Now, this is irony. The day after the big fiasco about the complaint of the room not being fully done, I learned a big thing about the cleanliness of my rooms. I came to work and greeted her before starting my day. Gena was still lead hand until the weekend was up.
Today was Saturday and she came up to my cart. I thought she would just be checking my board but she beckoned me closer.
She looked at me with a smile on her face once again and told me she and our manager were talking about how my rooms were always really good whenever we went into them and said I was ready to begin punching.
This is a big moment for any housekeeper, especially one that was only there for three months (after being gone for 8 months with school). "All you need to remember is to do the door landing and behind the picture frames," she said.
"And I will continue checking your rooms today and I will check a couple tomorrow if you keep up with the good work, I will give you the code to start punching your rooms," I was dancing in my head happily at the news.
"But you can't tell anyone. There are still girls at the top of the list that can't do this," she said.
I nodded. This was still an amazing accomplishment, secret or not.
Punching is where after you have completed a room, you go to the phones and type in a code, this code is sent to the computer and says that the room is ready to be rented. This room does not need to be checked by the lead hand (normally either my supervisor, my manager or Gena). This also means the rooms are perfect and nothing in them needs to be fixed.
TAKE THAT ASSHOLES THAT LIED ABOUT MY ROOM THE DAY BEFORE!!!!!!
***
The next day, I was in a room. I had gotten through a few rooms when Gena came to me and beckoned me over quietly.
"Your rooms are good. Now, this is the code, you can either left the receiver and dial it, or put the phone on speaker and type it that way," she said as she wrote the code on a sticky and hid it under the paper list for my rooms.
"I would make sure the supervisor is okay with this before you do this with her. I'm not sure how she feels about this, but good job," she walks away.
The happy dance was officially on. I was jumping up and down and dancing quietly in the room I was in.
I later found out it was my super's idea to have me start punching. I remembered her telling me before I was able to punch to just call down and tell the front desk that a room was ready when it was a priority and getting close to check-in time.
After that, on occasion, I was asked to help other girls and check their rooms once they were gone to make sure it was fully clean.
And while I was still not able to tell many people, it was a great jump in my career.
YOU ARE READING
The Real Tales of a Housekeeper
Non-FictionI've only worked as a housekeeper for little more than a year, but in that time, so much has happened that I could write a book about it. So that is what I am going to do. These are the best, the worst and the down right crazy memories I have of my...
