by Jacob Tomsky
Need one more reason the charges could be incorrect? As I said before, housemen steal from the minibar. Even minibar attendants might steal from your minibar, for Christ’s sake. We aren’t going to accuse you of anything, because we all have access to your snacks. We all have master keys. Any room, anywhere, anytime. We let ourselves in when you are gone. We let ourselves in even when you are there. I walked in on guests having sex, guests who must have heard me knock, guests who seemed to climax at my embarrassment. I saw deliberate robe slips from men and women, young and old. I found bondage gear still attached to a towel holder that had been ripped out of the wall, the prisoner escaped, I suppose, wandering the hallways in a ball gag. (Joking about that last part; in fact, I discovered most people with these proclivities were quite adult, almost professional about them, and had no interest in making a large scene or offending anyone.)
Housekeepers deal with the brunt of these sexual harassment situations. The first week a new housekeeping employee will approach a door, give three loud knocks, throw a throaty “housekeeping department,” followed by another powerful hammering on the door, before slowly pushing her way in, face and body protectively shielded by the heavy door, until there is no question the room is vacant and she can confidently whisk herself inside. Six months later, after she has performed the same preliminary announcement on over fifty doors a day, it becomes something more like, “House—” at this point a light knock occurs in conjunction with a less throaty “keeping,” the master key is already slipped in the lock, the light clicks green, and BOOM the door is already opening, and the lady is entering back first, pulling her cart through the doorframe.
“OH MY GOD!! CHRIST, DON’T YOU KNOCK?! OH, GOD!”
“Sorry, ma’am. Sorry. I’ll come back in an hour.”
Is she really that sorry? Probably not. That housekeeper might have twelve more rooms to clean before she can go home to her family. And though, as a hotel guest, she has every right, that woman taking a luxurious bath followed by a twenty-minute session of staring at herself naked in the mirror is directly slowing down the housekeeper’s working day. Off the room attendant goes to blast through another door with minimal warning, attempting to get some work done.
The next time, pulling the cart in, she might be confident the room is vacant, due to a lack of screaming. However, spray bottle already in hand, she turns to face an older gentleman who didn’t feel the need to either shout out a warning OR secure the robe properly. There are now three entities in the room: the housekeeper, the man, and the man’s penis. Two of these entities are rather pleased with the current situation.
Some guests are dying to be walked in on. Some guests are terrified of being walked in on. But every one of these guests, fundamentally different in every way, lurks there, hidden behind a locked door, doing God knows what. And every door a housekeeper unlocks leads her into the world of the unknown.
Any room, anywhere, anytime. In certain ways I learned more about the true nature of hotels while holding the housekeeping manager position than any other. When I had access to these rooms, these short scenes and snapshots into people’s lives, I came to see the hotel for all its uses: guests propose, get married, impregnate each other, turn forty, get divorced, snort heroin, murder, and die in hotel rooms (sometimes in that order). They receive news of a loved one’s death from a blinking red light. They sign a fax that begins production on a factory in China. They receive a FedEx box containing everything left of their marriage. A man comes from Tulsa to be a full-on cross-dresser for a week in New Orleans so the rest of his life can remain intact at home. A woman leaves her room at the Marriott checked in and empty, paid for by her company as a travel expense, books a room at our hotel to tryst with the man she should have married, spending three days in love and ordering room service before paying our bill in cash and returning to the Marriott to check out of her never-used room and fly home to the husband she no longer has sex with (who, while she was out of town, booked a room at the Days Inn by the airport to snort fat rails of coke, order gay porn, and hire male escorts). Aliases and pseudonyms, clandestine visitors, drug addicts on a professional drug binge, writers, runaways, recent divorcées using the room as a central cry hub, alcoholics, gamblers, and whores. And families on vacation! Newlyweds banging the day away! Any given room, behind any given door, someone else’s life was on fire. Not the life lived at home, not the cable-and-bed-by-9:00-p.m. life, waiting around to die. The hotel life: boundless, foreign, debaucherous, freshly laundered, exploratory, scantily clad, imaginative, frightening, expensive, and brand fucking new. I wandered the hallways every day like a guard keeper in the house of reinvention. Whatever these people were getting into, whatever their lives had become, I made sure that if they vacated the room for an hour’s time, they had clean sheets to do it on, new soap to scrub it off with, fresh towels to wipe it down, a clean robe to cover it up, and a fresh pillow to sleep it off on.
Sometimes, when I was wandering the halls, it was too quiet. There is no question my time as housekeeping manager saddled me with one new sexual fetish (at least). I would hear soft moanings, muffled sex sounds seeping through the walls, and then pause, listening intently because, honestly, it turned me on. It had never surfaced before, but apparently I am always game to hear a couple smashing it out on the other side of a door or wall. Sadly, every single time I heard a sigh or moan from a hotel room it was always, always just someone listening to the damn television: “Ooooh, oh, oh, ooooooooh.” At this point, excited, I’d freeze and focus my attention just in time to hear “And now back to Afghanistan.”
Other times, if the hallways were like ghost towns, doors wedged open by abandoned carts, not a houseman to be found, chances were the New Orleans Saints were playing. I’d start hitting the larger suites until I found the one room filled with twenty-five employees, some standing on the damn bed, watching the Saints lose. Terrance would have suspended every single one of them. But me? I let the Saints finish the drive (in a punt) and then escorted them all out, making the last three to leave touch up the suite. Maybe it made me a weak manager, but I never felt disciplinary action was the best corrective. Not so long as the rooms were getting cleaned to standard. I walked in on housemen and housekeepers banging each other and would break up fuck scenes like breaking up a fight: “All right, you two, separate. Jesus. Debra, nylons up. Finish this room quickly, please. The VP of Best Buy and her children are waiting in the lobby for it.”
Perhaps I should have suspended or fired them, too. However, when I asked for something, a favor, it got handled. Terrance could ask them to bring up a cotton ball after their shift, and they’d refuse. I could ask them to strip the sheets out of thirty more rooms, and they’d do it quickly so we could all go get drinks together after work.
It was like a big-ass family.
I showed up at the morning meetings and, every day, got to say hello to my friends. Most of the time, however, I worked the turndown shift. Turndown, or second service, is important to any true luxury property. That extra visit by the attendant while guests are out having dinner really underlines the luxury experience: they return to find the lights dimmed, radio on low, bed refreshed and cracked geometrically, of course with the goddamn pillow chocolates in place (in my apartment I kept three stolen boxes of turndown chocolate for my own, you know, personal use), and finally, masterfully, a fresh rose at the foot of the bed* (*fresh rose only available for VIP guests). I was responsible for personally visiting the VIP suites every evening to ensure second service had been done properly, that all the boxes were checked. Knocking on door after door after door. The first month I knocked until every single knuckle on both hands was rose red and sore as hell, even my poor pinkie knuckles. After a month I learned to knock with a pen or my key card.
I also had celebrity interactions that, if you can believe it, I’d prefer not to have had. Most of which (at least in the pages of this book) I won’t go into (get me drunk = another story). But I will mention a certain c
inematic director, lodged on the club level for a few nights, known for his rather dark, gothic tendencies. His name, though recognizable in context, is still rather common, so, when reviewing the VIP list, I figured it might be him but wasn’t certain. I couldn’t care less either way, but it was my job to knock on his door, hopefully finding the room vacant so I could slip in and check all the boxes on my list, most importantly ensuring the attendant had laid the VIP rose. I knocked, and, as commonly happens, the guest was there, at which point I simply inquired if he’d received turndown and if everything was satisfactory.
Turns out it actually was that director. He stared back at me blankly. Then he put on an arrogant, frankly derogatory smile and said, “Oh. Oh, I see. Yes, okay, everything is fine,” and then closed the door in my face, taking that arrogant smirk along with him. I stood still a moment more, marking the room off my list, confused. What kind of reaction was that? Was that arrogant smirk directed at me? Then I figured it out. He assumed I was a fan, a fan who had devised some excuse to knock on his door just to meet him. I was just doing my job (as I had been for the last twelve hours straight, on my feet, my knuckles bruised), and this arrogant prick thought meeting him was my dream come true.
He can suck it. His movies are for dysfunctional trust-fund babies who turn fifteen and go goth. And now I’ve never seen another.
He wasn’t the last celebrity who got all of his work removed from my Netflix queue. Another actor, famous during my teen years, spent a full month in the penthouse while filming a movie in the New Orleans area. Well, this actor calls up late one evening and asks for five more potpourri bowls. That’s fine. The man digs the scent. However, the large silver potpourri bowls in the penthouse, about the size of a wok, are only in the top-floor luxury suites, and we didn’t keep spares. So, since he was a VIP in the penthouse, I first removed the two big bowls from the unoccupied luxury suites. Then, in a move I might have seriously regretted, I knocked on the occupied suites, far too late in the evening, and, finding the guests out for the night, stole the damn things from the occupied rooms too. In truth, I did it for him. He’d been in some teen movies that meant a lot to a lot of people, me included. So I did it for him. I showed up with the five bowls, and when he cracked the door to take them inside and I tried to pass over the fresh bags of potpourri, he pushed the bags back at me and said he just wanted the silver bowls. Said he wanted to eat cereal out of them.
Those goddamn bowls will hold a full box of cereal. And why’d he need five? What was that about?
I found out the following day: dude had problems. While running through the penthouse, making sure it had been cleaned to standard, I saw bags of pills, gallon Ziploc bags marked with every day of the week, enough pills in the Monday bag to actually fill you up. The man was traveling with his “nutritionist” and eating bags of pills (on top of full boxes of cereal apparently, or maybe he filled the big bowls with pills, soaked them in soy milk, and, with spoon in hand, went at them like a maniac). This “nutritionist” (clearly I mean those quotes) actually called down to the concierge on his behalf, requesting that an acupuncturist, a voodoo doctor, and a chiropractor all be sent ASAP to the penthouse. Freak show.
But beyond compelling me to steal those bowls from occupied suites, he wasn’t bothering anyone. At least not until the movie production extended and we had to inform him that, though he certainly could extend his reservation with us, the penthouse had already been booked for a night in the future and he would have to vacate for that single evening. First he refused. So we made it as clear to him as possible that yes, motherfucker, it was reserved over a year ago and you are moving. Finally comprehending that information, he demanded to be moved to a suite with a view of the Mississippi. There was another issue. All those suites were occupied for that night as well. Trying to solve his own problem, he informed us that his “nutritionist” would be moved to a lesser suite and he would occupy her river-view suite for the evening. That made it two rooms that were now moving. Then we realized when he said he would move, he meant that we would move him, and not simply send up a bellman with a few carts. I had to gather a group of ten housekeepers to roll up there and move all his unpacked luggage. As I walked the crew of housekeepers down the hall, out he came, wearing a black baseball cap pulled over his eyes, basically creeping along the wall, past the army of ladies who were prepared to drag his underwear and oversized pill bags to the adjacent room, and he didn’t even make eye contact, didn’t even thank anyone, just hugged the wall with the hat over his eyes like a freak, as if we’d bother him for an autograph. Asshole. I’m still mad about it.
And I don’t think his movies are funny anymore. Not even the classic teen movies.
Anyway. How about a good celebrity story? I’m already feeling warmer inside. And this man is a star: Mr. H. I would like to start by saying that his first interaction with the staff involved calling down politely to the concierge desk with a single request. What did he ask for? An acupuncturist? A voodoo doctor? Big Ziploc bags? No. Scrabble. He wondered if someone could pick up a Scrabble set. And someone did. And he dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the desk in payment. That’s already enough to love the man, but there is more.
As is often the case with the hospitality business, the company I was working for was a management company. In fact, that business model stretches all the way back to the origins of hostelries. There were even some innkeepers who paid the building owner a flat yearly fee to run a property, and any profits exceeding the fee and operational overhead went right into the innkeeper’s old-school rough-sewn pockets. Sort of like paying rent on a barber chair, then all the tips and cut money goes right to the barber. But if the barber cuts hair like shit and no customers sit down anymore, he still owes the rent. These days, owners, those who own the building itself, will enter into business with a hospitality company that manages the operations. In this specific case, our owner built himself a residential palace on the top floor: personal movie screening room, grand piano, fantastic, opulent. He was prepared for everything but the weather. You can only stay inside your palace for so long before you have to venture out into a sweltering Louisiana August afternoon. And no amount of wealth can keep that New Orleans sweat from pouring down the back of your neck and soaking your expensive clothes. So he threw together a mansion for himself in Boca, moved out, and let the hotel start renting out his residential palace.
That was where Mr. H. was staying. I ran into Nancy, the lady in charge of cleaning all of our luxury club-level suites, and asked her if she’d gotten around to the owner’s apartment yet.
“Oh. Well, the man in there so nice, Mr. Tommy. So nice.”
“Who? Mr. H.?”
“Whoever. Listen at this. I go in there to get it out the way early, being the biggest suite and everything. I start to cleaning, and this man comes out to say hello. First he offers me some food. I say no, and he asks me how long it usually takes to clean up the place. I told him little over an hour maybe. Guess what he made me do?”
“Mr. H.?”
“He made me sit right down for an hour. Wouldn’t let me clean, just made me put my butt down and rest. Gave me all kinds of food, and fruit too, but you know I don’t eat no fruit.”
“So he wanted you to relax instead of clean? That’s fucking amazing!”
“For about a half hour he played on the piano for me, too. That was nice.”
“Mr. H. played piano for you?”
“Whoever. He a nice man. Said to go on and skip his room this whole week.”
“You’ve never seen any of his movies? Come on, Nancy!! Mr. H. is the shit!! Unbelievable!!”
“You best calm yourself, Mr. Tommy. Getting all worked up. Listen … you gonna tell Terrance he refused service for the week? My points won’t add up, and you know he’d toss me off my floors to make it up.”
“Of course not. If Mr. H. wants you to take it easy, I do too. Don’t mention it to anyone else, though, okay?”
“Mr. Tommy, you sweet. No
w get on, I got rooms to clean.”
I never told Terrance. In the housekeeping department rooms are worth points, and every housekeeper must clean a total number of points to keep the workload fair. Points are raised or lowered based on the size and difficulty of the room. The owner’s penthouse was equal to more than half her board, so getting a week pass on that room ensured Nancy a nice, easy time of it.
These women fight hard for their regular set of rooms, which are referred to as “sections.” Some of the more time-consuming portions of upkeep, such as dusting the baseboards and polishing the silver, need not be done daily, so keeping a steady section, keeping the same set of rooms, was a major concern. New hires would never get a solid section but rove around and pick up the uncovered rooms from ladies on vacation or ladies who had called in sick that day, bringing on the inevitable complaints that whatever bitch cleaned their section while they were out sick did a shit job.
But doling out boards wasn’t the biggest problem. Try doing the schedule for a staff of 150, most of whom have children with appointments, husbands with court dates, and all of whom want every holiday off. On top of that, I was responsible for purchasing: ordering all the supplies necessary to operate a hotel, from souvenir hotel pens to face towels to Kleenex to trash bags to Band-Aids to cleaning supplies to the big pink bags of liquid soap for the lobby bathrooms. All of these items were lined up on an intense ten-page Excel spreadsheet. I would cross-reference current storeroom supply with the speed at which each item was consumed for the month, tempered with the coming month’s predicted usage derived from the previous year’s usage in order to get a perfect ordering schedule, which then must be handwritten on order forms and submitted to accounting. Christ.