Soap operas

Every shift seems to have a soap opera, in which Security end up as extras, not of their own volition, I hasten to add. The cast tends to alternate - one shift the employees will feature, other shifts it'll be the guests.

I recall one Friday night late shift (3pm-11pm) in which two guests checked in early afternoon, and by early evening a rather excited young lady rang room service to order a particularly expensive champagne as she had just been proposed to. Three hours later, and after many, many drinks over a couple of meals, this young bride-to-be was in our conservatory bar seeking another drink. The barman had had enough and cut her off, which she did not take kindly, and flew into a rage. Management approached her, having asked us to stay back and observe should anything happen.

My personal rule of thumb for soap operas is to have as little as possible to do with them. They're never over when you think they are, and can fuel 'spot incidents' for days, weeks or months afterwards, especially if they're employee ones and can have a tendancy to entangle you in the inextricable web of sides; emotion; heartache and paperwork they create, of which paperwork is the most frightening because you can't switch off to it. In this case, I felt that the woman showing her true colours in front of her fiancee, as well as her need for anger management classes, would probably be punishment enough for her. This turned out to come truer than I expected when, after failing to pacify the lady and convince her to return to her room, the duty manager approached the fiancee, who was sat on his own nearby enjoying a drink he had purchased earlier. He apologised to management for the incident, approached his future wife and uttered:

"If you don't shut up, calm down and get back to your room, I'm taking that fucking ring back"

I resisted the urge to applaud the man for using one of the best pieces of leverage against a woman wrapped up in love - the denial of the white wedding. It worked a charm, and she was back in her room very quickly!

Today, on a 7am-3pm shift which was a back-to-back, I was exceptionally tired and in no mood to deal with any unnecessary incidents. Sods law that it would be one of the busiest shifts in a while. This time it would be a double bill, with both guests and employees taking centre stage.

Act I: Mum comes down to inform us that her 7 year old son has gone walkabout. I stupidly assume she's done a thorough check of her hotel room, inform duty management and we start scouring the hotel. Mum is pacing the lobby, clearly worried. She goes back up to her room to grab something, and finds her son hiding under the bed.

Act II: I'm enjoying a well-earned break in the staff canteen when I hear screaming deeper within the bowels of the hotel. I go in the direction of the noise and see staff restraining another member of staff who had wreaked havoc in an office. Nobody was telling me anything coherent, but the mention of spouses of managers being involved and the clear distress the woman was in made the background to the incident almost instantly recongisable. The old adage 'don't screw the crew' came to mind. That employees of all levels sometimes prefer to interact each other sans lower body clothing is often if not the biggest cause of such incidents. Fortunately I managed to turn up after the main storyline had unfolded and the action sequence was in progress, so was able to stay out of the politics and submitted a pretty neutral report of what I witnessed when I turned up. Management will probably keep it internal anyway.