Page 15 - ATA

LOCAL Monday 2 SepteMber 2019
A17

Hotel

Hustle

Column by: Shanella Pantophlet
Devil in the details

The strangest thing happened the other day,
one I figured worth sharing since in hindsight
it’s a pretty funny story. It all started with a bit
of departmental miscommunication on the
status of a few rooms. We had provided main-
tenance with some rooms to do some preven-
tative maintenance in and during our Friday
morning meeting, housekeeping mentioned
the room had yet to be worked in. Of course
this caused a bit of a ruckus with Saturday
being our check in day and my mind flying
into all the work that would go into having to
change assignments.

After some back and forth, I finally decided to Now everyone is in a panic because what is
just run up to the rooms in question and have happening?
a look at them for myself. Granted I have no Just then two housekeeping supervisors walk in
technical skills, but sometimes you need to just and we ask them about the living room color.
see something for yourself. I got the resales Both seem unsure and think they have rooms
agent to come up with me and have a look with blue living rooms, but they aren’t sure. Col-
at the rooms, we started on the one closest to lectively we decide to check out other rooms,
us that required a patch and paint. As soon before calling in maintenance for answers. So
as we walked into the room a curious series of I and the sales agent head to the stairs in order
events unfolded. Bear in mind I’ve been work- to go to the second room to be inspected. As
ing in the same place for almost nine years we are in the stairwell, I receive a call from the
and our resales agent spends every day show- maintenance chief to discuss the earlier mis-
ing rooms as part of her sales pitch. The both of communication. Once we all have our ducks
us are very much familiar with the rooms. in a row I ask him about the living room color.
Imagine our surprise when we walk in and no- Finally he confirms that in fact several suites
tice the dining room wall is painted blue. Tea had their living room painted tea light blue by
light blue to be specific. The sales agent and his predecessor.
I both look at each other perplexed for a mo- As if by an extra bit of confirmation, the next
ment, because the living room walls are sup- room we went into had the same color in
posed to be cream colored. How did main- the living room, but it was much more subtle
tenance make such a big mistake? I quickly She had no recollection of any living rooms since it was dry. It just goes to show that even
take some pictures and we make our way to being blue. I call down to the General Man- if you’ve been working somewhere for a long
housekeeping, maybe they have an explana- ager’s office to advise him the room is good to time and think you know it like the back of your
tion for this. We get to the housekeeping coor- go, however for some reason the living room hand, sometimes you go blind to the details. I
dinators office and show her the colors and to wall is blue and I ask him if he’s aware of this think after this we will all be a bit more alert the
our horror, her reaction is the same as our own. change? He states the wall should be cream. next time we go to a room.q

Aruban born and bred Shanella Pantophlet is passionate about tour-
ism. That is the world she studied and works in, so we might as well call
her a specialist. Luckily for Aruba Today Shanella also loves to write.
And together with the fact that the majority of our readers are tourists,
we found ourselves a perfect combination for a column: Hotel Hustle.