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- Get to work and put my things away in my locker in the employee break room.
- Go check answering machine to see who has called out already for the day. Listen to lame excuses. (ex: "My dog's in labor", "I think I have food poisening", "Family Emergency again", "Grandma's sick")
- Get on computer in office and see how our store did in sales yesterday, vs. last year. Down again.
- Also check to see how many credit card applications we opened yesterday. Not enough. Not good.
- Check e-mails to see what kind of pea-brained ideas Corporate Office has dreamed up for us today.
- Try to call other employees in to cover for all the employees who have called out. No luck. No one will answer their phones when they see it's someone from "the store" calling.
- Have a morning "pep" meeting. Try to look genuinely enthusiastic about all the stupid corporate pea-brained ideas.
- Get store open. Phones start to ring off their hooks with every stupid question and customer complaint imaginable.
- Go around and scold people who did not get enough credit card applications or whatever yesterday. Tell them to "do better" today. Remind them how important the "Customer" is, and to smile and say "How De Do!", or "We Want to Wow You Today", or whatever the latest stupid Corporate Pea Brained idea is, to each and every customer. Be glad I can stay in the office and don't have to do it as much as they do.
- Run from one department to another trying to resolve customer problems and fix incompetent employee's mistakes.
- Lunch. Best time of the workday.
- Back to running all over the store trying to resolve customer issues. Smile sincerely through all of this while thinking "Get me the he** out of here", and "Why the he** didn't I go to college?!"
- Check answering machine and find out that half the night-time crew has called out as well. Unrewarding, part-time, minimum wage jobs with absolutely no benefits? Do they really want to risk their jobs this way?
- Try to call people in again to cover the night-time call outs. Again, no one will answer their phones.
- Reassure Store Manager as I leave that I am just as concerned as he is about the "poor performance" in credit applications, or whatever we're pushing on the customers right now.
- Smile from ear to ear on the inside as I clock out and leave for the day.
- Go home and cook dinner for my family, while drinking plenty of wine and listining to good music!
Tomorrow's another day, and I'm alive, so life is good!
A Day in the Life of a Hotel Front Desk Representative
3:00PM - Count cash drawer, receive information from first shifter about anything that may have happened during the day, read log/communication book to see what's new around the hotel.
4:00PM - Start baking cookies.
10:30PM - Count down cash drawer, put together cash drop if there is one.
10:45PM - Communicate with auditor about anything that may have happened on my shift.
11:00PM - Clock out.
The rest of my shift is hard to predict and depends on the day and number of guests. In a given day, I am responsible for the following:
Check in guests.
Answer phones.
Make reservations.
Lots of cleaning.
Help in laundry.
Run supplies to guest rooms.
Handle guest complaints.
Complete special projects for managers.
Organize, organize, organize! Usually when I get in, the desk, kitchen and lobby are a MESS and it's up to me to keep it orderly.
Send faxes.
Answer guest questions, make small talk, etc.
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I've met some fantastic people through this job. I've met people from all walks of life, which has been very interesting and unpredictable. The job itself is really easy, once you know the software. Most of the time I work alone on my shift, which I love, because I hate being micromanaged.
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I work for slave drivers. We don't get breaks, no benefits whatsoever. The other day the owner came in and saw me sitting down (the first time in 6 hours), flipped $hit because of it. I am expected to be a robot. They hold me responsible for sales, even though I cannot do much besides list our amenities, which are at best average for the hotels in the area. The program that we use for reservations is internet based and was very poorly programmed. Every other screen results in an error message, which makes things annoying for us and the guest. Oh and the pay sucks.
It can be a great job, but the poor work environment is destroying me. Thankfully I had an interview a few days ago and will hopefully be moving down to one or two days per week at this hellhole. Perhaps I'll quit altogether. Anyway, anyone who is looking for a career in this field needs to make sure to get a gig working at a respectable hotel. You need to be able to act happy all the time, as with any job in customer service. If you're a good actor, this would be a great job for you!
Time is mostly irrelevant where I work, so I won't break it down that way
Up @ 5:30, gym @ 6.
Get to work around 7:45, say hello to our receptionist and maybe a pilot or two.
Clock in @ 8.
OH NOES the actuator is busted on the thrust reversers of a transient aircraft! Spend 2 hours trying to find a new/used/rental. Find one. Pilot/owner changes his mind. 2 hours wasted.
Get yelled at for 20 minutes about something that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Boss figures it out and walks away without apologizing.
Plane is about to leave but pilot can't find his tie. Rummage through upstairs storage area to find new tie. Find tie. Go downstairs to give tie to pilot, find out pilot found tie and has already left. Nobody bothered to tell me. Half hour wasted.
Detailers complain that their new cleaning solutions is 'not concentrated enough', get on phone with vendor and complain. Propeller is having issues on the KingAir. Need to order parts? Maybe. We'll tell you right after the deadline for AOG overnight has passed, even though we've known about it for hours. Then, we'll blame it on you when the parts don't come in on time. Not so secretly, the mechanics want to go home early tomorrow, so they purposely order parts a little too late so they don't come in on time.
LUNCH with the ladies. The only normal part of the day.
After lunch, get new tires for the tug(s), pick up coffee that a certain customer HAS TO HAVE, buy a fifth of Johnny Walker black for boss, champagne cups for company event next month, BevMo loves me.
Try to find new stamps for the accounting dept., fuel nozzles on the KingAir need to be sent in to be pressure checked, Eddy Current needs to be performed on one of our wheels, stock order needs to be made, RMAs need to be filled out and we've got a new contract that I 'need to go over' for our parts ordering with Hawker/Beechcraft. Meeting with a new vendor, dealing with old ones, answering emails, entering invoices, answering questions about money and time for shipping, sending my hazmat records to the FAA.
Then....it's home. Take the dogs for a walk along the estuary, make a decent dinner and then sleep at around 9ish.
3:40PM - pre-work smoke
3:52ish PM - Clock in, get my till for my register
4:00PM to 7:20PM - Bag groceries
7:20PM to 7:50PM - Dinner
7:50 PM to 10:30PM - Bag groceries, close up shop
10:30PM to 11:00PM - Post-work smoke, walk home
I'm real tired so I don't feel like typing the nitty gritty, but it's actually a lot more fun than I made it sound right there :P the labor's not that hard and I get to talk to people. Sometimes I have nice conversations. And it's good small-talk practice.
Wake up an hour before whenever Im supposed to be in (Shift work. NO SET SCHEDULE from week to week)
Call to see which job Im doing that morning
Dress, get dogs wrangled up into the back yard
15 minute drive to work
Clock in
Stand at register for 4 hours OR take out customers/clean/be errand woman. Deal with customer's being stupid, yelling at you, or simply treating you like you're a servant.
Break
Stand at register for another 4 hours/clean/be errand woman. Possibly train new hires and spend that 4 hours periodically chewing some kid for sticking something somewhere where the customer is going to blame me for it.
Wait on said register for someone to relieve me, OR try to sneak out before my "lovely" boss tries to keep me for longer than I was scheduled.
I decided to take a leap of faith and follow my dreams...
My new schedule:
NO ALARM CLOCK - Thank you, lord!
7:30 AM - Usually up...sometimes 8:00
8:00 AM - Take dog on 30 minute walk; make breakfast when back
9:00 AM - REGIS AND KELLY
10:00 AM - Shower
11:30 - 1:30 PM - I work my home-based business
1:30 - 5:00 PM - FREE TIME to study, write papers, work my business if need extra time, eat lunch, head to pool, etc..
6:00 - 9:20 PM - In class
How did I do this?
I researched companies and Direct Selling until I found the perfect fit for me! I leverage my time by helping others re-direct the money they are currently spending each month to safer and healthier products in the Health and Wellenss Business. I also share with them how they too can turn their expenses into an income. The sky is the limit...part-time work for full-time pay.
The best part of owning my own home-based business is being my own boss. The worst part of owning my own business is being my own boss. It takes dedication, focus and consistency to be successful in the Direct Selling Industry. If you find a fit for you and work a little bit each day, with the right company you can create your own destiny (and income potential)!
My dream was to finish college and with the crashing economy, I found myself working longer hours, much harder, wearing multiple hats, hating life, and losing money. There are two types of people...those who take chances and create their own destiny, and those who let other people decide it for them. I wanted to leverage my time with my hard work, not the CEO of a company that did not care about it's employees. I learned there are businesses that thrive even in a down economy, and I am so thankful I had the courage to change my life.
I have no set schedule. Days that I ride with the airplane might go something like this...
4:00 am get up
4:45 am head to airport
5:30 am look at cargo load and work up a loadplan
6:00 am start loading airplane
8:00 am finish loading cargo.
8:30 am check catering and secure crew bags.
9:00 am sit in jumpseat and be totally bored for 6 hrs
3:00 pm unload/upload cargo
6:00 pm sit in jumpseat and be bored for another 5 hrs
11:00 pm unload cargo
2:00 am close up airplane and head to hotel
3:00 am do reports for an hour
4:00 am go to bed
6:30 am get up
7:00 am head back to airport
8:00 am load cargo
11:00 am sit in jumpseat and be totally bored for 5 hours.
4:00 pm unload/load cargo
7:00 pm sit in jumpseat and be totally bored for 6 hours
1:00 am unload cargo
3:00 am go home (a hotel where I am based at)
4:00 am do paperwork for 2 hours
6:00 am go to bed and try to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep
9am - 12pm:
- Check email and to-do list. Add to the list if needed
- Set up my robot for a run
- Work with automation tech to optimize my assay
- Track down colleague to halt one project, talk with another colleague about another. End up with a book and do some reading
- Lunch meeting (2 hours). This meeting was pretty good (techno was in the mix lol). Read the book while at the meeting as well.
2-5pm
- Back in the lab, work with tech, process data, finish run, do some experiments
- Back at my desk, work on .ppt presentation, read
9pm right now the next day. Still working on my presentation for tomorrow. The wine is not helping or CD!
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