Often when you work in a smaller hotel, one that is not full service, you find that while your job title is front desk girl, you are also the maintenance man, bell boy, housekeeper, and room service attendant.
When these other jobs arise you never know what may happen. pretty often you will have to bring a plunger up to a room (because you don’t give the guests the option of plunging the toilet for them), or you may be asked to pick up the stiff, baby opossum that died next to the pool gate (while a family of four watches you try to grab its tail through a trash bag with a pair of kitchen gloves on your hands and quietly squealing: “ew, ew, ew, ew…”), or perhaps a guest needs five extra pillows even though they are rooming alone and already have four pillows on their king-sized bed (I think they secretly build forts out of pillows, chairs and the comforter).
But every once in a while when you are dragging a crib (or child death trap as I like to call them) up to a room or perhaps the fifteen towels a guest requested, you will be faced with the ultimate situation of panic: the nude or nearly nude guest.
It never fails that this guest is either a) a very hairy man or b) a giant woman or possibly c) a combination of both.
When this happens there are a few actions you should take:
First, avert your eyes!!!! I know it is like a car accident and you want to crane your neck to see the horrible, mangled wreckage that stands before you, but remember: once you see it you won’t be able to forget it…or sleep for several days. While you must treat each guest with respect you probably will not be able to mask the distaste of the little bit of throw up that is now in your mouth.
Next, assess the situation. Are you in danger? Are there any guests close by who could hear you if you screamed? Can you out run the tub O’ lard that stands before you? Generally, these guests are not dangerous. Besides accosting your eyes they are harmless.
Lastly, get out of there! hand off the toothbrush or bottle of shampoo you brought up there, manage a weak smile (more like a pained wince), and back away.
At this point you will become aware of the amount of sweat that has perspired from your body. Take a few moments for yourself in the housekeeping bathroom to breathe and freshen up before you run back to the desk to spill the story of the yeti you just met on the third floor.
Much like the nude guest you will also have to interact with the wildly inane client. This guest has no sense of reality and indeed lives in a little world of their own creation.
One very such guest, Mr. House, will seemingly intentionally make your job exceedingly difficult. He will do things like: not pay for his room, bring massive amounts of model boat-making kits into his room, not allow housekeeping into his room, get un-seaworthy model boats stuck in the middle of the retention pond, rent small water crafts to retrieve said model boat, paddle onto the pond in his under shorts, successfully retrieve model boat without incident, proceed to roll backwards down the embankment of the pond in his under shorts and break the model boat he just retrieved.
Mr. House will seem to be completely dimwitted and his only goal is to make your job difficult. However, he may be overcome by your politeness and take your hospitality as a sign of flirtation. In this case, this guest will go to radio shack to buy you a gift. He’ll purchase an electronic pen that can record messages. He then record a personal message just for you! This message will be along the lines of: “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re beautiful.”
I know that you will probably be extremely weirded out by this unique gift and a little upset with the fact that after listening to it you dropped the five pound pen on your toe. But the best thing to do in this situation is to continue to be respectful and kind toMr. House and to point out how much he reminds you of your father as often as possible.
