Day 5 at the new job wasn’t so bad.
After four days of training under three different gals, I was “set free” to work on my own for the first time. My supervisor gave me a light load.
In the hotel’s “Kings Section” to boot. No, the faucets aren’t cast in gold. All the rooms in that section have king-sized beds exclusively — whereas other sections have either kings or double queens.
I was pleased because (a) the workload was just right for flying solo for the first time and (b) I need to work on making king beds. Queens are comparatively easier. They’ve got more length in the sheets and comforters for nice tight tuck-ins. Additionally, there are fewer footsteps traveled in going side to side in bedmaking.
The “catch” or “rub” with this hotel’s beds is that no bedspreads are used. Instead, the topmost layer is a patterned crisp white sheet. Like me, my supervisor is a perfectionist and “persnickety” about the beds and that topmost sheet being taut and free of wrinkles.
Honestly, a thick bedspread would make bedmaking so much easier!
That’s not all of it! All beds have maroon dust ruffles. They get pushed and shoved between mattress and box springs during the side tucking of sheets and comforter, Extracting them. Extracting them can in turn “unmake” that side portion of the bed.
Those dust ruffles are as annoying as all get out! They impede and delay our work. Ask every housekeeper one thing she’d like to do away with and I’d bet dollars to donuts that dust ruffles! would win unanimously.
So the king beds come with, IMHO, the steepest challenges and learning curve. And because I’m such the precisionist and meticulous and like an engineer like to break down any task into its smallest components and then build into the whole, I spent a good part of the workday with beds under the microscope, if you will!
I unfolded each of the three bedding layers. Studied where the edges of edges should fall along the mattress/box spring for a balanced spread. Experimented. Pull here. Too much. Walk to other side. Pull a little. Walk to other side. Check. Not quite even but close. Pull again. Back and forth in a perfect game of “bedtime” ping-pong.
Established where by the bed head the edges of two sheets should meet before a tuck. Counted lines and squares on the baffled comforter for balanced draping. Experimented with the best pull-and-tuck places at the bed’s foot to maximimize tautness and minimize entrapping of that danged dust ruffle between mattress and box spring!
Then there’s the four pillows. Four yukky pillows, IMHO, soft and squishy king-sized pillows that when condensed and fluffed to perfection into too-big pillowcases still look saggy and sad ‘stead of perky and puffed.
But what canya do?!
Yes, yesterday with my training partner was all about bathrooms. It’s all I did for 6-7 hours. By choice. In order to break down the components and rebuild and refine through developing skills and practice! practice! practice!
And today solo was all about beds. Same process. Deconstruct the whole into its parts, study each part, then reconstruct and refine and practice! practice! practice! THAT’S how you get good. Or I do anyway.
And when each part is comprehended and then its place in the whole, well, that’s how perfection is achieved! And with repetition, speed.
My learning process is made unique by my fastidious and precisionist nature. To many, it’s foreign BECAUSE learning is maximized by breaking the whole into the details, mastering the details, which in turn leads to mastering the whole.
It’s a scientific approach, I guess, that wholly works for me! And wholey. 😉
Anyways, today was a light load for me and all the gals. It was good to be outta the pressure chamber for the first time and into my own learning, pace and work groove.
And the real highlight?!
Our supervisor, the self-admitted perfectionist, checks EVERY room, whether’s it’s a stayover or cleaned after a check-out. That’s a LOT of checking when the facility’s full 150 rooms are booked solid!
Anyways, with clipboard in hand, she checked my rooms … swiped her hand against the tub walls … lifted both toilet lids … peered inside the coffeemakers … ran her hands on the granite countertops … opened up the doors of the small fridges and microwaves … opened drawers of the nightstands and dresser … checked that the proper printed materials were in place … stuff like that …
But the REAL kicker lay in her response to my beds!
“Awesome!”
High praises indeed! Made me feel like queen for the day in king beds!
Allelujah, Arizona! 