10 Things

I love this series of articles – 10 Things Your (Fill-in the Blank) Won’t Tell You.  Your Waiter.  Hairstylist.  Funeral Director.  This one is the hotel housekeeper.

It helpfully answered my question about the “eco-friendly” opting out of housekeeping.  It is, in fact, costing them hours – and therefore pay.  It confirmed that most guests are not tipping their housekeepers, and reminded us to leave a note confirming that the money is for them, or else they are not supposed to keep it.

Three things I didn’t know:

1. Some guests people leave such messes in the rooms that houskeepers could just cry.  And sometimes they do.
2. “In a city like Chicago, where the majority of hotels are unionized, housekeepers make $14.60 an hour,” says Strassel. “But in a city like Indianapolis, where there are no union hotels, a housekeeper at that same chain will be making about half that. There’s a very wide range.”
3. It takes something like twice as long to prep a room for a new guest as it takes to clean another room.