Jottings - Slice of life - 305 ( living out of Hotels - musings, advice, and reality)

Jottings - Slice of life - 305 ( living out of Hotels - musings, advice, and reality)

When I checked out of the hotel I was staying in New Jersey this week, I was unaware that I had crossed the one million points landmark. A lady called me from customer service yesterday, and in sugary voice appreciated my unremitting loyalty to the brand, and how the Hotel was privileged to have me as their staunch customer and patron. She further extracted a guarantee ( it unconsciously slipped out of my mouth) that I would continue filling their coffers as long as I travel, and that an entire battalion of support staff was instantly available should I have any concerns. I felt pleasantly happy that the Hotel called, but quickly I was alarmed at the implications of this number. I am not very proficient at quick math. However, on an average depending on the brand of the Hotel property ( this chain has many brands ranging from budget to luxury), a night’s stay will fetch around 1000 points, which means around 1000 nights of stay, or nearly three years sleeping out of hotel rooms. This is scary. What this million number essentially boils downs to is that I have tons of unused points that can potentially give me weeks, if not months of free stays in one of the largest hotel chains in the world. I don't know if that is a blessing or a curse, but I will take it nonetheless.

I am not alone in such madness. There are a number of colleagues who will have similar or more numbers to hide or boast, and they all have families. I wonder how they would view such an “achievement”. The only thing that I can take credit for is that over the last many years, it has been my conscious choice to stay with this brand. And the reason, I stick to one brand against shopping for better options is that it gives me great psychological comfort to walk into a hotel room with the same ambiance, same rickety furnishings, similar atmosphere and wall colors, serving the same half cooked breakfast, sleep on same quality of pillows, cherishing the deep joy of knowing where the light switches and the AC controls are, knowing that insipid quality of toothbrushes, toothpaste shall be available if it is unfortunately needed, knowing how the shower works, how many towels are provided, trying hard to appreciate the quality of soap bars that doesn’t lather no matter what we do, understanding the hotel policies regarding free coffee and other snacks, and generally more or less feel at home immediately without the necessary period of adjustment required in new living conditions. The amount of standardization in branded hotels in mind-boggling. I have stayed in hotels across the length and breadth of USA and abroad, and not once have I observed deviance from established standards. Some Hotel properties are good, some average, others downright pathetic. But all of them count in the final tally of points - the magic number of one million.

The Hotel, or the hospitality industry as one would like to call it, is a separate world altogether. Historically, in the USA, places for travelers to stay were called inns, or taverns. Those are dingy places with nothing more than the basic drink, food and stay, and the tacit assumption was that a traveler would not stay more than a night before he or she was on their way to wherever they were heading to. It was George Washington, the First president of the USA, who on his extensive tour of the country, chose not to stay with nobles and friends, and preferred to taste the quality of the inns. He was appalled at what he saw, and he believed that a country like his should have decent lodgings for fellow citizens who wish to travel the length and breadth of it. He immediately promulgated ordinances to establish standards. The First Hotel ( The world Hotel is borrowed, not surprisingly from the French) with 137 rooms was set up in Manhattan Newyork in 1794, and since then the industry hasn’t looked back. The concept of a “business” hotel is, however, a relatively recent term. With increasing work-based travel, the expectation that one should be able to work interrupted and productively from a hotel room has spawned an entirely new definition of word hospitality. The motto here is: don't pamper guests, but rather provide all the information and amenities and leave them alone. Not unlike a hospital ( word hospitality is derived from this), put the patient in the room, wire him up ( in this case with internet) and don't disturb unless mandatory, or there is a fire alarm, or the heavens fall down in that order.

Over the years, I have learned the dos and donts of living in hotel rooms. Nobody can teach you that. It comes with experience ( many times bitter). The most important of all the learnings is not to tout your status and arrogance of being paid guest, or a privileged member. The dozens of underpaid people who manage the hotel right from the Bellman to the front office to the housekeeping to the concierge can make your stay either comfortable or turn it into a nightmare. Never forget, as a business traveler, we are out of our rooms most of the day, and the what the Hotel staff can do in the room during one's absence can leave you dumbfounded. Each evening, we walk into our rooms with beds smoothened out, toiletries refurbished, and everything smelling fresh. But that pure state could be the aftermath of a wild orgy or the most appalling violation of your privacy. How many times have I been witness to scenes of irate guests screaming in filthy language at the hotel staff over a trifling inadequacy, and how the poor employees will have to by the rules of the hospitality industry put on their artificial smile and control themselves from grabbing and shaking the guests by the collars and telling them they have nothing to do with the hotel and they were just underpaid employees of a franchise; and at the end of the seeming unbending monologue by the guest, feign an apology followed by an acknowledgement that the mistake was theirs and an assurance to correct the wrong immediately; only to follow such an interaction by wreaking vengeance in a million different ways on the guest who walks away feeling high that they have just won an important battle. God only knows what is in store for this unfortunate guest.

How many times have we come back to the front office with the keys not working? How many times have we received blank calls in the middle of the night? How many times have we slept on a bed believing it was washed and clean? How many times have we been allowed rooms near the elevator with the apology that nothing else was available? How many times has a broken AC popped up in rooms you were moved into? How many times have we felt falsely secure that nobody has rummaged through our suitcases while we were away? How many times have our rooms served as temporary asylums to the frustrated housekeeping staff who can virtually do anything there in our absence? How many times have noticed if the fresh soap we remove from the package is really fresh or slightly used? How many times have drunk of a half-empty water bottle thinking nobody else has touched it? Next time, if you wish to shout at a Hotel employee, please think twice. All of the above are natural in a place where human beings work and get frustrated when they are not treated well. So the moral of the story from a man who has spent an enormous amount of time in hotels and interacting with hotel staff is this: Remember that we are dealing with Human beings. Treat them well, and you will be surprised how comfortable your stay can be.

I always tip — be it to the hostess at breakfast, or the bellman, or the shuttle driver, or the front office. There is nothing that can change the quality of service in a hotel than money. In some cities like Newyork, it is an expectation, and if we don't tip, we are rudely reminded of our baser nature. But in many other cities, employees are reticent, but that does not mean they wouldn’t like to pocket a few dollars. The heartbeat of the Hotel industry is the tip. Employees survive on tips. They move from hotel to Hotel keeping in mind which property affords the best possible clientele for tips. So, if you are not a tipping customer, don't expect to treated exceptionally well. Accept what you get and deal with it. The other advice I have to frequent travelers is to have a gracious word for everyone who works in the Hotel. Next, to money, this could be the biggest incentive for good service. After all, it is a basic human need - as Abraham Maslow, the renowned psychologist pointed out decades ago — to be appreciated when something good is done. I know people who simply refuse to say anything good. To them, service at a hotel is an entitlement, and of course, add to it the fact that they have paid for it. While that is absolutely true, there is no harm in being polite. I have always observed my bed sheets are whiter with lesser stains when I know who the Housekeeping staff is, and greeting the housekeeping lady when I meet her in the aisle and spend thirty-seconds talking to her. Thirdly, and this perhaps most important of all. In any establishment, be it our home or hotels, there are bound to be infrastructural issues. Things break down. It is called Entropy in physics - Newton’s third law of thermodynamics. In an operational hotel, that has hundreds of customers checking in and out, one should always factor in the possibility that the room we get into may not have everything in the working order we would like it to be. It is our right to seek remedy, but the point I am attempting to make is there is a polite way of doing so. There is absolutely no benefit in yelling about something. There is nothing that kind words cannot achieve in a hotel - including upgrades, rooms with great views, late checkouts and sometimes complementary snacks from the pantry — all without an extra penny. The last thing Hotel staff want to hear is the voice of disgruntled guests who believe that front office receptionists, the bored bellman, and hardworking housekeeping ladies are personally responsible for the infrastructure of the hotel. They are not. The owner is most often an anonymous franchisee corporation with no face, only a phone number that can never be reached.

Living out of hotels have taught me a lot of things. The foremost being that it doesn’t take a five-bedroom home to live comfortably. All that we need is a clean bed, a place to work and a washroom. I can make myself comfortable in a hotel room within ten minutes arranging my essential things in its respective places.. I have also met wonderful people in the industry. Not many can share so much insight into the nature of human beings than the Hotel staff. Hoteliers meet all kinds of people and learn to deal with them on their own terms. I have sometimes watched with awe how a front office manager dexterously handles a guest who would burn down the hotel if he is allowed. The smile, the tact, the language, the quick thinking on the feet, has taught me many a lesson in my daily work. I do count several managers as my personal friends. They text, call me whenever they can and we exchange notes on everything between hilarious guest stories to reviews of Booker prize-winning books. For those of us, who stay in hotels regularly, I recommend reading Jacob Tom sky’s “Heads in beds”. Its a memoir of a Hotelier written in breezy style. It will vindicate and validate lots of your own experiences in hotels, and teach a thing or two on how Hotel staff perceive their guests. Jacob also throws in a few tips on how to get the best out of every Hotel deal, and the hidden mysteries of how the industry works.

Well, today is a Saturday, and when I sat down to write my weekly blog for facebook today morning, the topic of Hotels came to mind and the result is this essay. A million points is a good thing to have, considering it doesn’t expire. I am sure, it will come in handy someday soon when I take off to a Hotel resort on a cliff overlooking the sea in Italy and write a few essays on existentialism for my upcoming book. Until then, I will keep accumulating more points and spread the good cheer around.

God bless…

yours in mortality,

Bala