What do they actually do?????

In the eyes of our colleagues it would certainly seem that Simon, the assistant manager and myself don’t really do a lot with the time we spend at the hotel.

It is fair to say that to them, it would seem that most of the time we spend there, is spent surfing on social networking sites and/or the UK’s leading employment search engines and playing games such as “guess the year” whilst blasting songs from various “Now that’s what I call Music” compilations on YouTube.

That’s how it would seem. But I think by now we all know, that things in our hotel are most of the time, very far from what they seem to be.

I invite you to read the following conversation that took place between myself and Simon, between 12:00am and 12:05am, the early hours of Saturday morning when I was abruptly awoken by my phone after falling asleep on the sofa to Lee Evans – Wired and Wonderful.

“Hello?”
“Hiya Em it’s Simon. Erm… sorry for waking you up again (when he said “again” he was referring to the 1:00am phone call last weekend when he requested my assistance in trying to identify from which bedroom window a group of rowdy Scottish teenagers were urinating) But I need to know how we block bedrooms on the internet agent sites so that people can’t book them. These people keep on booking rooms for tomorrow night and we haven’t got any left and I need to go onto to our internet agents and update the availability to say that we haven’t got any rooms and this American woman from booking.com has just rang and she was like, haven’t you got any rooms and I was like no and she was like well it says you have and I’m like, well I need to change it but I don’t know how to and I need your help Em”
“What’s happened?”
“Em, How do I go into booking.com to update our availability for tomorrow night?”

Seriously. Midnight.

“Right, you know that green ring binder that’s always hanging around reception?”
“Yeah?”
“Find that”
“Ok. Hang on. There’s a green one here that says agent info on it”
“That’s the one Si”
“Ok, got it”
“Right, now smack it against your forehead”
“What?”
“Go onto the internet and in the favourites folder, click on the link that says hotel admin”
“There isn’t anything that says hotel admin”
“What about hotel websites?”
“Hang on, yeah there’s one that says hotel websites”
“Ok, click on that”
“Clicked on it”
“Now click on the agent site you want to update”
“There’s a link that says booking.com”
“Yep, fine, click on that”
“Ok, clicked on it. Ok It’s just searching. Just hang on. How are you anyway? you alright?”

Midnight.

“Yeah. Im alright”
“Ok now it’s saying log in”
“Right now look in the green folder”
“The agent info folder?”
“Yeah, and in the front you’ll find the log in details for booking.com”
“It says booking.com username and password”
“Yeah, enter those in the boxes Si”
“Ok, I’m in”
“Right so there should be a chart that’s got dates across the top and is colour coded according to our availability”
“There’s no chart”
“Are you in the availability section”
“No”
“Right, go into availability”
“How do I do that”
“There should be a link that says availability”
“There’s one here that says rates and availability”
“Click on the rates and availability button Simon”

Can I just remind you once more that this conversation was taking place at midnight. I was still lying flat on the sofa face up, one arm and leg hanging off the edge, Lee Evans Wired and Wonderful blasting on the TV and some kind of conjealed fur, filmed across my teeth. Anyway…


“Right, I’m on the rates and availability section”
“Ok, is there a chart”
“Yeah, its all different colours”
“Ok, well for tomorrows date, all the little squares that are green need to be red”
“How do I make them red”
“Double click on them”
“Ok just clicking. Oh god yeah they’ve gone red now”
“Have they”
“Yeah”
“Ah that’s nice, right, now just click save and you can log out”
“There isn’t a button that says save”
“What?”
“There isn’t a button that says save”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah”
“Is there a button that says something that’s like the equivalent to save”
“No”
“Are you sure”
“Yeah”
“What about update?”
“What?”
“Is there a button that say’s update?”
“There is a button that says update yeah”
“Yeah click on the button that say’s update Simon”

Midnight people. Midnight.


“Ok I’ve done it”
“Right, that’s done then. Now you can log out”
“Ugh, thanks Em. This crazy American bitch from booking.com rang and gave me loads of s**t because these 2 people had booked a twin room and we didn’t have any twin rooms so I rang the guest and said we haven’t got any twin rooms then they rang the crazy american at booking.com and then she rang me and she was like, haven’t you got any twin rooms and I’m like, no, and she’s like well it says you have on the website and I’m like yeah because I haven’t updated it and she’s like why and I’m like, because the internet’s down and she’s like why’s your internet down and I’m like, because there’s road works and she’s like, well what are you gonna do about it and I’m like well I’m gonna sort it and she’s like well I think you should and I just thought screw you crazy bitch”

“Simon I’m gonna go now”
“Ok”
“And I’m gonna see you tomorrow”
“Ok”
“Night Simon”
“Night Emma, and thanks”