By "real situation" I mean 2 different things.
Part 1:
Working through the weekend being a snapshot at my future... I was in the Front Desk last week (last week? there was no weekend to separate so I'm a little confused...) and had Thursday off to go to Busch Gardens with some other front desk people, including the manager, but of course...good ol Florida...it rained and thunderstormed for the first time in days. So I had to come in Sat at 3pm-1am for no good reason. Anyway now I'm all thrown off because Front Desk ended Saturday, and Guest Services started today, Sunday.
Front Desk was fun- the manager is young and fun but can still get down to business and is honest with me, which was nice. It was kind of an off week because I'm doing a quick Rooms rotation now, but will be back later for 11 weeks to really get into it. So I did some online training I had to get out of the way, shadowed and helped out the front desk agents, attended Rooms meetings and kind of followed around Nate, the manager. I definitely found out that since the FD is the face of the entire hotel, they have allll the interesting and sticky situations to deal with. They put out all the guests' fires and try to keep them all happy, which isn't an easy job. It was really good to come right from Housekeeping to FD though because they go back and forth a lot on who's fault a problem was and I think I had some enlightening/reminder information for them on how it was all happening down there as well. I know that's the hope and goal of the program, so it's good to see it following through.
Now I'm in guest services, (pic is of the front drive of the hotel) which is in charge of the bellmen and valet, shuttle drivers, and ensuring VIPs are taken care of. Noon check-out today was really busy with a huge group checking out and getting the 2 bellman back and forth to rooms to help them with their luggage on request. I actually really like it so far, because you get a lot of guest interaction but don't have to deal with as many sticky problems, while having more people management simultaneously. It also seems like these employees could use some new management- they know they can walk over the 2 managers there (there's a "guest relations" manager: Ron, who I'm with now and deals with the VIPs, and then Chris, the Guest Services Mgr, who deals with the employees and was also a CMT not long ago). I was helping at the door today and one of the guys told me about how often he calls in sick and takes breaks when it gets too busy...I reminded him that I may be his manager in a few months and if so he's getting fired - he was about my age so I could joke around with him about it, but I was definitely serious... lol. :-) They said they had a woman manager once and she was the best because she was really involved and helped them out- and they thought another one would be a great idea. They told me they'd put me in the hall of fame of I installed automatic doors, which I think they should so there'd be 2 less positions to pay... I'm absorbing all the "ways to be a good manager" tips for sure.
...speaking of paying people that brings me to part 2 of the "real situation"...
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