Photo by Nik Lanús on Unsplash

Like any other morning, I woke up at 6am, took a shower and treated myself to a buttered toast. Exactly ten minutes after doing the dishes I closed my front door and drove to work — the luxurious Dalton Hotel which has been recently awarded its fifth shiny star.

The huge ten story building towers over the main square, casting a life-saving shade upon the city’s cream of society, protecting their expensive cars’ paint jobs and themselves from getting a beauty-forsaken sunburn. The front door welcomes the rich guests with a fluffy red carpet that is laid out all the way to the curb of the pavement. And once you enter the reception hall, you are basked in bright light coming from the glass chandeliers, enhanced by the countless mirrors lining every wall, causing more than one guest to put back on their identity concealing sunglasses. A sight to behold, really. But I am not the one who gets to enjoy the leather couches in the lounge or the bar with a multilingual bartender. I’m just the room attendant.

I passed the main entrance and drove my 2003 Toyota into the underground parking garage. It winked at me as I pressed the lock button on my keys, and I skipped to the door with a sign ‘staff only’. I like my job, really. It’s not easy and sometimes I have to clean up some nasty stuff, but the tips are nice and the food freebies in our kitchen are amazing. I get to eat well, and the salary is enough to live a comfortable life. I even picked back up painting as a hobby recently. When I have the time, of course. My job is pretty time consuming.

I changed into my uniform and tied my apron into a neat little bow behind my back, I had just claimed my cart when the manager stopped by, “Joyce, room 130 needs a swipe. Take 111 on your way back as well. A sleeper.”

“Sure thing,” I answered and went to gather my supplies.

Swipe and a sleeper to start the day. This Monday might just go by in a blink. It took me a while to find everything in the mess of a storage that we have. You know, the usual; sets of new sheets, towels, toiletries, things like that. Most of my colleagues apparently don’t understand the system of labelled shelves. Anyway, off I went.

Staff elevators are a god sent in this industry. One push of a button later, the little display above the door was already counting to ten. The 6th floor was my first stop, though, so that’s where the door opened first. This silent hallway was decorated with a dark blue carpet and golden strokes painted over the walls, all the rooms had golden doorknobs to match. Seemingly golden, it’s just paint. This place is not THAT profitable. I made my way to room 130 and swiped my card. The door opened and I started to work.

Change the sheets, towels and bedding, put into place new blankets. Wash the floors and tiles in the bathroom, clean the toilet, polish the mirrors, vacuum the carpets, drapes and curtains, fluff the pillows and exchange the batteries in the remote control, dust all surfaces, fill up the minibar. It’s the usual task list to go through to make the room ready for another guest. Shy of an hour later I was back in the elevator, chatting with Mary, one of my colleagues.

Asking how the kids are doing and how she enjoyed her vacation. She and her husband took the kids to visit the Disney Land in Florida last week. I’m planning to take Jason and David there next year, so I snooped a bit about the place. They seemed to have an absolute blast, she even showed me pictures. Only complaint was about the Tangled princess whom they saw drinking a Starbucks venti. Atrocious.

Anyway, the 10th floor comes up. Or the ‘triple floor’ as the staff call it. All the triple digits rooms are here, 111, 222, 333 and so on. I think I heard the manager once talk about how it was supposed to bring good luck or something of the kind. Either way, these are the best rooms we have, presidential, honeymoon and diamond suites. The room I’m heading for, I believe, is rented out by the big construction business guy, Larry Rogers. He’s a frequent guest, always leaves a nice tip.

I rolled my cart up to the door and swiped my card. Once the door opened, one of the guest’s employees greeted me and lead me to the bedroom. So as before, I took out all my supplies and went through the checklist. Swipe all the floors and surfaces, prepare the plastic, roll the body onto plastic, change the sheets and bedding, put down new blankets, put the plastic bag inside the cart, take the blunt object.

“Always great to see you, Mrs Hilligums,” smiled the employee as he was leading me back outside the room.

“Likewise, Will. Have a good day!” I said my goodbyes and made my way back to the elevator. The boy never fails to make me smile, what a well-mannered young man. All of Mr Rogers’ people are a pleasure to meet. I chose my floor and the door closed. I couldn’t help but whistle one annoying shampoo advert tune for the whole time of the elevator ride back into the basement. Geez, I hope I get it out of my head before the end of the shift.

On the basement floor I went to the furnace where I disposed of the sleeper things. My pager was already beeping that I’ve got other rooms to clean. On my way back, I chatted with Dan from the maintenance for a while. He said there’d been some trouble with water heating on the 2nd floor and the boss was pushing on them hard to fix it asap. Moments like these remind me that I’m lucky to NOT work in maintenance. Our boss is the calmest stand up man I know. Really, I’m glad to be just a room attendant.