Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality

by Jacob Tomsky

  2. We checked: he never stayed here before and might never visit the city again, even without this earth-shattering catastrophic event he is experiencing.

  3. He’s a one-nighter. You walk a two-nighter, then you have to bring him back the next day, and there is nothing easy or pleasant about that for anyone. He will walk around like a martyr, like Jesus let off the cross.

  4. And this one is so much more important than all the others: he is acting like a dick about it. I can break; I can make the call and say, “Sir, I understand, perhaps I could put you in a twin-bed room tonight; would that be okay?” But I’m not going to. He is spitting all over my desk. He’s using profanity.

  “I will never fucking stay here again, do you know that?”

  “Sir, blow me. Please, fuck yourself hard, and never come back,” I said, with my red light on of course. And then out loud I said, “I am incredibly sorry, sir. I want to personally apologize, and if you do return, I promise we will take extra-special care of your reservation and ensure you are upgraded.” (We say we will do this, but we won’t. We will forget. But we will certainly be reminded of our past transgression. A Jesus let off the cross loves to constantly bring up “the cross.”)

  Each walk was a little nightmare for me. I mean, I was turning down tips. I wanted to do nothing but please these guests. And here they were screaming in my face. It was terrible.

  Little did I know, a few years later, in another city, I would walk fifteen people at one time. And I would start it off like this: “OKAY. PEOPLE. EVERYONE QUIET DOWN AND LISTEN UP.”

  But at this hotel, though I had no comparison at the time, things were relatively calm. We didn’t often overbook, and perhaps the southern location had a calming effect on most of our guests.

  Our southern location also drew a few celebrities, providing me with my first celebrity encounters, if you can call them encounters.

  “Paul McCartney is onstage with Clarence. He’s doing Beatles songs for heaven’s sake!” Gordon the bellman said, eyes wide.

  “Cover me,” I said and walked around the desk, crossing the lobby to the Bistro Lounge. We’d all seen Paul McCartney come through the lobby (like a canary-yellow Bentley—impossible to miss), and we knew he’d probably get a drink in the Bistro and check out our horn player Clarence, a local musician from the Ninth Ward, backed up by a simple jazz band. Clarence had been garnering recognition and getting good press in the Times-Picayune. So, sure, Paul gravitates to the music, and, fine, he grabs a table to take in some of the set. But now he’s onstage performing Beatles classics with Clarence and the band? I could hear his unmistakable voice clearly as I approached. The entrance was already jammed up, and right in front of the crowd was the assistant front office manager, John, saying to every employee who approached: “Next employee who pushes their way into the Bistro is fired. Tommy, I will fire you on the spot. Get back to the desk, now.” I did. We all tried to be quiet and hear the performance from across the lobby.

  John was very upset at me in particular for attempting to join the crowd. He said that I, above all, should understand that our celebrity visitors might be mobbed by locals but NOT by hotel staff. He was right, but I mean, when something as rare as … Okay, he was right.

  For the next two weeks John was disappointed in me. But our relationship only lasted another two weeks. Turns out hotels are like the army. They shipped him out to take over the front desk of a hotel in Cleveland (damn). Then they sent my girl Trish to open a new property in Egypt (damn!). Now that the hotel was up and running properly, they were shipping out the opening team. We had a new FOM named Chris Bourne, far older than Trish and half the brain. Andy was particularly devastated by this loss.

  For his part, Andy turned out to be a decent enough guy. Well, his idiosyncrasies were apparent, unavoidable, and not necessarily endearing, but you know the old saying, at least he wasn’t choking co-workers to death. And he did have a decent sense of humor.

  After a year we started to loosen up at the desk. It was a Tuesday, just past noon, the fire alarm system running a test, the emergency lights in the lobby flashing, sirens yelping out staccato blasts, when this old man walked up to the desk, concerned, dizzied by the loud sirens, his eyes wide in the flashing lights.

  “What’s going on? Is there a fire?”

  “A fire? No, sir,” Andy responded.

  “Well, what’s all this commotion?”

  “Well … Sir … YOU ARE OUR ONE MILLIONTH CUSTOMER!! CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR STAY WILL BE FREE!!!”

  Andy also developed a new technique to defuse guests’ anger. Dealing with guests’ tempers is a big portion of the work at the desk. You can try meekness, but it might fuel their ferocity. You can try pulling back your shoulders with confidence and assuring them you will take care of it ASAP, but that can come off unsympathetic. So Andy developed an experimental method wherein, should a guest approach with a red face, ready to spit with anger all over the desk, well, then, you simply one-up him on the anger.

  “I just came back from lunch, and my room has not been cleaned yet. Anyone planning on cleaning it!? Is anyone actually working here!?”

  “WHAT?!” Andy hissed. “I cannot BELIEVE they FAILED TO SERVICE YOUR ROOM, SIR. Jesus F.… NO, no. NO, sir. Trust me, it is NOT OKAY AT ALL. SOMEONE IS GOING TO LOSE THEIR JOB FOR THIS,” Andy yelled, jamming his finger down hard on the front desk and ripping the phone receiver from the cradle to dial housekeeping.

  He broke the guest like a pony. The guest waved his hands before the desk and said, “It’s not really that bad. Can’t we just get it cleaned now? That would be fine.”

  There are a thousand ways to complain, a thousand ways to have your problems instantly solved. As far as the most effective tactic, would I suggest screaming at an employee? Obviously, I would not.

  Here is what I would suggest: Before approaching any employee, try to pinpoint exactly what the problem is (You were promised one rate and charged another / A bellman was rude to your wife / Someone must’ve thought you were finished with the pizza box you left on the floor of the bathroom and threw away the last cold slice), and then, if possible, what solution would make you feel satisfied (Having the rate adjusted to reflect the original booking / Being assured that the issue will be investigated and the bellman will be spoken to / A pizza slice on the floor? It’s gone. Let it GO). Though most complaints should be delivered to the front desk directly, in person or on the phone, keep in mind that most issues you present will not have been caused by the front desk at all. So briefly outline your problem, offer a solution if you have one, and then ask whom you should speak with to have the problem solved. “Should I speak to a manager about this?” “Should I speak to housekeeping about this?” Those are wonderful and beautiful questions to ask. Most of the time the front desk will be able to solve the problem immediately or at least act as proxy and communicate your unrest to the appropriate department or manager. Want to make sure that the agent doesn’t nod, say “certainly,” and not do a damn thing? Get his or her name. Nothing tightens up an employee’s throat like being directly identified. You don’t have to threaten him or her either, just a nice, casual “Thanks for your help. I’ll stop by later to make sure everything has been taken care of. Tommy, right?” Whatever you asked me to do I am DOING it.

  Lastly, let’s try to keep fiery anger out of the lobby. Almost 100 percent of the time the person you are punching on had nothing whatsoever to do with your situation. It’s a hotel; nothing’s personal. Here is a nice rule of thumb we can all try to remember: a person of culture should make every effort to hide his frustration from those who’ve had nothing to do with its origin. Boom.

  But will screaming get you what you want? Well, probably. Even if Andy hadn’t broken the guest by one-upping him on intensity, he was still definitely in the process of calling housekeeping to get the room cleaned, obviously calm now that the guest had wandered off. That’s when Mark, the youngest bellman, came from the elevators and stood still in the middl
e of the lobby, looking down at his feet. I’d just given him a checkout, an upper-level luxury suite, and he’d taken a cart, but now here he was, cart-less, breathing hard and looking at the marble lobby floor.

  “Mark, what happened? You okay?”

  “I can’t do this. Anymore. I went to the room you gave me and knocked. This little white girl comes to answer the door, maybe ten years old, wearing a fancy little dress. And so I say, ‘Are you ready to check out?’ and this tiny girl turns around and says, ‘Mommy, Mommy, the servant’s here!’ ”

  “Then what?” Gordon asked.

  “Then I walked off. I ain’t no servant. I’m gonna quit, Gordon. Tommy, I’m quitting.” He unpinned his name tag, slid it off his uniform, refastened the pin, and set it on the bell stand. “I’m sorry. Good-bye, you guys. Tell Chuck I’m sorry.”

  Less than an hour later Chuck wanted to see me. I sat myself down in that same leather chair.

  “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.”

  “Chuck, Chuck, Chuck.”

  “Funny. So. What do you think?”

  “About what, sir?”

  “Your progress.”

  “I feel I’ve done well at the desk. I’ve tried very hard.”

  “And this business, the hotel business, is it for you? A career man?” He seemed distracted. He was playing with a hotel pen, dismantling it.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I trust you, Tommy. I’m going to offer you a choice. You’re done with the front desk. I heard you’ve started to loosen up down there, started in with the jokes.”

  “Oh, well, I hope I haven’t—”

  “Not to worry. It’s natural. You’ve outgrown the position. So I’d like to offer you two opportunities. Whichever one you want is yours. As you are aware, there is a bellman position recently available. Extremely recently. It’s yours if you want it. You are fantastic with the guests. Or.”

  “Or?”

  “Housekeeping manager. Management, Tommy. Take over the evening position down there. You’d be in charge of turndown, scheduling, purchasing, and a thousand other things. A staff of 150.”

  “…”

  That’s all I could say: “…”

  It was happening: he wanted me to be a manager. I thought back to the party they threw us before the hotel opened. I’d come so far. I didn’t have to stop. Now the rungs didn’t seem so endless. After housekeeping, perhaps a move to a smaller property to manage the front office, which I already felt would be kind of easy. Then to a larger property to manage the entire housekeeping department. Then I could be a rooms executive, essentially the GM’s vice president, overseeing “Rooms Division,” which included all of the departments necessary to run a hotel, as opposed to food and beverage, which only dabbled in hotel life when it came to room service. Five to ten years and I could be a GM in any city I chose.

  “Let’s talk money. Housekeeping means ten-hour shifts or more, on salary. When you break it down hourly, you will make less than you are making now. You’ll have to purchase your own suits. The work is physically demanding, the staff is large and can be difficult. It’s a very challenging position. Bellman? You’ll double your money immediately and keep the eight-hour shifts. Zero responsibility.”

  “You think I should take the bellman position?”

  “Do that, and you’ll never be anything else in your life. Hate to say it, but it’s true. I’ve seen it my whole career: Show me a twenty-year-old kid getting his first job as a bellman, and I’ll show you a seventy-year-old bellman who started fifty years ago. You grow accustomed to that pay grade, and taking a step forward will always mean cutting your money in half. No one takes that step.”

  “Housekeeping,” I said.

  “Housekeeping?”

  “I can do it. I want to do it.”

  “That’s my boy.” He slapped his hand down on the desk. “You’re a manager now. All kinds of things are going to change. The way your friends treat you will change. The way I treat you will change. This is going to be the worst part of your journey by far. Monday morning, nine o’clock managers’ meeting in the River View conference room. Show up in a suit and be ready. Let’s get it on.”

  Listen to me, goddamn it,” Chuck hissed at everyone in the conference room. “Our occupancy is dropping, and we are dying here. Why? Anyone know why? Because, in this city, the only bed with a higher rate per night is New Orleans Charity Hospital. Sales department: We need to drop these rates. We need to GET SOME GODDAMN HEADS IN THESE BEDS. DO ALL OF YOU WANT TO END UP IN GODFORSAKEN CLEVELAND WITH JOHN? Is any of this clear?”

  Holy shit. Mr. Daniels was going off. And no one seemed surprised. He stopped speaking and turned his head to the windows. The conference room was on the fifteenth floor, high enough to crest the squat architecture of the French Quarter and offer a view of the Mississippi in the distance, like a fat brown ribbon.

  “On a final note,” Chuck continued, quieter now, eyes still focused on the Quarter below, “this is Tommy Jacobs, our new p.m. housekeeping manager. Tommy, this is Terrance, the director of housekeeping. He’s a sharp kid, Terrance. Watch he doesn’t take your job.” He leveled his gaze back to the conference table, surrounded by managers from every department in the hotel. These morning meetings, or staff meetings, are designed to get everyone—Christ, I hate myself for even writing this—“on the same page.” Here is the opportunity for front office to mention to housekeeping that all the double-bed rooms are booked for the night, hence the ladies need to clean them, or “flip” them, as early as possible. It’s also an opportunity for people in the sales department to pretend they know something about the hospitality business, even though they don’t. Accounting might take this opportunity to be complainy and say things like, “Um, as we said before, can you guys, uh, maybe complete the voiding process yourselves instead of just moving it to the accounts-refund folio because that kind of makes a mess for us, okay? We said that last week, but it’s definitely still happening.”

  “All right, let’s get to it,” Chuck said, wrapping up with a deep breath. “Remember: heads in beds. The only thing that matters in this business. Heads in beds.”

  And with that we stood. After suggesting Terrance tour me around once the housekeepers were settled, Mr. Daniels motioned for me to remain seated. Everyone poured out of the conference room, leaving just the two of us.

  “How’d I do?”

  “Pretty intimidating, Mr. Daniels.”

  “GMs have two personas. Much in the way a president has two personas. He must be loved by the people, the voters, in this case the staff. But he must be feared by management, his cabinet. It’s about kissing babies in public and cracking heads in private. So there it is. Terrance is waiting for you on 25. Go.”

  I’d never even seen the twenty-fifth floor. That was on club level, which began on 20 and continued to the top floor, each level requiring key access. In fact, since the levels were locked, I had to get out on 19 and walk the rest of the way up the stairs. I could have used the employee service elevators, but at that time I was some front-of-the-house “peacock” strutting only through guest areas. Desk agents live in the front of the house. I was about to go deep into the heart.

  Not every luxury hotel has a club level, but should you find yourself with the option and the money, the increase in rate can pay for itself. It’s like flying first class. Done properly, club level starts with the doorman. Upon identifying your last name, hopefully cleverly picking it off a luggage tag or, ideally, recognizing you from your last stay, he runs it against the club-level arrivals, a list he receives every morning, often kept taped inside his silly-ass top hat. The doorman then discreetly alerts the valet dispatch, who calls the club level so they can prep. Often, when booking a club res, reservations will inquire about your favorite cocktail, and when, upon your arrival, club receives the advance call from valet, they prepare your fancy drink and place it on a tray next to a hot oshibori towel. The doorman, bypassing that pedestrian and disgustingly open-to-the-public
front desk, then passes off the guests directly to the bellman, who whooshes them right up to the twentieth floor, where they are greeted at the opening of the elevator doors with the cocktail and hot towel, then seated and checked in by a private concierge.

  On average, a club lounge has five food presentations a day, from a simple but filling breakfast to hors d’oeuvres and appetizers throughout the day and ending with the evening dessert. And let’s not forget the opulent crystal decanters filled with high-quality alcohol left out day and night, next to mixers on ice. First class: you might have three hours to drink and eat back the extra money you spent. Club level: you can swallow your money back with three vodka tonics and one food presentation, then, over your next night stay, really begin to get value. Which is also why the best possible upgrade isn’t always a suite or a view. It’s as simple as getting your key juiced, sliding it in, and activating the club level. How do you light that light? How do you get that kind of upgrade? Well, dear guests, you’ll have to wait for that one.

  Terrance was on 25 berating a housekeeper about the cleanliness of her cart. As I approached, his eyes flicked over, he saw me but proceeded to act as if he had not and continued blowing hard about not storing trash bags on the top level of the cart and making sure the amenities were packed tight enough so they weren’t rolling around in a big mess. Just glancing quickly at that cart gave me a glimpse into my new world, which, apparently, was now full of … amenities.

  The amenities! Ah! From shower caps to shoehorns. All tightly packaged and incredibly stealable. Consider the unmanned housekeeping cart a smash-and-grab situation. Pack your bags full of almond butter hand cream and guava face soap with espresso chips! Take three of everything, and get the hell out of the hallway. Even if you do get caught, just say you were out of shampoo or, even better, out of toilet paper and thought you’d save the hotel the trouble by grabbing it for yourself. Think of it this way: these amenities are here for you; they are yours. We are in no position to dispute the claim that when you wash your hair, you prefer to dump fifteen bottles of lavender and poppy seed shampoo all over your scalp like some gooey shower freak.