Hotel . . . pretty much

    First of all, you apply for the job of hotel receptionist.  And you get it.  Then, you know the one where the job ad says, No experience necessary as full training will be provided, and after what feels like half an hour of training you’re left by yourself.  And it doesn’t really occur to you to ask the (quickly) departing receptionist just why she’s leaving.  At any rate, now you’re alone behind the desk, and people are asking you things, and asking you for things, and the telephone is ringing - viciously.  
    You see, if you’re behind the desk inside the front door of a smallish hotel, you’re it.  You’re the hotel receptionist and you’re responsible for everything.  For instance, vacuum cleaners that have no suction; that cobweb up there to the left; false teeth that fell down a drain - ten miles away.  I’m not joking.
    One of your problems is that you don’t like being a hotel receptionist.  You don’t like being helpful.  A couple of weeks into the job and you realise that hotel guests want to be helped all the time.  Also, because they’re on holidays, they really have nothing better to do than stand around asking stupid questions.  ‘Where’s the dining room?’ they ask.  ‘Where’s the bar?’  ‘Where are the toilets?’  It doesn’t seem to matter that there are signs up on the walls indicating where these things are!  Anyway, why would anyone bother to read the signs when the hotel receptionist is just sitting there!?
    
    Of course, if they can’t figure out how to locate things inside the hotel, how can they figure out how to locate things outside the hotel?  ‘How do I get to the bank\post office\garage\beach?’ they ask.  ‘Not by standing around here anyway,’ you say.
    And then at night, when what passes for the maintenance department is gone home, they develop all sorts of problems.  A common one is, ‘There’s no heating in my room.’  You might say, ‘Sure it’s warm.  What do you want heating for?’  But as sure as God, they’ll have some medical condition that makes the heating essential. Another common problem is, ‘There’s no hot water and I want to take a shower.’ You might say, ‘Sure it’s late.  Why don’t you go to bed now and take a shower in the morning?’  And then there’s, ‘Did you get us The King’s Speech?’ and you didn’t.  ‘Sure it’s long and it’s not that good anyway,’ you might say. ‘Why don’t you watch Babe instead,’ (’coz you have that one).  But people are fussy and materialistic.  They expect to get what they pay for.  
    Four weeks into the job and you’re absolutely sure this is not the job for you.  At this point, you’re hanging up on callers who are enquiring about accommodation. When they phone back you’re telling them that the line is bad, and hanging up again.  If they’re dogged types and they try once more, you’re saying things like, ‘Oh, you must have the wrong number,’ and hanging up . . . again.  
    On a very slow day, however, you might actually deal with the enquiry, but only if it begins like this: ‘I’m thinking of staying in your hotel for a couple of weeks.  Tell me, what sort of amenities do you have down that side of the country?’  You say, ‘None.’  And you hang up.  Or, the caller might cheerfully begin, ‘I’m thinking of staying in your hotel for a couple of weeks.  I’ve heard your town is very picturesque.’  You say, ‘Picturesque?’  And you hang up.  You also say things like, ‘Porters?  Are you serious?’  And, ‘Room service?  That’s a laugh.’
    After six weeks, the hotel manager is asking you to type up something called Guidelines for hotel receptionists who work in hotels in which  there are, by some miracle, a few guests.  It says that hotel receptionists: 
1.     must not throw biros, brochures, keys, mobile phones, chairs or any other missiles at guests;
2.   must not threaten guests with hurleys and pass it off as culture;
3.   must not ask guests if they’d be interested in buying a vacuum cleaner (that has no suction); 
4.  must not ask guests how they can afford to stay in a hotel when they can’t afford to buy a vacuum cleaner (not even one that has no suction);
5.   must not ask guests why they don’t go home, sleep in their own beds, cook their own meals, and make their own telephone calls.
Yeah.  Whatever.