Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
The Guests are the stars of the show..usually… and when guests bask in the limelight and memories of the hospitality industry, its almost never a good thing. But there’s a lot more going on that just what shenanigans the guests are getting up to. The staff are getting up to a lot of things too – as these 4 stories will show!
1. A Lack of Cleaning and an Adult Treasure Trove
I started working at a hotel, a small place, with about 100 rooms but was under some seriously bad management. A lot of things were not done properly and this included proper cleaning of rooms. Linens and towels were only changed when the guest checked out etc.
Because we were a pretty small property, we also had a number of regular guests. One gentleman would show up, check in to the SAME room every week for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and then check out.
He always paid full price, no one accompanied him, and no one asked for him. Housekeeping would go in and find nothing out of the ordinary so we just left him be.
Then the hotel went under new management and that was probably the first time the entire hotel got a full deep cleaning. It was systematic: every room on every floor. All the heavy furniture got moved, carpets shampooed, and light fixtures polished. The works!
We got to this guy’s room, lifted off the mattress and found an adult entertainment treasure trove: porno DVDs; enough PlayBoy, Penthouse, and Hustler magazines to start a library; bottles of flavoured lubricants. Everything was sticky and obviously regularly used.
The housekeeping staff had to double glove and dispose of everything before we bleached the room.
He checked in that weekend and checked out as usual. Not a word was spoken about the treasure trove we found in his room.
He never checked in again.
2. From Hotel to Hospital, to the Morgue.
I worked in the hotel that had made a business arrangement with the hospital literally two minutes away. It became common for people to check in to the hotel before or after their surgery to enjoy a few days of luxury and relaxation at a discounted rate. Unfortunately, this also meant that there were a number of guests who passed away before making it to the hospital.
We handled these situations quietly with the maximum amount of discretion. But the crying and sobbing of the spouse and/or family of the deceased would always lead to awkward questions and noise complaints from other guests. During my 5 years with the hotel, there were over a dozen such deaths.
It was the last one of those that got to me enough that I left the hotel. They were newlyweds who checked in under a combination “Honeymoon VIP and Hospital” package. I checked them in still in their wedding finery: His baju Melayu was immaculate but I remember the bride in her beautiful white silk baju kurung.
They were together for 3 days then they went to the hospital for whatever medical procedure he required. He returned with his wife about 4 days later, his head bandaged. They were supposed to be with us for another week.
I had checked the couple in on their first day and was the guest relations officer on duty for the VIP Floor when she called me: her husband had just collapsed. Aware of their unique status, I called for emergency medical transport.
I gave them privacy, waiting just outside their suite, but I saw their last moments as a couple through that open door: he gave her a smile, cupped her cheek, and whispered something to her. He closed his eyes, took a last breath, and died in her arms.
I requested a transfer to another department and then left the hotel about 3 months later. I just couldn’t walk those corridors without seeing their last moments of married life.
3. Taking back her suicide
Working front desk on the overnight shift means you are going to be the first point of contact with guests in a smaller hotel. It had been a relatively quiet night – apart from a few slightly drunk guests staggering back to their rooms a little after the bars closed at two in the morning.
Then the phone rang, and a woman was demanding emergency assistance. Her voice was weak, breathy like she was sucking in giant, panicked breaths of air. I contacted security and we made our way up to her room.
We arrived, and could hear her crying from the corridor. We did what we were trained to do: Announced ourselves, and entered. It took us less than a minute before I called Operations and had them send for an ambulance immediately.
We had an ambulance pull up ten minutes later, along with a police car. After another twenty or so minutes the crisis was over and the woman had been taken to the hospital.
I went up to document the scene with a camera for the inevitable incident report and paperwork and out of morbid curiosity to see things for myself. Apparently, the guest had tried to commit suicide.
She’d brought back food and alcohol, eaten and drunk very merrily, and then decided to slip into the warm bath she had prepared for herself, then slit her wrists with a straight razor. Realizing, at that moment the enormity of what she was attempting, spent several minutes trying desperately to staunch the bleeding before calling for assistance.
The room looked, appropriately like a murder scene from an episode of CSI. Her blood was on the floor, soaked on the towels, covering the bedside table and the phone, and all over the bedsheets and blanket.
It amazes me, for the first time, not only how much blood she had lost, but also how much blood the human body contained.
I never did find out if she survived, and got the help that she needed. But I hope that she did, and wherever she is, she’s doing a lot better.
4. Always on Guard for Pedophiles and Sex Trafficking
Hotels have always been a part of a vacation or relocating to a new place to call home. In hospitality, however, we are trained to watch out for sex trafficking. Our surveillance begins the moment they step out of the vehicle and are greeted by the luggage porter.
We always look to the children and the women first, asking the same set of mental questions: Are they quiet? Too clingy? Dragging their heels to stay as far away as possible? Sometimes we can spot bruises on the wrists and ankles and other telltale signs like ligature marks. Are they clean? What about their hair? Clothes? Are there signs of malnutrition?
It only takes a certain look from the porter to the receptionist, and sometimes it’s a phone call from security to the front desk. We’ll check out the parental figures here, a quick background checks in our system to see if they have stayed with us before, with the same people or with different people?
When possible, we also try to interact directly with the children, asking them polite questions, “What adventures do you plan on having in Kuala Lumpur?” or “Is your papa going to take you to Sunway Lagoon?”
Most kids will love these questions and will just open up and share, and we even offer to let them help do “our work” by carrying a light bag or something like that. Adults that are too clingy, get snappy and defensive set off red flags. Children that are too shy, very scared, stuttering set off even more red flags.
Unfortunately, I can tell you that I’ve tipped off security, and management and that over the years, more than one arrest has been by law enforcement. It also happens far more often than you would like to believe.
There’s always more going on…
Always and without fail, there is a lot going on involving other guests, the staff, and even the police on some occasions that they would rather you never know about.
All the staff wants is for you to have a very pleasant, trouble-free stay so they can clock out of their shift on time. And if something does happen, the staff hope you never find out about it.
For more stories like this, read:
Malaysians Who Have Worked In Hotels Share Some Juicy Experiences That Guests Will Never Hear About
I Explored An Abandoned Hotel in Langkawi, Here’s How It Looks Like
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