John Hernandez is my doppelganger, my mummudrai, my secret sharer. He works the night shift during the week, Monday through Friday. He is a bald, white, egg-shaped gay man with a goatee. For all you politicos out there he bears (get it?) a striking resemblance to Andrew Sullivan.
I first met John Hernandez a few weeks ago, when I came in one night to talk business with the Boss Lady. She wasn't there, unfortunately, but John was, with Yusuf, who was overjoyed to see me. John thought that I was there to pick his brain about the fiendishly technical skills that you only pick up after a decade in The Game (just kidding, we don't actually call it "The Game")
So I asked him some question or another, refunding credit cards or something. This is how he answered: "My first rule for the hospitality industry is right there in the name: You have to be hospitable to the guests."
John then proceeded to just talk and talk and talk some more about all aspects of hospitality-industrial complex, and especially about the grave responsibilities of the night-watchman, the last line of defense between our fair-eyed virgin guests and the Visigoths who could overrun the lobby at anytime.
I quickly learned that John was very serious about his job, and that by "hospitality" he meant interrogating every guest who didn't check in with him about whether their intentions were noble, or did they not plan on raping the guests and stealing their money?
I stood with John for about 15 minutes on a weekday night around 11:00. During that time, he stopped every single person, maybe 50 people, and asked them to state their business.
The hotel has a policy of keeping all the keys, which are actual keys, at the front desk when guests go out. So anytime a guest would go out without dropping off the key, or come in without stopping to pick up their key at the desk (meaning that they didn't drop it off when they left), John would make them stop and tell them the following:
"Excuse me, sir/ma'am. They may not have told you about this when you checked in, and that's our fault, I apologize, but this is a European-style hotel, which means that there's only one key per room, so you absolutely have to leave the key with us when you go out. No exceptions, okay?" He gave this speech 11 different times in the 15 minutes I was there.
Three or four times he stopped people who came into the hotel as friends of the guests and wouldn't let them go up with the guests until they had given him their names to be put on the guest list, no matter how large the group. When I asked him whether this was necessary, he said, "Oh, yeah! You've got to know every single person that's in the hotel. What if there's a crime?' He paused for a moment. "Or what if there's a fire and the fireman just pull out a bunch of charred bodies?" He laughed a little to himself at this.
At some point, while he was telling a customer why she couldn't take her key outside even though she was just going to smoke a cigarette, the phone rang and I picked it up. It was a woman calling for her husband from India. After I looked up her husband's name to find out his room number I told the wife that, for future reference, her husband was in room 7--. After he finished dressing down the guest, John looked at me.
"You never give out a guest's room number, to anyone," he said soberly. "One time a woman came to a hotel I used to work at after she left her husband. The husband found out where she was staying, called the hotel and got her room number, and then came to the hotel and beat her to death."
I would like to personally thank John Hernandez for running the Hotel Idiotica so competently while I am gone during the week. But I just want to reassure all the criminals, vagabonds, and general vendetta artists that the Hotel Idiotica on the weekends is still a place where you be benignly ignored.
I first met John Hernandez a few weeks ago, when I came in one night to talk business with the Boss Lady. She wasn't there, unfortunately, but John was, with Yusuf, who was overjoyed to see me. John thought that I was there to pick his brain about the fiendishly technical skills that you only pick up after a decade in The Game (just kidding, we don't actually call it "The Game")
So I asked him some question or another, refunding credit cards or something. This is how he answered: "My first rule for the hospitality industry is right there in the name: You have to be hospitable to the guests."
John then proceeded to just talk and talk and talk some more about all aspects of hospitality-industrial complex, and especially about the grave responsibilities of the night-watchman, the last line of defense between our fair-eyed virgin guests and the Visigoths who could overrun the lobby at anytime.
I quickly learned that John was very serious about his job, and that by "hospitality" he meant interrogating every guest who didn't check in with him about whether their intentions were noble, or did they not plan on raping the guests and stealing their money?
I stood with John for about 15 minutes on a weekday night around 11:00. During that time, he stopped every single person, maybe 50 people, and asked them to state their business.
The hotel has a policy of keeping all the keys, which are actual keys, at the front desk when guests go out. So anytime a guest would go out without dropping off the key, or come in without stopping to pick up their key at the desk (meaning that they didn't drop it off when they left), John would make them stop and tell them the following:
"Excuse me, sir/ma'am. They may not have told you about this when you checked in, and that's our fault, I apologize, but this is a European-style hotel, which means that there's only one key per room, so you absolutely have to leave the key with us when you go out. No exceptions, okay?" He gave this speech 11 different times in the 15 minutes I was there.
Three or four times he stopped people who came into the hotel as friends of the guests and wouldn't let them go up with the guests until they had given him their names to be put on the guest list, no matter how large the group. When I asked him whether this was necessary, he said, "Oh, yeah! You've got to know every single person that's in the hotel. What if there's a crime?' He paused for a moment. "Or what if there's a fire and the fireman just pull out a bunch of charred bodies?" He laughed a little to himself at this.
At some point, while he was telling a customer why she couldn't take her key outside even though she was just going to smoke a cigarette, the phone rang and I picked it up. It was a woman calling for her husband from India. After I looked up her husband's name to find out his room number I told the wife that, for future reference, her husband was in room 7--. After he finished dressing down the guest, John looked at me.
"You never give out a guest's room number, to anyone," he said soberly. "One time a woman came to a hotel I used to work at after she left her husband. The husband found out where she was staying, called the hotel and got her room number, and then came to the hotel and beat her to death."
I would like to personally thank John Hernandez for running the Hotel Idiotica so competently while I am gone during the week. But I just want to reassure all the criminals, vagabonds, and general vendetta artists that the Hotel Idiotica on the weekends is still a place where you be benignly ignored.
1 comment:
Well written article.
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