Smokers

Can someone please tell me why people smoke in non-smoking rooms?

All our rooms have a balcony, if you need to smoke just walk out and close the sliding door. Not that hard. I spent $750.00 on a machine today that cleans out the smoke odor in rooms. I would have love to have spent that money on getting our treadmill fixed or adding a business center. However, I have recently had two groups that seem to really want to smoke in our none smoking rooms.

I really just don't understand people sometimes.

A Hampton Inn

So it looks like we will be officially becoming a Hampton Inn. I am so excited for construction to start in January. The company has been spending the past few months deciding if we will be a Double Tree, Hilton Garden Inn or a Hampton Inn. I love Hampton's so I am very excited. While it would look great having a Double Tree on my resume, there is something really special about a Hampton. I love selling a hotel that offers complimentary breakfast, Internet and parking.

I'm not sure what we will do with the restaurant that is currently empty. I think I will find someone to lease it out. But I will know more in Jan.

The best part about renovating will be getting new beds. I got my 3rd complaint this week that the mattress springs were poking a guest back. Can you imagine, checking into a hotel and having the mattress springs poke your back? It's so embarrassing. However, we can't just get new mattresses. Hampton has specific mattresses we have to buy, so we need to wait until renovation. The Hampton beds are amazing. Since we already own a Hampton down the road, I bought the Hampton bed during that renovation. Love it.

No, you can't just not show up for your shift

The hardest thing about being a manager is well, managing. Saturday night I was at my friends wedding, when my phone began to ring and ring and ring. It was a team member calling to tell me that they just didn't want to come to work tomorrow. Unfortunately each person works their shift alone, so if they don't go to work, I go to work for them. After I was very clear that he needed to show up unless he found someone to work his shift, he agreed to be present at 7 am.

Fast forward to today. I held a front desk meeting and explained the policy once again regarding attendance. I was pleased with the meeting and felt that everyone was on the same page.

Not so much, 20 minutes later I had someone come and let me know they couldn't work their Sunday shift. So now I am going to have to scramble to find a replacement or I will be stuck working another 7 day work week. ugh.

Ahh Airfreshners!

The hotel hasn't been renovated in YEARS. So ever since I took over, I have been dealing with this odor. It's odor like if someone locked up an old room for years. It's musty and quite unpleasant. So for the last few months I have tried product after product to get the smell out. We also steam cleaned the carpets, washed walls, you name it, we have tried it. So finally I found an freshner thats a little film, you slip into the vent of the wall unit air conditioners. These babies are amazing and for the first time I'm getting compliments on how nice and clean my rooms smell.

Until today........

As I'm checking people out of the hotel this morning, a very fit couple dressed in tight bicycle pants comes to check out. As they check out I ask my signature "how was everything?" The woman begins to tell me that she had to have the maintenance man come to their room and "pull that nasty air freshner out. It's not that it didn't smell nice, those things things have chemcials and most likely cause cancer." "One day we will all have cancer and realize it's from hotel air freshners."
My jaw must have fallen open as a stared at her because she quickly told me her stay was fine and hurried out the door.

So now instead of making my customers happy, I guess I'm just trying to kill them off one by one. Everyday I realize, you truely cannot make everyone happy and it's best not to take things personally.

Hmm a blog

Please excuse my attempt at a somewhat entertaning blog. I'm new at this but perhaps it could be interesting. Why a blog? I feel like I have some interesting stories about my new gig as a General Manager of a hotel. Everyday seems to be a Journey as I go through the process of fixing up a run down hotel, managing a team from many different backgrounds, and trying to please every guest. Most of my stories revolve around the guest and their likeable qualities and not so likeable qualities.