Warming Up

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Friday 19th January 2007

So I headed to Wales today for the DVD record, feeling quite relieved that the winds and chaos had happened yesterday. I was looking forward to getting to the Marriott hotel (for that was the chain I had chosen to stay in) and asking them about their excitement, as well as viewing the preparations they had made for my visit.
On getting there I realised that there was quite a lot of building work going on in the hotel. Could this be it? Had they been so excited by my visit that they’d decided to try and redesign the entire building. No wonder they’d had to start preparations so far in advance and alas if this was the case they had clearly failed. They didn’t have to go to this trouble. To be honest finding a hotel is being renovated when you arrive is one of the annoying things that can happen. I would have preferred no building, but I guess they had been aiming for that and had just mis-timed it. But I was there a bit early, around about 1pm, so maybe they had been hoping that they would have a couple more hours to finish off the arrangements. Even though I had specified an early arrival on my booking form.
I had been fully intending to ask the receptionist about the excitement, as shamefully the hotel had not seen fit to respond to my email, but the woman who welcomed me seemed quite severe and humourless and her badge proclaimed that she was from Poland and I thought she might not get it. I had had some strawberries in my car for the journey, but they had gone a bit off, so I asked if she had a bin. She looked at me askance and slightly disgusted that I was palming off slightly degraded fruit on her, but then said “Of course, sir,” in a clipped and insincere way. If she had been excited about my arrival she was playing it all very cool.
I told her my name and she got out my details and said, “So you asked for a smoking room?”
“No,” I replied, “If I specified that then I would have asked for a non-smoking room.” After all these days of preparation the hotel seemed to have made a mistake on probably the only thing that they had any chance of preparing. But imagining that the hotel might be full and that I had been allocated a smoking room I said, “But I don’t mind. It doesn’t make any difference.”
“I am afraid your room is not ready yet,” the dour-faced Pole told me.
“How can it not be?” I considered asking, “After all this preparation?”
“When will it be ready?”
“Probably by 2 o clock,” she told me, with a total absence of jitters or nerves.
“OK,” I said. “Can I leave my bags here?”
I was given some receipts for my luggage and decided to go to the venue to start preparations and then return later.
It hadn’t been the reception I had been anticipating. In either sense.
I came back at around 3 o clock and the same receptionist greeted me, again with the same sangfroid countenance. She didn’t seem to recognise me initially, which surprised me given the hysterical promises of the email last week and the fact that I had talked to her only two hours previously, but slowly the penny dropped.
“Your room isn’t ready yet,” she told me, straight-faced. Was this a joke? For a hotel to boast of its level of preparation and then still not be ready an hour after the time they had promised you seemed to be rude and disrespectful.
“Why isn’t it ready yet?” I asked.
She sighed and looked very put out and said, “Hold on a minute” and disappeared into the room behind the counter. She was gone for quite some time. I wouldn’t have minded if not for the hubristic promises of the email missive.
Eventually she returned. She said she was sending someone up to see if my room was ready and a person was dispatched.
I was in a bit of a rush as I had to get back to the venue.
“What went wrong?” the woman was asked, “You said it would be ready at 2.”
“There are no smoking rooms free at the moment,” she replied unsmilingly.
“But I didn’t want a smoking room. I wanted a no smoking room.”
“You asked for a smoking room on your form, look,” she accused me.
“No,” I retorted, “I told you before. If anything I asked for a non-smoking room. I told you I didn’t care. But I would prefer a non-smoking room and if there’s a non-smoking room available I would love to go in that.”
She rolled her eyes and in obvious annoyance, muttered under her breath and sorted out my key-card for the new room. It was about as far from excitement as it is possible for a human to be. And I question the level of preparation.
“Thank you,” I said, not letting my lack of celebration get to me too much, “And what about my luggage? Shall I get it now or will someone bring it up?”
“Would you like it now?” she snapped
“Um, whatever. I’ll wait.”
Again she disappeared into the back room in a clear huff. It was slightly rude. One of the other receptionists spotted the incident and intervened, saying, “We’ll bring the bags up for you.” She was smiling and polite and considerate and whilst not excited, I didn’t mind. I hadn’t really wanted excitement. I had just wanted efficiency. But I had been promised excitement and so it was disappointing when it not only didn’t materialise.
I went upstairs. The room was functional if not exceptional. It was hard to see that it would have taken more than two hours of preparation to get it into this state. Though the TV had a message on it welcoming me by name. So maybe that was what had taken all the effort.
Later as I headed out to get my cab, the grumpy Polish receptionist was not on duty, but the smiling one was still there.
“Sorry about before,” she told me, “It’s her last day and I think she’s in a bit of a bad mood.”
I was going to tell her about the excitement and preparation, but decided to let it go.