking cleaning experience. I've been at this most current position for about 2.5 years, and all of my other years of experience come from no less than four hotels and resorts from my hometown of Minocqua, Wisconsin; population: unincorporated. Don't you just love that when you see that on the sign of a small town you're cruising through at 65mph? (Even though the speed limit says 45, it doesn't look like anyone's watching...) It probably brings to mind an image of a few abandoned, ghost-town-esque store fronts slowly collapsing onto a chipped sidewalk accompanied by those old pick-up trucks that make you wonder if they work or not but sure enough, there's an elderly fellow pealing out at the next driveway in one of them, maxing that puppy out to 54mph. Well, that's what I picture, because I've traveled my way around basically every fine corner of this beautiful state of Wisconsin and I've seen those small towns. Strangely, Minocqua's not one of those types of small towns. For whatever reason, back in some epic chronicle of Wisconsin history, somebody labeled our town as tourist capital of the north, and so, come summer, the town's packed, no lie. In the summer, our population swells to 40,000 or something similarly ridiculous. (Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it's got to be close to 20,000. And that says a lot when I would guestimate our winter population to be about 2,000, not counting the even smaller towns that surround us, which might bring us up to 5,000 if we're lucky.)
Anyway, that's what led to my accidental career in housekeeping. When you grow up in the tourist capital of the north, your summer jobs are mainly limited to cheesy slogan t-shirt seller, ice cream/fudge/candy store employee, overworked/underpaid waitress, or resort/hotel worker. Honestly, I've done most of the above during my summers in my hometown, but housekeeper is the one that stuck. I'm not exactly sure what it is about the job. I have always liked that it's a job where I get to move around instead of being stuck in one place all day. I also, brace yourself, like cleaning! (Ah! I know- I must be insane.) Plus, this might sound strange, but I like the suspense that comes with the job. You don't know what could be behind that door when you open it. It's kind of like being on a perpetual game show, you know, one of those old school ones where people open doors and there's all kinds of exciting prizes behind them like cars and boats and new furniture! Only, on those game shoes, people usually don't find leftover food, spare change, and old toys behind those doors, which are probably the three most common things I come across in my line of work. But it's still suspsenseful enough for me. It's the little things, really.
So that's how I came to be a professional housekeeper. It provides just enough suspense, physical activity, and intrigue for me to avoid boredom. Plus, it pays a little more than the typical summer job, and sometimes people leave you tips. When I started, I didn't think it would last this long, but it's led to some fairly crazy stories, which I'm more than willing to share here. Let me know what you'd like to hear. Or not. Either way, I'll continue to ramble semi-coherent sentences about the triumphs and failures of my day job, so you might as well get a word in.

My Pseudo-Career

I'm not exactly sure how much you're allowed to say on one of these things, so let's just say I work at "Z" Hotel in La Crosse. It's a chain hotel, and I've been there for over two years now; it'll be three years in September (that's if I'm still there - cross your fingers that I'm not!) And it's not my first hotel, either. I've actually been working as a housekeeper at hotels for ten years now, since I was 14 years old and my dad announced, "Well, looks like it's time for you to get a job."
I guess you could say I'm a professional housekeeper.
Now I'm fairly certain most people would consider a job more of a "career" once they've been working at it for ten years. But the funny thing is I'm just now getting started on my real career after all this time. I've recently graduated from college and am now bound and determined to succeed in my true, ideal career, which is teaching English. Unfortunately, I am still stuck at Z Hotel, mostly because December is an awkward time of the year to graduate when you want to be a teacher.
So here I am, housekeeping it up. You can call me a maid if you want to; I don't get offended. Some housekeepers do, and then you better watch your back if you drop the "m" bomb in their direction. They might forget to change your garbage. Or, more disturbingly, your sheets. But I'm not writing this blog to scare you out of traveling; I just thought I might get a few things straight about housekeepers and our "art" while I'm still one of them.