I presume), listening intently to Coop conclude his verbiage lesson on curren- cy while wearing my own 100 percent poly uniform with its white vinyl stripe running down the leg (my uniform never looked nearly as meticulous and as tai- lored as Coop’s).
My nametag, which was pinned on the right breast of my wide lapel, stated my name as I was called back then: Kenny.
I definitely recall retrieving my long and warm herringbone overcoat, the one I had bought three months earlier while anticipating chilly forays into the bustling Sheraton parking lot to fetch bags from cars - the overcoat I still own and wear to this day - my oldest personal possession.
It was a good time in my life - the very start to my twenty-five year career in hospitality thus far.
Five months earlier, August 30, 1986 in fact, I had clocked in for my very first shift. I was the weekday doorman.
Ah, the hotel doorman’s job. I cannot name another position in the lodging industry as important as that one. The doorman can be any hotel property’s ultimate ambassador. The very person who opens those front doors; the first chance at a greeting from a staff mem- ber.
The First Impression. What’s more impor- tant than that?
But I didn’t know any of that back then. I only knew that I had just graduated from Widener University’s School of Hospitality program, and I needed a job in the hospitality industry, fast. Back then I was living at home with my parents in Valley Forge, a roll-out-of-bed-into work distance from the Sheraton.
I walked-in and was hired on the spot as a doorman.
Thus began Day One...
I have several vivid memories (and one that is very valuable) concerning that shift: Arriving for my first 7am stint on a
76 May June 2011
slow Monday morning, I remember trying hard to open every door for every person walking through them, a sort of game of enter and egress. I also recall long min- utes of lag time.
Eight hours of standing in that brass and glassed-in hotel foyer, waiting for the next check-in, I unconsciously grew a bit tired and my back began to lean against the side wall of the foyer as I rested for a moment.
A hand gently nudged me back to atten- tion. There was Warren, my bell captain.
“Keep dancing, kiddo.” He smiled while making sure I understood that I was lean- ing, which I quickly realized looked unsightly, especially if seen by a passing manager.
During Day One, and from then on, I came to see Warren’s recommendation to “Keep dancing” as the perfect advice for any working day.
My doorman career only lasted a couple months.
Rookies like Jeremy came on board and I soon went from welcoming weekday arrivals and handing check-ins off to the bellmen (for far less tip money than he was making), to working prime weekend shifts with Coop at the bell stand and taking guests with their bags up to their rooms, or checking them out of that cylindrical 16-story hotel.
Oh, the stories I could tell about being a bellman! The things I had seen.
The tips I got - monetary gestures, and other, more creative ones, too, from bot- tles of unopened wine and once, a half a chocolate cream wedding cake, to cute keepsakes (some I even have today), to other, more lurid sorts of offerings. You’d be amazed what certain people are will- ing to give to you as a gratuity.
The Sheraton was then, as it is today [in the form of the Radisson Valley Forge] - home to the famed “Fantasy Suites” - wild- ly decorated rooms featuring an atmos- phere that is totally committed to its
theme, each one equipped with a giant whirlpool.
There was “Outer Limits” - a futuristic motif with a spaceship bed and many saucer-y affects; “Natures Kingdom” (cue Tarzan), and, our most-requested suite of all, “Seclusions,” aka “The Cave.”
I would check-in more than my share of Freds & Wilmas, Barneys & Bettys into that stone age-themed fantasy suite.
I assisted Chaka Kahn once, who was a great guest, and Michael Jordan, too (who was cool to me); Dan Marino (no comment); former football Giant, Lawrence Taylor (who handed me a ‘saw buck,’ asked me to get him a pack of cig- arettes, and let me keep the change), and, I once met Joan Rivers who, upon seeing me standing in the lobby, said “Here,” and handed me the rhinestone-d leash to her Lhasa apse-looking thing. No hello, just “Walk him and then bring him right up to my assistant’s room” and then, she simply walked away without a thank you.
I made far too many ‘fins,’ ‘saw bucks’ and even a few ‘sharks’ back then to know what to do with. I was twenty-one, single and having fun. I was enjoying the auton- omy of being a bellman, loved the night- ly cash infusions, and, unknowingly, I was learning the art of good customer serv- ice.
A bellman is only as good as his sales technique once he had the guest’s full attention, as I soon learned from Coop in between runs. “Don’t tell them we have a restaurant,” he’d once recommended to me. “Say ‘we have a dining experience called Chumley’s, and it offers a lavish, lavish meal.’”
If a place has two “lavish” meals in one sentence, it can’t get any better, I’d imagine...
Our nights blended together into a noc- turnal round robin of partying.
Coop, Dean, some of the front desk crew and I would meet for drinks at one of the local restaurants with in-the-biz staffers
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92