16 hour service, 6 days a week.

The hotel I currently work security for is 5 star. I don't know how the award system works, because when you're behind-the-scenes, you often wonder if it's simply a loosely-conferred title or 'comes with the brand' by default. Admittedly, most of it is that which guests would not be aware of but which ultimately affects them.

For example, one would imagine that a 5 star hotel might have at least one handyman or engineer on call 24 hours, because equipment doesn't schedule its malfunctions to conicide with the shift roster. So, between 3pm-11pm yesterday and 7am-3pm today (I'm asking myself why and how I ended up doing a back-to-back shift), I had to report a malfunctioning air conditioner in a guests room (which made a fair amount of noise); a broken window bracket and the main restaurant's glass washer breaking down in the middle of breakfast. Lo and behold, the handyman last night finished at 9pm when it should have been 11pm, and the next one was due on at 10am. God forbid had the boilers broken down, because I doubt the guests would have been too sympathetic to the 'we can't get the staff' excuse after a cold shower at 7am.

When I rocked up to work at 6.30am, there was no concierge, and the on duty security guard was doubling as night porter. If I were a guest, then I'd imagine that after a long flight and an extensive taxi ride, I would like nothing more than to be greeted at the taxi by a helpful porter who is able to take care of my heavy bags whilst I try to fight the jetlag enough to remember my check-in details. Instead, it was done by the lone security officer, who also had to unlock doors and turn lights off before finishing his shift, which is difficult when you're not physically inside the security office.

Finally, the safe opening machine didn't work. It's a device which sends an 'Emergency Open' signal to the digitally-operated safe. This time, it sent no signal, and there was no reason for it not to. I presented the faulty machine to the duty manager, who had no idea what to do with it, and helpfully suggested that I locate a security officer who was in the hotel to attend a wedding reception, and ask him how to work it. Yeah, sure, I'll just go and pull my colleague out of a wedding reception, on his day off and after he's had a few drinks with friends and family, and ask him a simple question which duty management ought to know. Yeah that'll really be the highlight of his evening. Maybe we shouldn't switch off on this job, and should be always available any time of the day or night (which is more than can be said for the handyman) in case something goes wrong.