Hostile Hospitality

Confused and Gittered

Afterwards, they left the coat room and headed back into the hall of the Godfrey Dining Room. Jackie pulled out a little butler serving table with gold trim at the top with a gold border surrounding it. The table was a smooth blend of mahogany and tan. “This is the breakfast host stand,” announced Jackie, pulling Shanea out of her thoughts. “Uh, OK.” that was all Shanea was able to say. “ Now Dell, the older guy you met, Daniel, and Jessica will be the servers today. We usually go on rotation from when the servers were last working the shift to know where to put them. This way it is fair for everyone.” Shanea gave a relieved smile. “Now that makes sense.” She blurted out with confidence. “Here, let’s go over to the desk over here in the Tucker Room where we keep the completed forms from the past few days.” Jackie said as she let the way across the hall and Shaina followed. On a corner wall in the front left of the Tucker room entrance, another buffet table was placed. This one was mahogany all around with ornate floral carvings on the handles. Jackie opened the left drawer and pulled out a small stack of papers that were stapled together.

Jackie brought the stack over to Shanea, “So it looks like Dell, Jennifer, and Daniel were all working breakfast yesterday morning. So this is going to make rotating them easy. There are three sections where there are only three servers, and affection or based on the seating chart. So the server chart goes in a straight line horizontally. Before we get to the seating chart, let me tell you the seating numbers.” Jackie walked back across the hall to the Godfrey Room alongside Shanea. Jackie extended her left hand palms open, and pointed towards the back wall. “So going from back to front, left to right, there is 35 through 36, 43, 53.

On the second row there are 25 through 26, 42, 52, 62. In this third row we have tables 15th through 16th, 41, 51, 61. Please let me know if I have lost you somewhere.” This time Shanea did ask a question. “So is this set up always going to have the same numbers?” Jackie looked down at her and smiled, “Yes.” Said Jackie in an unnerving motherly way. “OK, it will take some time remembering them all.” Shanea informed Jackie. Jackie looked at Shaina with that fake smile again and said, “ No problem,Here’s a seating chart to help you. I will also go ahead and give you one for the Tucker room too.” Shanea took both charts and started reading over them.

She placed the Godfrey room chart in the direction of the seating orientation, and set out to memorize as much as she could that day. “All right, we should be heading to the lineup.” Jackie said, of course she and I had no idea what she was referring to. But, as the train went, she followed along. She soon came to find out once she got into the kitchen, what the lineup was. The lineup was the head chef of the day or section of the day and forming servers, and possibly host, although they do not need to be a part of it, about the day’s specials such as main entrées, wines, and finishing off with grooming habits and standards for the week.

As the chef was going over regular menu items, he would ask the servers to describe each dish and its ingredients. “Huh?” Shanea thought. “How in the world do they know all these things?” The servers were naming the ingredients in the foods and how they and wines are made. The morning manager broke her out of her self-questioning by answering her question, “ So where do we find all this information?” Everyone answered almost simultaneously, “On the board in the hallway leading into the kitchen.”

Shana made a mental note to look at that board. “So, now that the daily lineup is over, has everyone had a chance to introduce herself to our newest hostess in training, miss Shanea?” The morning manager, Montell asked aloud. Shayna was not a fan of feminine or masculine pronouns, but for the sake of today, she kept her mouth shut, and gave stiff not to everyone with a tight lip. Everyone around her said hello and congrats, before splitting off to do their start-up duties. Shanea followed Jackie to the room service office where she met the running room service server and the room service lady who answered the phone; she couldn’t remember their names at the time. For Jackie, it was more of a social call where some of her true exterior came out. For Shanea, it was annoying. She was here to learn about her job, not gossip about other coworkers. She felt so awkward not knowing whether to stay with Jackie or go back to the Godfrey room.

She decided to stay and endure the gossiping trio. After five minutes or so, Jackie and the room service gals finally finished and it was back to business, and Jackie was training Shaina again. They went back into the Godfrey room through an automatic door that awed Shanea. She had never seen doors that open that way before. Automatic sliding glass doors sure. But, all black mad at entryway with hidden black doors? Not so much.

On the other side of the doors was another passage to the Godfrey room. From this viewpoint, the room looked older than she first Thought. The carpet seemed old and the walls had somewhere to them. Shanea chalked it up to age. But, she thought that The hiring manager had informed her that the hotel had undergone recent renovations? “So now that we have done the seating chart and went to the morning lineup, it’s time to go to the front desk and get the morning roster of gas thank you for the day. We use this so we know who has a ride to breakfast that is at the hotel. Those that are staying here, we put their room numbers on this paper right here.” Jackie showed Shanea the breakfast form from the large black binder. “We don’t have to ask for the room numbers, only the last names and how many are in the party.” She lead the way to the front desk and the receptionist was prepared to hand off the list upon their arrival.

Jackie thanked the receptionist, informed her that Shanea was a new host, and they headed back to the dining area with rooms list in hand. “OK, so this road to the left.” Jackie pointed to the first row. “Will be the guest room number then the next row will be the guest names. Then this last round will be how they book their stay online, through an agency, VIP, etc.” By this time they had already made it back to the dining area and were arranging paperwork. “Now if they are not guests, we just put an X in the row that has the room number.” Jackie informed Shanea. Shanea gave a blank stare and then quickly started to plunder through her small notepad she brought with her so that she could take notes.

“ For such a no-brainer job, this requires too much thinking.” She mumbled to herself as she jotted down the information. “So what if there are more people than table space?” Shanea asked Jackie. “ That’s not a problem, we just move tables and chairs together. If it’s a six top coming in and we have a four top table available and a two top table available beside each other, we can put them together.” Shannon not an absolutely but had no idea what a top was. She tried to focus on what was being told to her but the nerves in the words were all so daunting. Instead of sounding stupid, she kept your mouth shut. After years of saying the wrong things, Shanea also learn how and when to be quiet and that this can get her results also.

“ Now while the servers and the server assistant, are setting up we can go get some newspapers from the bell room to put on the table beside the Godfrey.We will get the Wall Street, New York Times, Washington post. We get these after 7:30am, to give the Bellman enough time to deliver them to the guest rooms, then we can get some of the leftovers. We should take three Wall Street, three times, and we don’t have a lot of post so if there are only two or three just leave them.” “Makes sense.” Shanea said to Jackie. “What do we do with the extra papers? Do they go back to the bell room or...?” Shanea asked. “We usually don’t have any left over, but if we do they go back to the bell room.” Jackie answered.

Breakfast started promptly at 7am. The servers and Jerome had finished setting up and we’re ready for guests to arrive. Jackie was going over seating with Shanea when the first guest arrive 15 minutes in to their opening. “Good morning. How are you?” Ask Jackie with a wide fake smile that Shaina had still not picked up on yet. “Good.” So the man in the cargo shorts, flip-flops, and one navy blue shirt. Shanea found it very odd that the rich would dress like this for breakfast in a fancy hotel, but she kept it to herself. “How many will be in your party this morning?” Jackie asked the guest. “There will be two of us. My wife will be down shortly.” Responded the guest. “Right this way, please.” Jackie responded. As the guest came closer, she picked up a menu from the host stand, and lead the way to a table on the far right corner of the room.

Shanea observed what Jackie was doing from the host stand and took mental notes. After Jackie set the gentleman, she removed the additional two place settings. Shanea was worried that she could never actually do these things. If her clumsiness was any indication, she would smash everything in sight. No, there was no possible way she could pull off, removing several glasses of water, tea cups, and breakable plates all at once. Then there was the reset now that in itself was a doozy. She has never set a table for something so classy. She didn’t know where the dining fork and spoon went and where to place a teaspoon versus the knife. So, she observed from afar, and decided she would wait on them to tell her what and when to do things. That way she could avoid the embarrassment

As the morning went on Jackie would let Shaina do small things like ask for guest names when they arrive, and seat them. Shanea struggled trying to remember How to sit where which was daunting for her. She would constantly refer back to the seating chart and go over the last person’s table she sat. There were times she still got the order wrong. Seating a two top on a larger for top square table just felt wrong. In her mind and instinctually, the guest would not feel comfortable sitting in such a bulky space in the center of the room. Especially when they were open table by the window or wall that were smaller and felt more private.

However, Shaina made every effort to seek to guess according to the seating order, and not her instincts. By the time breakfast was over, she had only sat guest in the wrong section 4 times, said the wrong thing like “follow me” 10 times and chocked altogether twice! The breakfast shift was daunting and Shaina was glad it was over. Thought she would get the chance to go home now, with the rest of the serving staff, but was thrown for a loop when Jackie told her it was time to set up for lunch.

Shanea’s heart sank and she felt a world of fatigue. As she looked around at everyone else, no one appeared even half as worried as she did. Those fellow team members who, most of them, were twice her age we’re still peppy and chatting to each other, like a bunch of teenagers. As she looked around at the remaining guess, they seemed about the same, if not a little slower from their food consumption.

Knowing that she had to continue working throughout the day for God only knew how many hours, has Shanea on edge. “So, um how often do the um host stay over to work? I mean how long?” She rapidly, but sloppily asked Jackie as they were setting up for lunch. Jackie to smile from the corner of her mouth, and said in the most sweet, yet sinister way, “Child, we ain’t anywhere close to being done.”

Shayna frozen with an acute sense of fear and even larger sense of anxiety, came to the realization of having to continue an already four-and-a-half hour shift into the next few hours. Say the ground and say partially to her self into the universe, “Why?” She tried to behind Jackie over to the main host stand to start the grieving process over again, but for lunch. Lunch had its own set of rules and problems. The seating chart for one, with both harder and easier for Shanea to grasp. The numbers all lined up to corresponding tables, and the computer system that was not available for breakfast kept Shanea on track.

They were collaborating in a nice way. Everything seem to be going as planned. There’s a bump, a hiccup if he will, happened that we sign up for an egregious loop. I large group of sickly looking guesting for lunch. There were seven total, four adults and three children. At first I thought nothing other appearance, only that this was a large party. She didn’t know how to proceed with seeing them. Therefore, she only said the initial greeting, as she was giving Up to ask for the guest last name, Jackie stepped in it with a sinister chuckle and squeaky voice said, “Welcome back Florez family.”

What the flip up her right hand and the sound of her voice made all stand at an unrealistic, almost immediate attention. With overly enthusiastic smiles saying, “Hello, thank you.” The entire sequence had Shanea standing at attention and her heart rate jumping with bewilderment. “ Right this way.” Jackie informed and lead them to the Tucker Room. Shanea followed them with her eyes still stunned from the past moments' outlandish call and response greeting. “What was that?” She whispered to herself. As Jackie made her return to the host stand, Shanea took a few deep breaths, and tried to steady herself.

She plastered on a big grin and Jackie acknowledged and kind. “Those were the Florez’s , as you heard. They are a very sweet family.” The sweet was a bit over exaggerated and seemed literal to Shanea. After a moment of pondering, Shanea cautiously glanced over into the Tucker Room, at the guests again, and noticed something seemed very odd. The guest were not conversing the way the gas this morning at breakfast had been. There was the occasional look at one another and a solemn say or agreement of enjoyment. Nothing was truly genuine about what they did. To Shanea, things were not on the up and up. What was she to do or say? She tried to reason with the situation, saying to herself that she was seeing things; it was all in her imagination.The stress of doing this was getting to her.

She was just plain tired. Later after these guest finished their meals, they simultaneously pushed their plates away, and were once again at attention. The servers and their assistants came by to pick up the dishes. As the servers were doing so, each leaned over the guess they were attending and inhaled deeply before handing over the dishes to the server assistant.

Shaina noticed a light blue mist coming off of the guest, to the servers, and a bit being transferred to the assistant as each dish was being passed between the two.As this was happening, the guess I seem to droop as if their life force were being drained from them. That’s when Shanea knew, all of her wishful thinking and denial about things being too strange, went away.

She plastered herself against the outside wall of the room and close her eyes for a break from the situation. “Oh my! That... this can’t be real.” She gasped and looked frantically around the hall to see if anyone else had witnessed this out of this world phenomenon. No one else blinked and I. Jackie simply looks down her nose at her and smiled a wide all-toothed smile. “Everything all right?” She squeaked. “Huh? What...What was that?! Shanea exclaimed. “Just lunch,” Jackie said nonchalantly. “Lunch? Lunch involves people feeding on food. Not. People. Feeding on people!”Shanea said hysterically. “People can be…” Jackie pause looking onto Shanea’s stark face. “Well, yes.” She decided to say. “That’s what I meant. People in there, they guess I mean, are having lunch.” Shaina turn quickly to peer into the dining room. “I mean, the staff. What were they doing?” She said any hushed tone. “Feeding on, I mean feeding them.” Jackie quickly answered. Her response was off putting.

Shanea tried to wrap her head around what she just heard. “I… Can you repeat that?” Jackie lane to the right, placed her hands together and said and I nearly snarky voice, “the staff was serving them their food.”She did placed her hand on her hips and said, “you know, like their job says they’re supposed to do?” Shanea took a sweet breath and said, “Right, of course.”