Tuesday 19 May 2015

Tray A Little Tenderness

I always feel a little disappointed that establishments like the Hilton allow riffraff like me in.

There should, in my opinion, be a long coated man at the door who reaches out with immaculate white gloves and gently stops me with a polite but firm “I think Sir will feel more comfortable in another, lesser, establishment”

Places like the Ritz, the Hilton and that are owned by anyone who has a child named after a major city are probably not the sort of places to which the likes of me would usually gain egress and the fact that they will allow me to stay there in return for the exchange of small pieces of paper (or increasingly the swiping of a plastic card) in some way cheapens them.

As you may have guessed by now a few nights ago I stayed at a branch of the Hilton on the one of my increasingly rare work visits (these occur every year or so and are usually to do with training or meetings) – paid for out of the company coffers. We were down to visit a site that already had a Bright and Shiny New Practice that we wished to emulate and also to have a team bonding day for what is increasingly a disparate group of ragamuffins who are spread to the four corners of the universe.  Quite frankly though: if the two people required to give us the briefing on the aforementioned Process had come to us it would have been a hell of a lot more economic than shunting a team of 16 people half-way up and down the country.

I had chosen to stay overnight the night before in a desperate attempt to be even vaguely awake for the meeting and in the knowledge that the trains from my local station to this site were about as frequent and believable as sightings of the yeti.

Staying in a hotel on company expenses is not what it used to be – back in the Good Old Days you used to get a generous food allowance and pretty much be able to book wherever you wanted to, arriving there in a gold plated Rolls-Royce if one should desire to do so. However: these days everything has to be In Budget and therefore affordable – so you get enough money to feed a hamster and bus fare home if you’re lucky. However: I had managed to swing it so that I could get the Hilton as my hotel is on this occasion as it was just about in budget.

My plan was to get something to eat at lunchtime and then just grab a snack at the train station that I could eat in my hotel room – however this proved to be more difficult than I had thought, because I couldn’t find my way around the train station enough to find anywhere that would sell suitable snacks. The platform, i decided, could only have been designed by Professor Rubik, In addition to which the train ride had been hot, sweaty and tiring – with corridors crammed with people, so I was pretty tired and just decided to get a taxi straight to the hotel and just order in.

There was no sign of the white gloved doorman when I arrived, so it was a relatively simple operation for me to go through the door, approach the lady behind the desk and plant my ukelele on the desk (having foolishly agreed to provide a section of “entertainment” to close off the day) – the major miracle being that in the two trains and three taxis between work and the hotel I had not succeeded in losing my microscopic instrument.

She looked at me in my jacket, T-shirt and jeans, with my windswept hair and must have assumed I was some kind of vagabond, because when I booked inand asked how much wireless access would cost me she gave me a free pass (which would normally have cost £8) as well as taking my payment details for the breakfast the next morning (£12)

I didn’t really want anything big to eat – having eaten out at lunch, and by now my feet were very tired – so I decided to look at the room service menu and based upon the selections, and even despite the fact I thought it was a ridiculous amount pay, I ordered an omelette that cost me £10

Now I don’t know about you, but I think £10 is quite a bit pay for a couple of whisked up eggs mixed into some milk – quite frankly I could have done that and I doubt it took their most highly trained sous chef to create my meal– anyway, it was okay and was sufficient for me. It took me awhile to find the free tea and coffee, which they had surreptitiously hidden away in a drawer next to the not – so – free minibar (cheapest item £3 for a chocolate bar) and to work out the remote control (£9 for a film)

The room was pretty much like any other hotel room I have ever stayed in and there was not much to do. I don’t know what it is like in other countries, but most Hilton’s seem to be out in the middle of nowhere, so once you are there they are pretty much playing to a captive audience unless you have transport – so my only option was to flick through the channels watching naff TV until it was time to go to bed and check facebook for humorous pictures of cats.

In the morning I woke up, showered and pulled back the curtains to the exciting view of another part of the hotel and saw that my bill had been pushed through the door during the night. When I looked at it I noticed that it was £5 more than I was expecting it to be and it was only then that I realised that they had charged me £5 for the tray at my meal had come on.

Not, I hasten to add, for the purchase of my tray (which quite frankly I could have found in a fairly 
decent pound shop), but for the “hire” of the tray. Had I not been so tired the night before I would have noticed this and ordered in a pizza (with free box)

I was actively incensed and paced around the room like a delegate from the Tourette Convention for a good couple of minutes – I could understand this in a budget hotel, where everything is optional or extra: but in the one kind of expects that things like trays required for delivering food on, is part of the price.

I took a deep breath. I calmed down. I went downstairs to breakfast: wearing my Manic Street Preachers T-shirt and jeans.

It was a small act of defiance that brought me little or no satisfaction as I piled my overly priced breakfast onto my tray and called for a second cup of coffee, but it was worth it for the look of horror on the faces of the two business types in suits who shared the left down with me.

After breakfast I made a hurried escape – before they could set the man in the white gloves on to me.

3 comments:

English Rider said...

"Hire" of a tray? How despicable and underhand. You certainly outclassed them by a mile!

The Bug said...

OK that's a new one! Crazy!! I often order room service when I travel for work because of lack of car & being tired... I'll have to check my bill more closely next time!

Helena said...

Tut! Terrible! I'm one of those, too, who can't sleep in any other bed and surroundings but her own. I'm a bloody awful guest........☻