Hotel69

ences occurred last year in a Swiss

hotel. After registering, the reception

clerk inadvertently gave me the key to

the wrong room. Luckily, I didn’t

walk in on anyone—although that has

happened to me on a few occasions.

After unpacking I tried to make a few

long distance telephone calls. The

same clerk, believing I was someone

who had sneaked into an unoccupied

room for the purpose of making free

calls, kept insisting that the lines were

busy. After more than an hour of

frustration, I went down to the lobby

to discover the real reason why the

overseas lines were so busy at midnight. But by then it was too late to

place my calls.

Hospitality certainly appears to be a

dying art. This doesn’ t mean that you

can’t find it--but it is usually found

only in the smaller hotels and lodges.

Unfortunately, international meetings

need to be held in large hotels where

‘‘hospitality” is a foreign word, In

such places, contrary to the popular

phrase, the customer is never right.

For example, several years ago 1

made a reservation at a Sheraton

Hotel in New Orleans. I arrived close

to midnight, accompanied by two of

my children. Even though our reservation had been confirmed only three

hours earlier, I was told there was no

record of it. They even denied the

existence of the telephone operator

whose name 1 quoted as having made

the confirmation. The uncooperative

manager of that hotel didn’t find a

room until 1 started shouting as loudly

as possible that I would not leave until

he found one, even if he had to deep

in the lobby himself. They could hear

me several blocks away on Burbon

Street, above the sound of several

Dixieland bands. Thirty minutes later

I had my room--and a very hoarse

voice. This tactic reminds me of the

line from the movie ‘‘Network”

where the main character, Howard

Beale (Peter Finch), advises the audience to go to their windows and

scream out loud, “I’m mad as hell

and I’m not gonna take it any more!”

198

In Latin countries, it is impossible

to find anyone who can spell or pronounce my name--it is often filed

under Garcia. The French pronounce

it gu~eeyeld. Given the different languages and cultures, I suppose such

mistakes are to be expected. But

should the same thing happen in my

own country ? Recently, I arrived at a

posh San Francisco hotel at 11:45

p.m. The room clerk dutifully

searched his reservation records, and

after going through several files finally

located mine under a misspelled version of my name. A victim of another

clerk’s bad penmanship, I was exasperated to discover that I had been

filed under Satyfed

Apparently hotel managers, unlike scientists, rare] y travel themselves.

Or if they do travel, perhaps they are

so familiar with standard hotel operating procedure that they know precisely when to arrive. Just as restaurant

hostesses and headwaiters save the

best tables for the last to arrive, so

clerks do the same with rooms--the

worst always seem to go to the first to

check in. If you arrive at a hotel past

midnight—and they can find your reservation-you are apt to receive a

three-room suite with a king-size bed.

You are told, “This is all we have

left. ” Should you arrive before noon,

you will be lucky to get into your

room at all, since its availability does

not depend on how fatigued you may

be or on how fat in advance your

reservation was made, but rather on

the order in which the housekeeper

chooses to make up the rooms. I’ve

slept many hours in hotel lobbies

while maids chased guests out of their

rooms in order to make their beds--

while my empty room went

untouched.

However, I don’t want to be too

harsh on hotel maids. They are among

the most neglected and underpaid

people in the services field. And it is

too easy to blame them for hotel mismanagement and disorganization. I

always seek out the maid and put my

tip in her hand--with much greater

pleasure than with the bellhop, who

expects a dollar for carrying my briefcase.

One time I arrived at one of the

really posh hotels in London. It was

8:00 a.m. London time but 3:00 a.m.

in Philadelphia. I was told that my

room, which had been reserved since

the previous day, wasn’ t ready because the maid couldn’t prepare it.

I’hey were waiting for a guest to depart, having rented my room to him

even though I had paid for it in advance. I fell asleep in the lobby and

they didn’t call me until after noon!

If there’s one thing I’ve learned

about hotels it is this: they are de-

$igned primarily for the benefit of the

people who work there. Not only

must guests fend for themselves, but

they are often made to feel like intruders or outcasts. I particularly dislike the disdainful glare of the doorman who expects to be tipped for

~pening a cab door or lifting a bag out

]f your hand even though you didn’ t

ask for the help. And then the bellTop takes over where the doorman

199

leaves off--usually 10 yards away. This

double-tipping ploy is aggravated by

archaic hotel union rules. These

agreements define the territorial

limits of the doorman and bellhop as

those boundaries which maximize tips

to both. But there are wonderful exceptions. The doorman at a famous

hotel in Copenhagen was delightful

before he retired as a rich man. In

Philadelphia the most courteous doorman in town works for Bookbinders,

a restaurant near ISI”

When in Europe, I desperately look

forwtid to finding the Internatiorzai

Herald Tri%une. It is amazing how inaccessible it can be if you don’ t carefully plan for its purchase. Hotels

never think to reserve one copy in the

lobby for late arrivals.

I can’t understand why hotels provide TV sets but not a daily TV guide

so that you don’t have to spend ten

minutes scrambling through the

channels in order to find something

interesting. One day’ I expect that

hotel guests will have access to View.

data or a similar news system. Viewdata is an experimental Britisk

system for which ISI provides a sci.

ence news segment. You simply dia.

any one of several categories in

which you are interested, and View.

data displays the most recent new:

reports on your TV screen. The pro

vlslon of free movies via closed-circui[

TV in hotels should also be et-t

couraged.

1 resent the preferential treatmen

given to those who drink alcohol. Arc

those of us who drink rarely or not a

d] unworthy of consideration? That

some hotel would refuse to bring hot

:hocolate to my room but would

gladly deliver a bottle of Scotch or any

Dther alcoholic beverage seems to me

[o be discriminatory, as well as inconvenient. It is therefore a delight that

certain hotels in Paris now have a

combination bar and ice cream parlor

open until 3:00 a.m.

Hotels traditionally provide soap in

generous quantities. I’ve often

wondered what happens to all those

slightly used bars of soap. Do the

hotels recycle them ? I‘d gladly accept

a smaller bar of soap if only they

would supply one-shot doses of shampoo and toothpaste--two items among

many that the weary traveller never

seems able to find when they are

needed.

And is it so crazy to suggest that a

pool or sauna be open as late as midnight or as early as 7:OO a.m. ? I’m

always arriving too early or too late for

such pleasures. Even in Iceland, which

is known for its natural hot-water

springs and numerous swimming

pools, 1 couldn’t use the facilities because they were closed in the hours

available to me after business obligations.

Too many hotel setvices just are not

geared to the needs of the traveller.

Consider the problem of laundry and

dry cleaning. Hotels everywhere have

yet to discover the washing machine

or, as it is euphemistically referred to,

automatic laundry setvice. Heaven

forbid that a swanky, international

hotel chain should install its own

200

washing or dry cleaning machine, o

even a coin-operated one that it

guests could use.

Did you ever try to get clothe!

cleaned or pressed after 5:00 p.m. o]

on a Saturday or Sunday? It just isn’ 1

done. I’ve frequently arrived at hotel:

on Friday evenings, after six or sever

hours in transit, and requested that :

suit be pressed. The answer I’ve re.

ceived most often is that they’d bt

happy to accommodate me on Mon.

day morning.

But of course everyone knows tha~

hotel guests are very refined. Wc

never spill drinks on our clothes. Wc

emerge from hours of travel without a

crease or srain. And we know how m

pack clothes so that they won’!

wrinkle, Fortunately, wrinkle-free

clothes and quick-drying fabrics make

the old adage work--the Lord helps

those who help themselves. I often

wash my own socks, undemvear, and

even shirts on a long journey. And 1

carry my own shoeshine cloth.

I remember a time when it was a

beautiful European custom ro leave

your dull, scuffed shoes outside the

door overnighr and awaken to find

them spotless and brilliantly shined.

This was never a custom, nor is it safe

ro try, in an American hotel. Recently, I visited Germany and Italy

and discovered that the hall porter’s

shoeshine has been replaced by a mechanical shoepolisher. I don’t mind

this so much except that the neutral

polish they provide is no substitute for

real shoe polish. So I carry my own

supply.

These common hotel annoyances

aside, my greatest agony is hotel telephones and their operators. I have lost

incalculable time because of hotels’

inadequate training of telephone operators. In my opinion, hotels ought

to require phone operators to have

degrees in information science. Considering what some graduate information specialists earn these days as

librarians, they might just as well become telephone operators! The ideal

telephone operator would master the

local geography and be fully familiar

with the neighboring restaurants,

theaters, museums, arhletic facilities,

points of historical interest, clubs, and

other places of culture and entertainment.

One solution to the problem of

providing information to hotel guests

might be the European concierge--

almost an unknown phenomenon in

America. I’ve had great help from the

concierge in European hotels. But he

or she usually can’t tell you exactly

what musical or other cultural events

are occurring. The Hyatt Regency in

New Orleans does have a concierge.

She was very helpful to me during a

recent visit. Hotels everywhere provide guests with little booklets that

adverrise the nearest striptease cabaret

but rarely mention the local chamber

music society or jazz club. A decent

concierge would keep aware of local

cultural events and maintain an accurate cinema and theater schedule.

Although several cities have printed

guides, they are rarely found at the

hotel reception desk.

201

In any case, a decent concierge

would enable the phone operator to

concentrate on operating the telephone system. The necessity of reliable hotel phone service is illustrated

by some examples.

About ten years ago 1 visited Portland, Oregon, to give a lecture at the

Portland State College. A message

containing the time and place of the

lecture was to be left for me at the

Hilton Hotel.

Meanwhile, I went across the rivel

to visit some Current Contetzt~ readers

at the Crown Zellerbach research laboratories. During my visit, I called

the hotel every half hour, expecting to receive a message indicating

the time and place of the agt-eedupon lecture. When 1 came back tc

the hotel that afternoon, there still

was no message. I called the professol

involved, only to be informed that 1

was supposed to be there an houl

earlier--that >0 students and faculq

had arrived and left after waiting 3(

minutes.

The hotel denied receiving th(

message. Later on, it turned out that :

clerk had misfiled it in some othe:

guest’s key slot. My attorney informec

me that the hotel was liable only fo

provable damages. How do you es

tablish the worth of a lecture yot

haven’t delivered? What is the dolls

value of >0 wasted half-hours or :

missed opportunity to meet some in

teresting people?

Such experiences lead you to or

ganize arrangements in a less casua

fashion. Your life becomes one o

edundancy--always checking and rechecking to make certain there have

)een no slip-ups. In fact, the situation

s so bad these days that I always call

:he hotel and ask for myself, to check

f I am registered in the right room.

W three separate occasions in London

:his year the operators denied 1 was

-egistered.

I did have a very positive experience

with hotel telephone operators in

~openhagen once. The hotel’s manayer had calculated that the audience

txpected for my lecture would fit

comfortably into what they called a

:onference room. However, the ceiling was so low that we could not raise

the movie screen high enough to be

~een. We had to transfer the lecture to

the club of the local Engineering

Society. But how would we notify the

audience? The operators looked up all

the registered attendees’ phone numbers and called as many as possible.

Then we posted a bellboy at the front

door and arranged to use the hotel

station wagon to shuttle all of those

who arrived at the hotel over to the

lecture. The hotel had gotten the Engineering Society’s chef to quickly arrange a fantastic display of hors

d’ouevres and drinks. Everyone was

kept delightfully happy during the

delay.

Some hotel telephone operators try

to be helpful but cannot overcome the

deficiencies of an inadequately staffed

switchboard. That is why I conscientiously avoid any hotel that does not

have an automatic dialing system.

This may deny me the pleasures and

202

advantages of a small hotel, but I’d

rather suffer the impersonal atmosphere of a large hotel and avoid frustrating delays in making calls. Many

small European hotels now offer free

local calls, a practice which is not

widespread in the U.S.A. But many

European hotels also place a scandalous surcharge on long-distance

calls. In Spain one hotel refuses to

place collect calls. They insist that

such operator-assisted calls are delayed

for hours. However, the charge for

direct dialing is triple that from a

public phone.

One problem I often have while

traveling is beyond my diplomatic

capabilities. How do you tell friends

or colleagues you have just arrived in

their town, after traveling 5,000

miles, but don’t have time to accept

their invitation to dinner or to visit

their lab or tour their university?

When I was in eastern Europe recently, I found this particularly frustrating because the opportunities to

meet foreign scientists in that part of

the world ate less common than elsewhere. I always feel bad when I am in

a friend’s home town and would like

to say hello but, due to other commitments, simply do not have the time to

accept the friend’s hospitality. As the

publisher of Cuwent Contents, I value

the opportunity to talk to as many

readers as possible. Local calls are a

way of keeping in touch. So if you

receive a call one day, torglve me d 1

don’t accept your invitation to lunch,

My complaints about hotels may

seem exaggerated. Indeed, my caustic

remarks may appear unkind to the

many individual hotels and their employees who treat guests quite royally.

After having enjoyed many pleasurable stays in certain hotels, it is fairly

easy to criticize the bad experiences.

One tends to forget the pleasant

though uneventful visits and to remember only the horror stories.

For example, recently 1 was late for

my departure on a flight to London.

Pan Am refused to let me carry my

suitcase on board, so it was sent on the

following flight. When I arrived at my

hotel in London the receptionist inquired about my missing baggage.

Then he took a look at me and said he

would contact the housekeeper, who

keeps an electric razor on hand. But

the hotel could not supply the other

necessities that are impossible to obtain at a late hour. Always keep a

spare toothbrush in your briefcase. I

hesitate to carry toothpaste. The last

time I did it broke open and messed

up the first draft of this polemic.

I fully agree with Samuel Johnson,

a literary man of wide-ranging travels,

who so eloquently stated 200 years

ago: ‘‘There is nothing which has yet

been contrived by man by which so

much happiness is produced as by a

good tavern or inn. ”