I made the mistake of watching a movie the other day that involved a “Hotel General Manager” in the plot.
The General Manager in this case was played by Rachel McAdams. If you don’t know her, (I didn’t), let’s just say that she looks like some thirty something girl next door cheerleader type. Got the picture?
Okay, so it’s not bad enough that there is NO WAY that this woman would have been the General Manager of a major downtown Hotel as was portrayed, but what made matters worse, was that she was, in essence, portrayed as a glorified concierge/guest agent.
This got me to thinking.
Why is it so hard for anyone to figure out how to accurately portray a Hotel General Manager in the movies or on TV? What is the big mystery?
If you’re old enough to remember, there was a “Hotel” show on TV, in, I believe, the 80’s. I think it was called, not unexpectedly, “Hotel.” James Brolin was the General Manager and Connie Seleca was the Executive Assistant Manager. Grrrrrr…
I remember this because, by that time, I had entered the Hotel business and was a bellman at a major branded Hotel.
I also remember this because I confess to having watched this show because I became fascinated with how much it did NOT depict an actual Hotel or the events that go on within a typical Hotel.
My best example of this was an episode where the story line involved the head bellman who was in love with the head concierge, and the troubled couple was having difficulty seeing each other because of conflicting shifts etc…
How did they resolve their problem?
They decided to sneak into an unoccupied Hotel room, where they had sex, but wait, it gets better.
The General Manager and Executive Assistant Manager find out about this, and what do they do?
Well, they were of course deeply moved by the plight of our young lovers so they booked them the honeymoon suite and surprised them with it.
Yeah, right.
What’s somewhat ironic to me, the icing on the cake if you will, is that I had a similar experience later in my life.
No, I didn’t get to be the love sick bellman, knocking booty in a guestroom.
I got to be the General Manager of a major branded Hotel where we caught a bellman and a room attendant who were repeatedly having sex in unoccupied guestrooms, and no, they weren’t in love, they were just married, (and not to each other), horny and stupid.
And in case you’re wondering, after they were caught, we did not give them the honeymoon suite. No, instead, we gave them the gift of time. Without the challenge of being employed at our Hotel anymore, they now had lots of time to get together and have sex, if indeed they still wished to do so, but I suspect they did not.
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