Hotel Hell

While many of you were taking summer school or working down at your dads’ office or sitting in your apartments enjoying the obliterated economy, I worked as a front desk agent at a hotel in the Dallas area. I would give you the name of the hotel, but it wouldn’t matter. I don’t care if you’re working at the Georges V in Paris or at the La Quinta Inn in El Paso, working at a hotel, front desk agent or not, is a fate which no human being deserves. But as I think about it now, most jobs are terrible. Well, at least those that pay less than eight dollars an hour.

I’m sure that most of us have suffered through the excruciating experience of the “training period” practiced by many large businesses. Throughout my now long career of minimum wage jobs, I have been trained in almost every field possible.

I remember the summer after my freshman year in high school when I worked at Tom Thumb. Believe it or not, I watched nearly six hours worth of “How to bag groceries properly” and “How to wash your hands after you go to the bathroom.” Sadly enough, several of my colleagues did not pass the comprehensive exam given at the end of the training period, having forgotten that Clorox does not go in the same bag as the fruit, and that potatoes do not go on top of the bread.

I remember when I worked at Best Buy, in the stocking department no less, during my senior year in high school and how much I hated all of my managers. There was this one really old guy who had apparently been in the Navy during his younger years.

He ran the electronics store as if it were a ship out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Before the store opened each day, Captain Jackass lined us up and made sure our shirts were tucked in properly and our little yellow nametags were on straight. During my training period there, I watched movies on “How not to steal CD’s when you leave the store” and “How to rat on other employees who are stealing CD’s when they leave the store.” Luckily, that Best Buy closed down.

But my worst experience out in the real world must be this past summer at the hotel. As I said, I held the prestigious position of front desk agent.

I wore a company issued suit composed of wool pants with a crotch that hung down to my knees, a white shirt that was apparently starched with Elmer’s glue, a coat that had been made with leftover material from my mother’s living room sofa, and, as a ribbon to bring the whole package together, a necktie that depicted what seemed to be a section of the North Korean jungle during a fog storm. Needless to say, I looked ridiculous.

If you think my uniform was bad, I assure you my days were worse. For three months, I woke up at 5:30 every morning, took a 30-minute shower, got dressed, took two shots of Jack Daniels and drove to work. Once I parked I then had to walk nearly 200 yards to the employee’s entrance at the back of the hotel where I walked though two sets of doors, flashed my employee ID card to a security officer and then made my way to the locker room.

Yes, I said locker room. Why? Well, the managers of the hotel did not want the employees taking their uniforms home with them, so we were forced to keep them in lockers. Therefore every morning, after having already woken up, showered and dressed, I had to strip down again in front of a 4-foot, 250-pound sous-chef and put on my clown suit.

I then walked to the front of the hotel, walked behind the front desk, logged onto a computer and stood there for the next eight hours giving out room keys and taking phone calls about exploding toilets. I could go on, but I won’t. It’s too terrible.

I should have known that the hotel gig was going to be terrible during my three days of training. We watched nearly 12 hours of movies concerning “How to help guests evacuate the building during a fire” and “How to report a chemical spill to the facilities manager” and, my personal favorite, “How to smile at a guest who is threatening to hit you because you cannot find his/her reservation.”

For all of these training videos, as well as my working experience in general, I have come up with another, more appropriate title: “Why I must stay in school for as long as possible.”