16 years in hotels, you may as well see how it all started.
I worked front desk at the Pan Pacific hotel in Anaheim CA. It is now Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel. I loved every minute of it. OK, maybe not every minute but it was where I fell in love with hotels.
I was not long over from Scotland the the GM was a man called Jan Segers. He had crazy energy and walked the hotel from top to bottom every day. Front and back of house. He always stopped at the Front Desk and asked us how his hotel was doing.
Now, I always pulled the same shift as this latino Jimmy Vega. We had a routine down for the guests after about a month. We laughed all day and the guests laughed along with us no matter if their room was not ready, had lost luggage or declined credit cards. We had a ball.
So when Jan Segers came up we just kept on going.
We threw everything we could think of that was wrong with the hotel at him and he laughed right along with us. No matter what was wrong he never got upset.
There was always something to bust him over but it was never the same thing twice.
I ended up leaving the front desk for a job in a hotel sales department. I wanted to be the guy in the suit having lunch with clients in the hotel restaurant for a change. I swore to Jimmy I would never oversell the Kings so when the guests checked into my new place they would not shout at the front desk staff.
HAH!! I was sooo green.
I still love the hospitality business after 16 years. I am never getting out. Even now when things are really tough I make sure I laugh every day and get coworkers to join in. I remember Jan and I talk to the staff on the front line and make sure they tell me exactley what they see, what they feel and what they want me to do about it. Then I do everything I can to make it happen.
Yes, I still talk to Jimmy Vega and we still crack each other up 16 years later.
