Question about working for hotels

[Mimichi]

There's a hotel near my house that is hiring, but I'm kind of iffy on putting in my application there. I know how nasty people can be and I'm not sure I'd honestly want to clean up after all that mess. So what I'm getting at is, have any of you ever worked with cleaning up hotel rooms or anything along those lines? Is it even worth putting in my application? In your experience, is the pay at least decent? I certainly wouldn't want to be doing all that work for little to no pay.

 

[Pikaia]

Well, I don't know how the pay is, but I have a funny story regarding hotel rooms and them getting trashed. My brother (he is 19) and his friends went to Myrtle Beach a week ago. They got a hotel room on hotels.com or something like that. Well, neither of them knew you had to have a 21 year old in the room. They were all 19 and 20. So, it was a big fiasco to get a room. Finally they managed to do it and then they ended up trashing the room.

They caught the carpet on fire (don't even ask) and it was in the contract that any damages would be charged a fee of $275. LOL. Then they left nasty old food and I am sure the room was just a freaking mess! He made a big deal how stupid it was that you have to be 21 to rent a room. I can certainly see why now! They just trash everything!

So, have fun cleaning all that up.. lol. I would say it is definitely worth to put an application in to see how it goes.

 

[Mimichi]

Sounds like they had quite the blast. lol How exactly did they catch the carpet on fire?

 

[Melissa]

It depends on a bunch of factors..

1) How hard up are you for a job?
2) What caliber hotel is it?
3) What is their main market?
4) Regardless of any department, you will eventually have guest contact(positive and negative) and that takes a special type of personality. Do you have that?
5) Can you deal with human fluids.. of all kinds?
6) Can you deal with filth (not just mess)?
7) Can you deal with high stress?
8) If they give you 25 rooms to clean in one day, are you going to think it is a big task or a little one?
9) Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
10) Work holidays? weekends? Overtime? Cut hours out of season?

I can go on and on..

If you have an IDK or no to ANY of those answers you will probably not want to waste your time or the manager's time.

In regards to pay, it can range from min. wage to MAYBE a couple dollars more. My housekeepers make $8/hr, with min wage being about $7.50ish.

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

I'm a housekeeper at a hotel now. End of June made 2 years for me.

Granted, I live in a small town so we don't get spring breakers or nothing. Mostly people for funerals, the prison, drug reps, doctor, older people for the "historic" area, etc.
I've heard some pretty bad things, but honestly I don't find it that bad.

I get minimum wage (plus tips) where I work, but I know other places here pay by the room, which I've heard isn't so good. Under $3 a room, I think.

Any other questions, feel free to ask.

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

It depends on a bunch of factors..

1) How hard up are you for a job?
2) What caliber hotel is it?
3) What is their main market?
4) Regardless of any department, you will eventually have guest contact(positive and negative) and that takes a special type of personality. Do you have that?
5) Can you deal with human fluids.. of all kinds?
6) Can you deal with filth (not just mess)?
7) Can you deal with high stress?
8) If they give you 25 rooms to clean in one day, are you going to think it is a big task or a little one?
9) Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
10) Work holidays? weekends? Overtime? Cut hours out of season?

I can go on and on..

If you have an IDK or no to ANY of those answers you will probably not want to waste your time or the manager's time.

In regards to pay, it can range from min. wage to MAYBE a couple dollars more. My housekeepers make $8/hr, with min wage being about $7.50ish.

Answering some of Melissa's questions.

1.) I took the job because as someone who was just starting out in the working work at 18, it was the only place willing to hire someone who had no previous jobs. I applied to so many places and nothing. Did I need a job, no. Did I want a job? Yes.
2.) The one I work for used to be a Holiday Inn, switched to Best Western, and is now under a private name.
3.) Main Market?!? I'm assuming this means like who stays there-ish. Travels, prison workers, drug reps, construction crewers, etc.
4.) You will for sure get to encounter the lovely guest, and the not so lovely. I'm not a big people person at all. In fact, I'm quite the smart...well you know the rest. But I've managed for 2 years just fine. I don't find it to be to hard.
5.) Human fluids...lord knows I've yet to see a man who could completely hit the toilet bowl. :laughitup:
6.) Some people can be down right messy in a short amount of time. One thing this line of work has taught me...NEVER underestimate the human race.
7.) It is very stressful. And people tend to think it isn't. They think its easy and should take you 5 minutes tops. This is usually when I bet them they couldn't clean that room to my bosses standards in 5 minutes even if they wished. No has ever taken me up on this...hum...would be fun to watch. opcorn:
8.) 25 rooms...your feet will hurt but it could be worse. Try 53 in one day. I am the only housekeeper at the hotel that I work for. When we are super super busy, my boss has my sister come in to help. Mostly holiday weekends.
9.) As much as I love the people I work with (well, 5 of the 6 isn't bad), I really hope I'm working somewhere other than there. haha
10.) Holidays...you'll come to hate them all and forget having plans for them. Weekends? What are those? I'm luckily to remember the day of the week. If my boss doesn't work a Monday, I'm SOL the rest of the week. I don't know what overtime is either... my boss never lets anyone go over 80 hours.
Hour cuts drastically for me during the winter. Like right now, it is getting slow. I had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off. Worked 4.5 hours today. Might go back to work Saturday or Sunday...still pretty foggy. Which I'd say this depends on where you live and I live in the sticks. lol

Also, isn't minimum wage $7.25?!? Or am I lost and need to have a nice little chat with that boss of mine? This will be the one conversation that I can understand him because every other time I just say Huh or what until he wakes away and sends him son to tell me.
Which is his fault because in his head all females are stupid and do not know what they are talking about. His son however knows better.


P.S. In housekeeping, if my co-workers didn't have a sense of humor I would be absolutely insane by now. When I first start the bosses son would be in that building with me for 6 hours yet NEVER speak a single word. Not a Hi, Good Morning, Here are your keys....NOTHING. I finally started following him around and annoying the crap of out of him. Now it's nothing for him to talk with me for 30-45 minutes AFTER I've clocked in when we work together. Me and a few of my co-workers do the goofiest things...but we always do it so the guest don't see or know.


And you'll see some of the strangest things in housekeeping as well. I actually take a photo of some things that are funny.
My personal favorite, the lady who rented a room during the day. Didn't go in the room until 2am that morning with 3 grocery bags. Next morning we found a hair dryer cooked pizza and that she had PLEDGE'd (the furniture polish) the whole room. Dress, nightstand, tv, a/c, table, headboards, mirror frames, bathroom corner and the bathroom FLOOR. Over an hour of trying different things to get that stuff off the bathroom floor and it is still a little slick in a few spots.

I'm going to shut up now.

 

[sheena lee]

I used to work as a chambermaid and I actually really enjoyed it. I worked full time and it was basically like getting a 30hr workout. I did have to deal with some ickies* and once I accidentally walked in on a guy who was ..um.. busy. Other than that I really enjoyed it! I was super fit that summer.

*someone once pooped in the bed. How does that even happen??

 

[Pikaia]

Mimichi- They were smoking and probably acting like idiots at the same time.. LOL.

ICK. someone pooped in a bed?! A friend's mom used to work at a holiday inn. She said one time a couple checked in and when she went to clean the room, there was blood all over the sheets!!! Who knows what went on in there... yuck.. pretty sick.

I am sure that's definitely not the norm.. but still.. ick! People do all kinds of disgusting things in hotel rooms.

 

[sheena lee]

ICK. someone pooped in a bed?! A friend's mom used to work at a holiday inn. She said one time a couple checked in and when she went to clean the room, there was blood all over the sheets!!! Who knows what went on in there... yuck.. pretty sick.

I am sure that's definitely not the norm.. but still.. ick! People do all kinds of disgusting things in hotel rooms.

Yep. Luckily I wasn't the one cleaning it up, I reported it to the hotel owners and they dealt with it. The room was a disaster, I think they had someone come in and clean it up.

I've also had red wine spilled everywhere, which the vacationers had tried to clean up with the white towels... and failed. They left a winning scratch ticket for $19, so I wasn't too upset. Among other things, I've also found bags of weed, cocaine and pills. I guess I'm not easily phased, despite everything I really loved the job and would do it again in a heartbeat.