Narrative Essay About Hotel Living

Chapter

Hotel Living

It is difficult if not impossible to effectively manage people if you never leave your desk. It is vital that we inspect what we expect. Walking around also helps us to see what our customers see and maybe most importantly keeps our employees “on their toes”.

The owner of the Drake asked me if I would consider living at the hotel and I jumped at the chance to reduce my housing costs and shorten my commute down to about 30 seconds. The perks were wonderful with someone to clean my suite, wash my clothes and cook my food. The situation had its downside though, as my privacy was compromised and I was never actually off work. I would be in places and at odd hours when employees would not expect me.

Living at the hotel afforded me more contact with guests, especially during the late evening when most general managers would be home. I had become friendly with one of our regular VIP 's who lived just west of the city and reserved a hospitality suite on a regular basis. The bellman knew to always notify me when this impeccably dressed sixty something guest valeted his Cadillac so I could personally greet him and his entourage at check-in. He usually had one or more pretty women near him and tipped the staff like he was printing money.

Every time I saw him, he would ask if I was ready to take him up on his offer to send his tailor over to fit me for a new suit. I would of looked great in a fine Italian wool suit, but I never got fitted or accepted any cash tips. Despite my inexperience I had already developed a worthy sense of ethics and something didn’t seem quite right. However, I was surprised when I received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney and was given direction to the government with registration cards and any other information the hotel had on the guest from Cicero. I was concerned about breaching guest confidentiality, but I was assured by the U.S Attorney that I was not in jeopardy of compromising any laws or ethical obligations so I provided the subpoenaed information and arrived at the courthouse as instructed.

I was already a bit confused and concerned from the “don’t feel intimidated” comment from the U.S Attorney. If the defense attorney’s job is to make witnesses uneasy or trick them into saying what the defense team wants to hear this guy was good. Based on the defense attorney’s line of questioning it seemed like I was being accused of doing something wrong. And when he raised his voice as if he was reprimanding me, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. I made it through the cross examination with a minimal amount of stammering and without any mistakes. I was thanked by the US Attorney, was dismissed and allowed to go home. It wasn’t until the next day when I read the newspaper that I realized that while he had always registered under an alias, I had just testified against notorious mobster Rocco Infelice. Little did I know that the gentleman who I considered was just a stressed out businessman living in the fast lane had been operating a gambling ring in one of the hotel’s hospitality suites. Lucky for me Rocco had bigger fish to fry as his chauffeur ended up making a plea deal and ratted his boss out for a murder rap for what the mobster referred to as “trunk music”. I was relieved that I didn’t have to enter the witness protection program and move to Boise Idaho. In the end a guest for life was created... it just