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Fair warning: While not explicit, this story contains reference to a certain bodily fluid, and you might not want to read it while you're eating. It's quite possibly one of the most horrible experiences of my working life.
Common belief and movie media would have you believe that small town girls like myself are sweet, naieve girl-next-door types, innocent of the dangers the world poses to them. Not so. In reality, most of us are filled with enough tales of the dangers the outer world poses to us that it's a wonder we aren't all agoraphobic. If you listened to the cautionary tales of your elders, by the time you were twelve you would have been kidnapped and sold into slavery no less than four times. This was an especially prevalent fear in a town with a healthy tourist base, where housewives watched nervously from behind pulled blinds, imagining that the elderly couple in the bermuda shorts and the RV plastered with roadmaps were there to fill up burlap sacks with small children.
As such, there were a lot of restrictions placed on one of the first jobs I ever had; cleaning hotel rooms when I was fourteen.
As long as you had a social security number and written permission from your parents, you were free to throw yourself into the work pool at thirteen, which I readily did because . . . well . . . money. With so many RVs and truckers trundling through our little burg, we were positively suffused with hotels of varying quality and stench, and the cleaning staff on most of them consisted of us teenagers, at least on weekends and during the summer. If you passed through my hometown in the summer of '98, there's a good chance you might have seen yours truly arguing on a hotel balcony with one of the other cleaning girls over whether or not a phone number was, in fact, a tip (hint: IT'S NOT.).
The place I worked at, while not quite at the level where the cockroaches were taller than I was and carried switchblades and 'do rags, wasn't exactly the Hilton, either. It was a single horseshoe of rooms sitting off the main road, the paint flaking, the vacancy sign perpetually on the fritz, and the rooms themselves, though tidy, were faded and tired. Every bed had a bow in the middle, careworn by countless backsides -- which, I am happy to inform you, lead to copious uses of bleach and other harsh chemicals that probably took years off my life but at least rendered the place sanitary.
Because of liability issues and the potential for drifters waiting to carry off our nubile young bodies to be sold for beans or harmonicas, we were only allowed to work during the day, and then only in pairs; I suppose working under the assumption that we could protect each other, but most of us probably subscribed to the old saying, "I don't have to outrun a bear. I just have to outrun YOU." Most of us actually got on well with one another, and in fact tips were often a source of amusement rather than jealousy or bargaining.
In the three weeks I worked at this motel, my tips included:
- A purple rabbit's foot keychain
- A coupon for a free beer
- A swiss army knife too rusted to open without having a tetanus shot at the ready
- A copy of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand (Geez, if you hate me, why don't you just tell me already instead of leaving this?)
I know these were all tips, because each of these were accompanied by a note identifying them as such. The lack of money never actually bothered me; it was actually a fascinating insight into character. The phone number, for instance, came from an otherwise unassuming looking college student who apparently admired my purple hair and my partner's diminutive stature; the number was addressed to both of us.
My partner during my extremely brief tenure was a girl named C, who I knew in a vague sort of way from school. With the hotel room doors flung wide open to let the musty air circulate, we flipped mattresses, changed beddings, and made sure no towels had been stolen, which happened more often than you might think. (What possesses someone to take a hotel towel that has seen so many strange crevices, anyway?)
On the day that I quit, C and I are cleaning a room that had seen better days as recently as yesterday. I'm always astonished at the mess people manage to make overnight, but this one is particularly impressive. All of the sheets, including the mattress cover, are strewn across the floor. An overturned bottle of Orange Crush soda lies glued to it's own syrup on the nightstand, a wide stain on the floor below. The carpet is also covered in muddy footprints that look as though they were ground in with serious intent. There are greasy handprints all over the television screen. There are half-empty cartons of chinese food stationed like greasy sentries at odd points throughout the room. The sink in the bathroom is covered in globs of toothpaste and beard trimmings. There's an ashtray in the bathub overflowing with butts and roaches (the paper kind). The towels are in a sodden mess shoved behind the toilet.
And, most telling, there's a discreet little calling card from one of the less reputable escort agencies sitting beside the phone, where something is grimed in between the number pads.
Of course, there's no tip in the little envelope we provide either.
So C and I are bartering over who's going to do what. While the main room actually has the bigger mess, C has an issue with working in bathrooms that have recently held unknown ass, so she wants me to take care of that. I don't particularly mind this time; while it's wet and untidy in there, it's the sort of sloppy mess a five year old might leave instead of the less savory sort I've actually had to clean before.
I'm in the bathroom, marvelling over the fact that it looks like our smoker has actually stubbed cigarettes out on the walls and ceiling, and listening to C gripe in the next room. A habitually tidy person, the sort for whom coasters are never merely an option, cleaning up after other people is driving her a little bit crazier every day, and she exclaims loudly every time she finds some new mess for my benefit.
"Cookie, there's a pizza box in the closet! THE CLOSET!"
"Cookie, is the mattress supposed to be this shade? I don't think so! GAWD!"
"Cookie, he left half-eaten candy bars under the bed and they're melted into the carpet now! RUDE! I'm not cleaning that!"
And all the while I'm sort of making absent-minded little agreeable noises, at least until she starts shrieking.
I run out into the main room to find her, still screaming, dancing wildly from foot to foot and flailing her hands above her head.
"What's wrong with you? People are going to think I'm murdering you!" I hiss. "Shut up!"
She stops dancing and I'm startled to see she's actually crying in disgust. She holds her hands limply out to me and I see that they're . . . well . . . slick with something.
"Cookie . . . oh my God . . . Cookie . . . I reached under the bed to grab the wrappers and . . . oh my God . . . "
I manage to get out of the way just in time to avoid needing to change my shoes before she doubles over and throws up on the floor, before resuming sobbing even harder.
Turns out there were more than candy bar wrappers under that bed. When C reached under to pull them out, she got a fistful of melted chocolate, and used condoms.
MUH.
BUH.
GUH!!!
I would like to say I lead her snivelling into the bathroom and got her cleaned up. I didn't. I ran outside, squealing, ignoring her plaintive cries and shouting, "GET THOSE AWAY FROM ME!" over my shoulder.
I won't describe exactly what her hands looked like, but I will say that there looked to be an UNREASONABLE number of the things lying on the floor.
I quit that day, and so did she. For whatever reason, she felt compelled to tell this story to everyone at school, who, rather than reacting with sympathy, branded her with the nickname "Sticky Fingers" for the better part of the year.
Look, people, I understand messes happen, even gross ones, but for the love of God, if you're leaving behind a mess, tip the room service in your hotel. Maybe you're embarrassed about being a slob, but trust me; nobody remembers the slobs more than they remember the slobs who were cheap, too.
Also, if you're working in a hotel, do yourself a favour and wear gloves. Sometimes, apparently, the customers like to leave traps.
Common belief and movie media would have you believe that small town girls like myself are sweet, naieve girl-next-door types, innocent of the dangers the world poses to them. Not so. In reality, most of us are filled with enough tales of the dangers the outer world poses to us that it's a wonder we aren't all agoraphobic. If you listened to the cautionary tales of your elders, by the time you were twelve you would have been kidnapped and sold into slavery no less than four times. This was an especially prevalent fear in a town with a healthy tourist base, where housewives watched nervously from behind pulled blinds, imagining that the elderly couple in the bermuda shorts and the RV plastered with roadmaps were there to fill up burlap sacks with small children.
As such, there were a lot of restrictions placed on one of the first jobs I ever had; cleaning hotel rooms when I was fourteen.
As long as you had a social security number and written permission from your parents, you were free to throw yourself into the work pool at thirteen, which I readily did because . . . well . . . money. With so many RVs and truckers trundling through our little burg, we were positively suffused with hotels of varying quality and stench, and the cleaning staff on most of them consisted of us teenagers, at least on weekends and during the summer. If you passed through my hometown in the summer of '98, there's a good chance you might have seen yours truly arguing on a hotel balcony with one of the other cleaning girls over whether or not a phone number was, in fact, a tip (hint: IT'S NOT.).
The place I worked at, while not quite at the level where the cockroaches were taller than I was and carried switchblades and 'do rags, wasn't exactly the Hilton, either. It was a single horseshoe of rooms sitting off the main road, the paint flaking, the vacancy sign perpetually on the fritz, and the rooms themselves, though tidy, were faded and tired. Every bed had a bow in the middle, careworn by countless backsides -- which, I am happy to inform you, lead to copious uses of bleach and other harsh chemicals that probably took years off my life but at least rendered the place sanitary.
Because of liability issues and the potential for drifters waiting to carry off our nubile young bodies to be sold for beans or harmonicas, we were only allowed to work during the day, and then only in pairs; I suppose working under the assumption that we could protect each other, but most of us probably subscribed to the old saying, "I don't have to outrun a bear. I just have to outrun YOU." Most of us actually got on well with one another, and in fact tips were often a source of amusement rather than jealousy or bargaining.
In the three weeks I worked at this motel, my tips included:
- A purple rabbit's foot keychain
- A coupon for a free beer
- A swiss army knife too rusted to open without having a tetanus shot at the ready
- A copy of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand (Geez, if you hate me, why don't you just tell me already instead of leaving this?)
I know these were all tips, because each of these were accompanied by a note identifying them as such. The lack of money never actually bothered me; it was actually a fascinating insight into character. The phone number, for instance, came from an otherwise unassuming looking college student who apparently admired my purple hair and my partner's diminutive stature; the number was addressed to both of us.
My partner during my extremely brief tenure was a girl named C, who I knew in a vague sort of way from school. With the hotel room doors flung wide open to let the musty air circulate, we flipped mattresses, changed beddings, and made sure no towels had been stolen, which happened more often than you might think. (What possesses someone to take a hotel towel that has seen so many strange crevices, anyway?)
On the day that I quit, C and I are cleaning a room that had seen better days as recently as yesterday. I'm always astonished at the mess people manage to make overnight, but this one is particularly impressive. All of the sheets, including the mattress cover, are strewn across the floor. An overturned bottle of Orange Crush soda lies glued to it's own syrup on the nightstand, a wide stain on the floor below. The carpet is also covered in muddy footprints that look as though they were ground in with serious intent. There are greasy handprints all over the television screen. There are half-empty cartons of chinese food stationed like greasy sentries at odd points throughout the room. The sink in the bathroom is covered in globs of toothpaste and beard trimmings. There's an ashtray in the bathub overflowing with butts and roaches (the paper kind). The towels are in a sodden mess shoved behind the toilet.
And, most telling, there's a discreet little calling card from one of the less reputable escort agencies sitting beside the phone, where something is grimed in between the number pads.
Of course, there's no tip in the little envelope we provide either.
So C and I are bartering over who's going to do what. While the main room actually has the bigger mess, C has an issue with working in bathrooms that have recently held unknown ass, so she wants me to take care of that. I don't particularly mind this time; while it's wet and untidy in there, it's the sort of sloppy mess a five year old might leave instead of the less savory sort I've actually had to clean before.
I'm in the bathroom, marvelling over the fact that it looks like our smoker has actually stubbed cigarettes out on the walls and ceiling, and listening to C gripe in the next room. A habitually tidy person, the sort for whom coasters are never merely an option, cleaning up after other people is driving her a little bit crazier every day, and she exclaims loudly every time she finds some new mess for my benefit.
"Cookie, there's a pizza box in the closet! THE CLOSET!"
"Cookie, is the mattress supposed to be this shade? I don't think so! GAWD!"
"Cookie, he left half-eaten candy bars under the bed and they're melted into the carpet now! RUDE! I'm not cleaning that!"
And all the while I'm sort of making absent-minded little agreeable noises, at least until she starts shrieking.
I run out into the main room to find her, still screaming, dancing wildly from foot to foot and flailing her hands above her head.
"What's wrong with you? People are going to think I'm murdering you!" I hiss. "Shut up!"
She stops dancing and I'm startled to see she's actually crying in disgust. She holds her hands limply out to me and I see that they're . . . well . . . slick with something.
"Cookie . . . oh my God . . . Cookie . . . I reached under the bed to grab the wrappers and . . . oh my God . . . "
I manage to get out of the way just in time to avoid needing to change my shoes before she doubles over and throws up on the floor, before resuming sobbing even harder.
Turns out there were more than candy bar wrappers under that bed. When C reached under to pull them out, she got a fistful of melted chocolate, and used condoms.
MUH.
BUH.
GUH!!!
I would like to say I lead her snivelling into the bathroom and got her cleaned up. I didn't. I ran outside, squealing, ignoring her plaintive cries and shouting, "GET THOSE AWAY FROM ME!" over my shoulder.
I won't describe exactly what her hands looked like, but I will say that there looked to be an UNREASONABLE number of the things lying on the floor.
I quit that day, and so did she. For whatever reason, she felt compelled to tell this story to everyone at school, who, rather than reacting with sympathy, branded her with the nickname "Sticky Fingers" for the better part of the year.
Look, people, I understand messes happen, even gross ones, but for the love of God, if you're leaving behind a mess, tip the room service in your hotel. Maybe you're embarrassed about being a slob, but trust me; nobody remembers the slobs more than they remember the slobs who were cheap, too.
Also, if you're working in a hotel, do yourself a favour and wear gloves. Sometimes, apparently, the customers like to leave traps.
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