The Real Tales of a Housekeeper

23. TEAMS!

Sports teams come all the time during the year, mainly during the school year of course, and everyone dreads it when they come. These buses are usually jam-packed with kids and their coaches and stay for more than one night. Their parents are with them too. 

This year, we got numerous team buses and though we know it will happen, either way, we still don't look forward to it. Here are some examples of things that have happened while working with teams. Some are good and some are bad.

1. Running in the Halls:

Normally, I don't care if people are running in the halls, but regardless, we still have a rule of no running in the halls for safety reasons such as, if they slip and hurt themselves or they bump into someone who works there and falls we could end up in trouble. 

I started enforcing the no running in the halls myself after one intense game of manhunt almost lead to me running over three kids with my cart after they had darted out of the stairwell and right in front of it. 

These carts are heavy and often times hard to control, I've bumped into numerous walls. They are also not short people friendly, I often have to peer over the side because I cannot see from the top, imagine if I hadn't seen that 10-year-old running down the hall and hit them. That's an automatic bye-bye job moment.

Still, they often ignore me and continue about doing what they want anyway. As annoying as that is, I can't stop it if I tried. 

2. Crowding in the Halls

This goes along with running in the halls but is much less active many times, groups of kids will park themselves in the middle of the hall. I'm not talking small groups of three or four, no, this is 8-10 kids at a time in these hallways.

Sometimes they are blocking rooms I need to get to, blocking me from getting by or from turning around. 

I will have to ask them to move over so I can get through and though they will do this, I still run the risk of hitting toes on the way by as their feet still stick out some. 

This is also a case of what if I can't see them? I would do a lot more damage to a kid sitting down, then to a kid standing. 

3. We'll be Going To The Game Soon, Can You wait until We're gone?

I get this question a lot actually. And more than once a day to be exact. Though I don't mind coming back to a room when the guest is gone - I myself feel more comfortable when I am on my own, it becomes a little harder for me to do my job when I have to wait to get into rooms, and oftentimes, these rooms take a bit of TLC because there is so much stuff. 

In many cases, I wait more than half an hour to do these rooms and other times, I get lucky and it's only a 5-minute wait and I still have rooms to do.

4. DNDs and RFS

This is one of those really good ones. There are times when there are teams that we get many DND signs on doors. These are typically the extra clean parents or people who don't want us to see the mess, or as the sign is meant to be used, just don't wanna be disturbed.

In some cases, I have even gotten as many as 6 signs in one day. My friend at one point had mostly a full board of stays, we thought she was lucky until we realized she was given one of the no shows board.

On other occasions, when we knock on the door they say they are fine, or they would just like a towel exchange and that's it.

These rooms are like a pirate's golden treasure, we love these moments.

5. Many Towels

Each set of rooms has a specific amount of towels they are meant to have. King rooms have 3 bath towels, 3 hand towels, 3 face cloths and a bath mat, queen rooms are the same, they just have an extra bath towel.

But I have gone into rooms where the towels are piled up SOOO HIGH that it reaches the bottom of the sink. There have to be at least a dozen towels when this happens. And it happens a lot when there are teams. There have been many times where I have pulled a few dozen towels out of one room at a time. 

This makes it hard to pull the laundry bag to the chute at times and even harder to keep our carts stocked. There have been so many days where there have not been enough towels to stock my cart or not enough towels to finish the rooms I was already in. 

6. The Main Reason our Boards are in the 20s

With so many stays, this is the reason the boards have been in the 20s, the advantages to this are that they are mostly stayovers and stayovers do not take a lot of time to do (if the room is not a disaster). 

The negative to this is obviously that we run out of towels quicker. We do have a rule that if the towels are hanging we do not take them, but we have seen our fair share of a towel-covered floor. 

It can be exhausting having to go from room to room to room all the time. 

Though I don't play sports at all, I do appreciate the people who do. To the people who are in sports and end up in our hotel, I appreciate the physical work it takes to do the job.