Ugh...
Hotel front desk clerk has been my career life forever. I took on my first job for experience (and because my Dad was the manager, pretty sweet deal), and found that I rather enjoyed the line of work aside from a massive host of issues. I worked my fucking ass off that summer for a measly 8 dollars an hour, went back to school, and then picked up a few shifts here and there. The business fell apart after we had a minor fire that set off the sprinkler systems and fucked up the entire first floor. Yes, the sprinklers caused more damage than the actual fire. Cute.
Sum up of problems with job #1: Shitty owners who committed insurance fraud, generally treated employees like shit, cut costs at every possible turn, ran business into ground because everyone who worked there was miserable. Front desk workers had to run the desk, do laundry, and set up a fairly extensive breakfast in the morning. This is 3 or 4 peoples' jobs for 1 person for below minimum wage. We had 2 housekeepers for 83 rooms. I have no idea how in the holy fuck they made that work but they did. Maintenance guy was a complete twat that never did anything he was told and when he did he never solved any problems. Guests get mad at the desk in turn because there was nobody else to direct anger towards. Yeah. Good start.
Job #2 was a massive improvement. I managed to land a gig at the absolute nicest hotel in town. It was practically walking distance from my apartment, so no commute at all. Only problem was it was night auditing, which has its own set of problems. Overall, the property was run very well. The GM was generally pretty cool, at least to start (more on that later). The business did really well, selling out 4 or 5 days out of the week. Maintenance was good (ish), we had more like 10 housekeepers for 81 rooms, and the guests were usually pretty great. Really, all the issues of that job could be stemmed down to working nights. It was a miserable sleep schedule, and night workers basically had to do all the annoying shit that nobody else wanted to do earlier in the day. I really didn't mind this too much until I started getting called out almost every day through the log book by my immediate superior, and never getting the chance to defend myself because I never got to interact with any of the higher ups because of my sleep schedule. So I basically became a martyr for everything anyone was annoyed about. Kind of shitty, but I put up with it for a summer, quit on semi-decent terms, and went to finish school.
Finished school for music education, decided I hate my major. Whelp.
On to job #3. Now I'm working at an upscale hotel north of where I live. The desk people are treated like royalty, communication is frequent and easy, there are multiple departments to handle any and all issues, and life is utterly fantastic. I could do this job for the rest of my life.
Topic: What sucks about your job? (Read 7862 times)
