It was about twenty years ago when I was sent to a three day seminar by the company I used to work for.
It was a pretty luxurious affair and there was an overpriced hotel room I was slated to stay in which meant nothing but trouble to me. My earlier post on hotels may have explained things. I don't impress easily and feel insulted when someone offers me beads and trinkets to try to impress me.
Anyway, I checked into my room and laid my stuff out so that it was easy to get to in a hurry. I carefully laid changes of clothes out on the other bed that I wasn't going to use, having first stripped it of it's blanket to use to cover over the starched sheets that I loath that were on the bed I had planned to sleep in.
There were three or four complete outfits on the bed and each outfit was complete with underwear, socks, shirt and pants. I could spring from the shower and be dressed in seconds. I even had belts in all of the pants so as to save time. I left a large note on top of all of this that simply said, 'Please leave this room alone'.
Having done my homework by asking around, I knew that the entire schedule was going to be a mad house and I would be running hard from the instant I got up until I crapped out. I was set up for total efficiency. I had even gotten a fisherman's haircut for the seminar so as to preclude having to play the morning hair game. I could simply face the water from the shower, push my hair back with the towel with a single stroke and be good to go.
As usual, the wrench got thrown into the works.
I woke up, got dressed and did the seminar thing and sacked out and everything went according to plan and everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
Enter the hotel services department.
When I got back to my room, both beds were remade with new starched sheets and all of my clothes were put away neatly in the dresser. I was screwed.
I quickly redid everything and went down to the desk and politely but firmly told the desk that nobody whatsoever was to enter my room for any reason under any circumstances and that the only service the hotel was to provide me with was an 0555 wake up call.
"Even maids?" asked the clerk.
"Especially maids," I shot back. "I do NOT want my bed remade, I do not want my clothes put away I do not want anyone in my room for any reason at all. None. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I have everything set up the way I want it and anything anybody does will throw me off and make life hard for me. Simply leave my room alone."
"But we want you to feel at home," protested the desk person.
"Great! Let's make me feel at home," I said. "I don't have a maid at home, and I don't want one here. It doesn't make me feel at home when the maid gets in my way. It makes me feel like I'm in a cold, heartless, miserable hotel full of people that are trying to take my money by providing me with useless services I don't want or need."
This actually proved to be the only time a hotel has ever honored my wishes with a one stop request. In a way, it was pretty amazing.
A day later, the CEO of the outfit was hob-knobbing with a bunch of us lesser mortals and saw that the shirt I was wearing had come from the TransPac '89 race and asked me about it. I explained that I was part of the return delivery crew. He then asked me what I thought of the hotel and instead of the canned answer, I decided to tell him the truth.
Don't ever do that.
I told him that although the place was nice, I had cancelled all maid service to my room because it interferes with my efficiency. I could damned well make my own bed and that all the maid do was mess things up for me. He looked a little crestfallen and asked if he could do anything.
"The only thing I can think of is to have the hotel put a jar of Georgia Moon on the drink cart for before dinner cocktails as I had noticed that there was none and that it was the drink of choice of a shipmate of mine and I'm looking out for him." I said. "I need nothing. I'm squared away."
I told him the Georgia Moon thing for a number of reasons. First, I knew a guy that did drink the stuff and second, I was curious if the CEO would actually ask to have it added the the drink cart. Georgia Moon comes in mason jars and is easy to spot on a drink cart. I also asked for Georgia Moon because it was one of those things that seem to come out of nowhere and I have a policy of keeping them guessing.
He looked a little shocked, to say the least. "So you think this entire thing is a waste of money?" he asked.
I gave a thoughtful look and realized I was probably on thin ice. Often people like this insult easily. "No," I said. "The seminar is probably just what the doctor ordered, the facility is designed for it. It's just that we really get no time to enjoy the rooms and the maid service just gets in my way. It might be different if I were here on vacation, but I'm not. It may work for someone else, though. We're all different."
"Why don't you like the maid service?" he asked.
"I set my room up to be efficient," I said. "I lay out everything for the entire seminar on the spare bed. Every outfit is planned and laid out so that from the time my feet hit the floor I am out of the room in under five minutes, showered and shaved and in a fresh outfit. I eat a buffet breakfast because it is fast and return to the room to check the sylabus so I am in the right place at the right time in the right uniform. When the maids enter my room and see my layout they think I'm a slob and put everything in drawers and I have go fishing around to set it up again before bed or in the morning I am lost."
"You cut it that close?" he asked.
"Yeah, I do." I answered. "Sleep is a valuable commodity at these seminars. After the classes and all, there is generally a lot of networking going on in the bar and most of us get in late. The trick is to go easy on the booze and get all the sleep you can so you are not falling asleep in class. Even the fifteen minutes I save in the morning and use to sleep helps."
Later that evening at the before dinner cocktail hour I noticed there was a jar of Georgia Moon on the drink cart. I was astonished. I went to my shipmate and made damned sure he knew about it and told him to order a snort or two to keep me from looking foolish. He obliged me. He's an odd duck. If he can't have Georgia Moon, he drinks Woodford Reserve. Go figure.
I figure that when he goes to these seminars he drinks Georgia Moon as his personal counter attack on the mentality of upper management. He once said to me that they probably think the upper management guys thin we are savages and he'd be damned if he'd let them down.
Anyway, there are a lot of things that people think are the greatest thing in the world since canned beer, but maid service is not one of them.
my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/
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