facts about hotel room maids

During my college years when I was studying at a Hotel School here in the Netherlands, it was mandatory for each student to work as an intern for every department of a hotel to help you understand the workings of each area. It made total sense to me, logical even. But it also meant I spent a week long ironing kitchen towels, followed by a week of moping lobby floors, vacuuming hotel rooms and I even spent a week peeling potatoes.

Let me tell you: I definitely shed a couple of tears cause the work was everything but fun. But hey, fair is fair, someone has to do it and it was good to experience how unbelievably sh*t the work can be. Except for being a hotel room maid, I actually kinda had fun doing that. But only for a week because seriously, the work is hard. Here are a few facts I remember from my week of cleaning rooms.

• You get a specific amount of time to clean a room. Usually between 30 and 45 minutes.

• Being a hotel maid is hard work since it requires a lot of cleaning with your back bent. In more expensive hotels (where the working conditions are generally a lot better) you have beds you can crank up. Pretty much the same way you crank up your car when you need to change a tire. That way you can make a bed while standing up straight.

• Bathroom soaps and gels are always taken home by guests.

• There are an insane amount of towels and bathrobes that get stolen from the rooms.

• Shifts, or rooms to be exact, are often mutually changed amongst the maids because some guests are known for being slobs. And hotel room maids hate slobs.

• The more cash the guest leaves behind for the maid, the better he or she will clean the room.

• Never ever will they nose around in someone’s stuff. But of course there is the occasional gossip about that gorgeous dress someone spotted in a closet.

• You need more than one hand to count the amount of (filled!) condoms they find in rooms.