Guide to Hotel Housekeeping - Mary E. Palmer (portable ebook reader TXT) 📗
- Author: Mary E. Palmer
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The question here arises—What qualities of mind and heart should a housekeeper possess to be successful?
Nobody has discovered a rule—to say nothing of a principle—whereby a housekeeper's success may be determined. It is reasonable to claim that the permanent success of any housekeeper lies in her skill and in the confidence and esteem of her employer. She has learned that skill is acquired by serving an apprenticeship, and that esteem and confidence are won by character. Everybody who touches a sterling character comes at last to feel it, and the true hotel man has come to know that the housekeeper of skill and character is his friend. After the relation of friendship has been established between the manager and the housekeeper, a "go-between" has no place; to speak plainly, there is no legitimate function for a tattler.
The young housekeeper should not become discouraged, excited, or worried, but learn to "manage." She should sit down quietly and think it over. She should have a system about her most ordinary duties, and never put off till to-morrow what may be done to-day. Tomorrow may never come, and, if it does come, it will bring other duties equally as important. Every field of labor has its drawbacks. The greater the work, the greater the hindrances and the obstacles seem to be.
It is a truism that there should be no hostilities between the heads of the different departments of a hotel. Everything works more smoothly and satisfactorily when pleasant relationships exist between the different departments of any business.
A housekeeper feels stronger if she thinks that she is of sufficient importance to her employer to have her views receive some consideration. She takes up her daily tasks with an added sense of responsibility, and with a desire to do still better work.
No housekeeper is perfect. It cannot be wisely assumed that any housekeeper will possess all the requisite qualifications for successful housekeeping, nor can she develop them all, no matter how ambitious, industrious, and naturally fitted for the work she may be. But "Knowledge is power," and she that has the most of it, coupled with the greatest ability to utilize it, enjoys advantages that will contribute largely to her success.
Keeping a Position.
A housekeeper studies not only to secure a good situation, but also to avoid losing it. "Good enough" is not her motto; "the very best" are her constant watchwords. Some one has said: "A housekeeper is born, not made." The "born housekeeper" is a spasmodic housekeeper. As a rule, she is not evenly balanced. A housekeeper with plain common sense, susceptible to instructions, willing to obey orders, is the housekeeper that leaves the old situation for one of better pay. There must be, of course, a foundation on which to build. The stones of that foundation should be self-control, self-confidence, education, neatness in dress, and cleanliness. None of these is a gift, but an accomplishment that can be developed more or less according to the individual.
Good manners are very essential. Politeness alone will not bring about the desired results in any profession, but it has never been known to be a hindrance. Manners that will be accepted without criticism in one woman, will be odious and objectionable in another. Too much familiarity breeds contempt. An employer would better be approached with dignity and reserve.
The Charm of Neatness.
Few housekeepers realize the charm of the neatly dressed woman. The hair should always be neatly arranged and not look as if it was about to fall on her shoulders. The binding of her skirt should not show ragged in places. These are little things, but they weigh heavily in the general results. The well-groomed woman knows that the neglect of these things is full of shame to womankind.
In regard to "bumping up against" the bell-boys, clerks, stewards, and stenographers, the wise housekeeper is shrewd enough to "stand in." She "turns the other cheek," which may sometimes be a difficult task to perform.
Remember that no one on earth can ever succeed in life and hold a "grudge." The inability to forgive his enemies lost James G. Blaine the White House.
If a bell-boy is caught doing something detrimental to the success of the management, the housekeeper should write a note to the clerk, or the captain of the watch, and inform him of the bell-boy's misdeeds. This will be sufficient from the housekeeper.
On assuming the duties of a new field, the housekeeper may remember merely a few important duties; for instance, she must carefully scrutinize the time-book and learn all the maids' names and stations. Next learn the location of rooms and become familiarized with every piece of furniture in them. Then, step by step, she should build up the general cleanliness of the house. This is by far the most important of all the requisites pertaining to hotel housekeeping. Guarding against difficulties encountered with the employes and with the managers' wives is secondary.
A housekeeper that can not take orders is not fit to give them; if the manager asks for the removal of an offensive employe, the housekeeper should immediately get rid of the objectionable person. If the housekeeper fails in deference to the manager's wishes, is not that good evidence that she is not a good soldier? She should be eager to maintain the dignity of her position—must maintain it in fact—and do as high service as possible for the management. Yet she can not always carry out her own ideas. The manager has his ideas about matters, which right or wrong, must be respected. The housekeeper carries out the manager's orders. If the hotel fails to bring a profit or give satisfaction, the manager alone is held accountable.
About Hiring Help.
To dismiss a maid is a very easy matter; to obtain a substitute that will perform the duties assigned her in a manner that will prove more effectual, is not so easy.
Whether 'tis easier on the impulse of the moment
To suffer the terrors and exactions of the haughty maids,
Or take up arms against their impudence
And with pen and ink end them.
To lie, to sleep—
The cares and thousand little details
Housekeepers are heir to—'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.
The employment-agency is the housekeeper's recruiting station. She gets most of her help from this place. The housekeeper should always consult the manager when other help is to be hired. Everyone knows that old employes are always best, even if they do spoil the new ones. The housekeeper endeavors to keep the help as long as she can, using persuasion, kindness, and forbearance, striving to teach them the best and easiest way to do their work, bearing with their imperfections, overlooking a great deal that is actually repulsive, not expecting to find in the hard-working individual the graces of a Marie Antoinette, or the inherent qualities of a Lady Jane Gray.
The housekeeper should not only be scrupulously honest herself, but should insist that the maids be honest. It is true that almost irresistible temptations and opportunities to steal are constantly thrown in the way of the maids; and those that are steadfastly honest deserve great credit.
If a maid is neat and clean in appearance and does her work well—these qualities cover a multitude of sins. From the standpoint of many housekeepers, too much curiosity and gossiping are the chiefest and quickest causes—next to the neglect of work—for a maid's dismissal. A housekeeper is usually disliked by the maids that do not want to do their work, just as a stepmother is hated by some stepchildren, regardless of her kindness and her consideration for their welfare. Employes in any business prefer to take their orders from the person that pays them their money. For this, they are not to be blamed; but if the proprietor or the proprietor's wife wishes to retain the services of a good housekeeper, and be relieved of the trying ordeal of training the help, he or she will not encourage tattling from the housekeeper's inferiors.
Implicit confidence should exist between the housekeeper and the proprietor's wife. This does not mean that the proprietor's wife should take the housekeeper automobile riding. Any proprietor's wife that enters into such a degree of intimacy with any of her husband's employes distinctly displays the hallmarks of plebeanism. The writer does not want to become an iconoclast, but she believes that all business should be conducted on a business basis. There must be an unwavering loyalty to the interests mutually represented, at all times and under all circumstances.
The proprietor's wife that goes to the help's dining-room or to the laundry, presumably to press a skirt or a shirt-waist, but in reality to see what she can see and to hear what she can hear, is disloyal to the management. She will always have poured into her ears stories that will annoy her and keep her worried. There are maids in a hotel always ready to "keep the pot boiling." Such a proprietor's wife not only encourages malicious slander and tattling, but she will soon be asking questions of the inferior help about the housekeeper's management. Soon the inferiors will be giving the orders instead of the housekeeper, and the discipline will be spoiled. Besides, the proprietor's wife will be told imaginary wrongs, and exaggerated stories concerning some maid employed in the hotel, which will necessitate the maid's discharge. Whether the story is real or imaginary, the proprietor's wife is not benefited by the stories she has heard. She should ask herself: Is this loyalty? Isn't it unmistakably the earmark of commonality?
No housekeeper will object to taking orders from the proprietor's wife. The progressive housekeeper is always polite to her employer's wife, though not to the extent of being deceitful. The housekeeper must bear in mind that what is of vital importance to the proprietor of a hotel is of equal importance to the proprietor's wife. The housekeeper tries to work in harmony with them both, which means success of the highest order. To do this, the housekeeper must retain her dignity, often under the most exasperating circumstances. The proprietor's wife is privileged to frequent any part of the hotel she may choose to, but how must a housekeeper feel to see her conversing in the most familiar tones with the waitresses and the chambermaids, and to know that she is listening to malicious slander of the lowest kind. A housekeeper can have no control over the employes where the discipline is thus ruined, or where there is so much unpleasantness arising from unwise interference over trifles, by the proprietor's wife, or from officious meddling by the families of the prominent stockholders.
Tact Can Not be Taught.
"Bumping up against" the proprietor and proprietor's wife or family is one of the most perplexing problems that the housekeeper has to solve. The ability to combat with such a problem can not be imparted by teaching. It has to exist in the housekeeper herself, in the peculiar, individual bent of her nature. No amount of preaching and teaching can ever endow a housekeeper with the ever ready wit characteristic of the "Irish tongue."
The savory reply, "O, Mrs. B., you are a dream of loveliness!" would be sweet to some ears while to others it would be a "harsh discord." It is impossible to teach which ear would or would not be
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