Guide to Hotel HousekeepingPalmer, Mary E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Guide to Hotel Housekeeping
Palmer, Mary E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Home economics; Hotels
Getting along with help requires tact, poise, and balance. The
housekeeper should bestow praise where it is due. She may give a gentle
pat on the back to some faithful employe, and yet keep her dignity. A
hard task may be made lighter by it, and monotonous labor robbed of its
weariness. The old and persistent notion that housekeepers are an
irascible tribe--if it was ever true--is not true now.
The question here arises--What qualities of mind and heart should a
housekeeper possess to be successful?
Nobody has discovered a rule--to say nothing of a principle--whereby a
housekeeper's success may be determined. It is reasonable to claim that
the permanent success of any housekeeper lies in her skill and in the
confidence and esteem of her employer. She has learned that skill is
acquired by serving an apprenticeship, and that esteem and confidence
are won by character. Everybody who touches a sterling character comes
at last to feel it, and the true hotel man has come to know that the
housekeeper of skill and character is his friend. After the relation of
friendship has been established between the manager and the housekeeper,
a "go-between" has no place; to speak plainly, there is no legitimate
function for a tattler.
The young housekeeper should not become discouraged, excited, or
worried, but learn to "manage." She should sit down quietly and think it
over. She should have a system about her most ordinary duties, and never
put off till to-morrow what may be done to-day. Tomorrow may never come,
and, if it does come, it will bring other duties equally as important.
Every field of labor has its drawbacks. The greater the work, the
greater the hindrances and the obstacles seem to be.
THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE "HELP."
It is a truism that there should be no hostilities between the heads of
the different departments of a hotel. Everything works more smoothly and
satisfactorily when pleasant relationships exist between the different
departments of any business.
A housekeeper feels stronger if she thinks that she is of sufficient
importance to her employer to have her views receive some consideration.
She takes up her daily tasks with an added sense of responsibility, and
with a desire to do still better work.
No housekeeper is perfect. It cannot be wisely assumed that any
housekeeper will possess all the requisite qualifications for successful
housekeeping, nor can she develop them all, no matter how ambitious,
industrious, and naturally fitted for the work she may be. But
"Knowledge is power," and she that has the most of it, coupled with the
greatest ability to utilize it, enjoys advantages that will contribute
largely to her success.
_Keeping a Position._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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