Let me start off with a real example of what had happened to me one summer night when I had been working for the company for about 3 weeks. The front desk staff is the only staff on-site from 3pm until 11pm. The manager had left and the housekeepers had left after not finishing the rooms they were to clean that night. When I called my manager to ask what to do about the guests that we didn't have clean rooms for, she didn't pick up and I was forced to call my district manager. I had to turn away around 20 very understandably upset guests on a night everyone around us was sold out. After literally having to leave to sob in the bathroom from the stress of having to turn away so many guests, I came back out and realized that no one was on the schedule to take my shift over at 11pm. The district manager had gone back to sleep and told me he "didn't know what to do about it." I was alone for 16 hours without breaks, and with a lobby full of angry guests because of something that hadn't been caught earlier on by any of the staff that had been there before me.
My friends have told me time and time again that they have never seen me look more dead. I've gotten physically ill from the amount of stress I've been under since starting this job.
It's hard to explain just how stressful it is to be the only person to represent the entire hotel for 8 hours with no breaks. If someone has an issue with their room, you have to apologize and say you'll have someone fix it tomorrow because the maintenance man already left. They didn't get housekeeping that day? They'll have to wait until tomorrow. You're delivering heavy tubs of dishes to rooms personally and leaving the front desk abandoned while you do so. The phone rings while a particularly troublesome guest is checking in? You have to put them on hold for long periods of time. It's just how it is, and people get mad. And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, because there is no one to help you unless your manager happens to pick up their phone right when you call them.
Not only this, but I have met countless employees, and I know not one person who has properly been trained. We don't know how to do the job, what benefits we're receiving, the numbers we can call to get in contract with human resources, etc. And if we make a mistake without even knowing it, they are quick to scold us for it.
