Part 2
There is no ingenious system that the housekeeper may adopt to insure her success. Getting into trouble or keeping out of it is largely a matter of luck, influenced by the kind of help that she is able to secure. But, first and last, her success depends on her character--her own energy, industry, intelligence, and moral worth.
ROOM INSPECTION.
When inspecting rooms, the housekeeper will notice that the room is completed with the following necessaries: One bed, one foot blanket. One rocking chair and two straight chairs. One writing table and a scrap basket. One cuspidor. One dresser. One clothes tree or wardrobe. One ice water pitcher and two glasses on a tray. If there is no bathroom, or stationary hot and cold water, there must be a commode, a wash bowl and pitcher, soap dish and clean soap. One slop jar, one chamber. Four face towels. If there is a bathroom, one bath mat and toilet paper in the holder. One small mirror. One cake of bath soap and two bath towels are needed. On the dresser in every guest room should be a box of safety matches and a candle. Candles are so cheap, and candle holders may be purchased for a trifle, which will answer the purpose as well as silver. No one who has lived in hotels but knows how annoying it is to be left in total darkness for half an hour, on account of a burned out fuse, when they are dressing for the theatre and in a hurry to complete their toilet.
The clerk in the office with the room rack in front of him has no conception of the rooms except that they are in perfect order. Perfect order does not only mean that the bed is neatly made, the floor clean and all the furniture dusted; soap, towels, matches, candles and glasses in their places, but everything must be in perfect working order. Let the housekeeper's inspection begin then with the door. The lock must be in order, and the key work properly. It is embarrassing to the clerk to have to listen of a morning to such complaints as "my door would not lock, and I was compelled to push the dresser in front of it to insure safety." But this "kick" is often heard in first-class houses. The transoms next should receive attention--see if they will open and close. Next the electric lights; they must all be in order and burn brightly. The dresser drawers must move readily, and be perfectly clean. The windows must be carefully examined to see if they open and close easily, and they must have no broken cords. A housekeeper's intelligent attentions to these details will greatly aid the clerk in prompt service to the guests, and will insure to the hotel the service that will be its own best advertisement.
GOSSIP BETWEEN EMPLOYES.
There are only two classes in a hotel among its employes; one class is quite perfect and pure as angels, while the others are black sheep and altogether unspeakable. There is no transition, no intermediate links, no shading of light or dark. A hotel employe is either good or bad, and this rigid rule applies not only to moral character, but intellectual excellence also is measured by the same standard. In a large hotel of, say 250 employes, everybody seems to know everybody and everything about everybody. Everybody knows that he is watched, and gossip, both in the best and worst sense of the word, rules supreme. Gossip is, in fact, public opinion, with all its good and all its bad features. Still, the result is that no one can afford to lose caste, and everybody behaves as well as he can. The private life of hotel employes is almost blameless. The great evils of society do not exist; now and then a black sheep gets in, but his or her life soon becomes a burden, everybody knows what has happened and the employes, being on a whole so blameless, are all the more merciless on the sinners, whether their sins are great or small.
What most impresses one in hotels is the loyalty among employes. No one tells them what to do or what to say, or what not to say, or what not to do, yet you will observe that one who professes to be your friend will not say unfriendly things behind your back. This condition is noticeable among those of inferior rank, as well as among managers, stewards, clerks and housekeepers. As a rule, one table in the main dining room is reserved for the officers, clerks, stewards, cashiers, bookkeepers, checkers, stenographers and housekeepers. Most of them have been taught a few rules of life wisdom by their seniors. At any rate, few of them are seen with their elbows on the table. They are observant enough of social forms to eat pie with a fork, and their teaspoon is always in the saucer; they eat slowly and take time to triturate. There is always one "wit" to make one sorry when the meal is ended. Many hotel employes possess intellectual powers to a great degree. Many clerks are college graduates. The housekeeper is not, as some have said usually a member of the broken down aristocracy, some one who has seen better days, whose duty it is to walk through the halls with a "persimmon" countenance, in search of the evildoer; never was a statement more false. Hotels employ a house detective to look after its morals. A housekeeper is more apt to be an assistant, who has been promoted to the very responsible position of housekeeper.
_Relationship Between Housekeeper and Women Patrons._
A simple acquaintance is the most desirable footing with all persons, however desiring. The unlicensed freedom that usually attends familiarity affords but too ample scope for the indulgence of selfish and mercenary motives on the part of the women patrons. It would be safe to say that the housekeeper owes to all women patrons the courtesy and consideration due one woman from another. It has been said that woman's inhumanity to woman makes countless millions mourn. But this condition is happily fading away; within the last decade women have been improving in manners and morals toward each other. The housekeeper should take the initiative, consider the "roof as an introduction" and assume a kindly interest in the welfare of the women guests.
Politeness is the sweetener of human society and gives a charm to everything said and done. But a housekeeper may be called on to sacrifice her duty to her employer. In this case she must not let any weak desire of pleasing guests make her recede one jot from any point that reason and prudence have bid her pursue.
_Birds of Passage._
One of the most striking conditions in modern hotel life is that few hotels retain their heads of departments any great length of time, while the inferior working class remains in one hotel for many years, and often for a lifetime. This significant state becomes more marked from year to year, and the question arises: What has brought about such a changed condition? The traveling public surely is gratified to see a familiar face behind the desk, in the housekeeping department, and also in the dining-room. In days past, clerks, stewards, and housekeepers, were identified with the same hotel until a retirement from all active life would see them replaced by others. But of late they seem to have earned the title, "birds of passage."
Temperament creates the atmosphere of your surroundings, and if you would remain in a fixed place, you should cultivate the respect of all, and, if possible, their love, also. A nervous man or woman speaks in haste and uses a sharp tone of voice over mere trifles, which, to an ignorant mind, may have a tendency to create dislike, causing results that may prove distinct barriers to his or her success as a manager or housekeeper, whereas a placid man or woman could bring about the same result with gentler tones, thereby preventing useless friction and hatred.
_Directing and Commanding._
Heads of hotel departments should cultivate their talents for directing and commanding. Politeness, which belongs to all persons of good breeding and is essential in the ordinary transactions of life, is so minutely cultivated by the heads of hotel departments as to be conspicuous in its absence; some are not even civil, which is the very least that one person can be to another.
I do not mean to infer that an employe is to be forgiven if he gets intoxicated and is late to his work every morning, nor that a sneak, a thief, or an agitator should be excused. To handle help on the forgiving plan in such cases, employers would become sentimental reformers and the worst kind of failures. Sentiment may be comforting, but it is silly when employed in business, under these conditions. Those that desire may practice forgiveness, but when it costs time and money and brings gray hairs to those that are doing the forgiving, it is better to keep as near the line of sternness as possible. Everyone employing labor should be very careful of his manner in expressing his disapproval of the actions of subordinates. A reprimand should never be made in anger. If a grave offense has been committed, reprimanding should be done with great coolness and reserve, if you would look to future events and their probable consequences. Impertinent and forward people may be checked by cold reserve. Often the faculties for transacting business and the talents for directing and reprimanding are considered by fond admirers to be the gift of nature, when, in reality, they are the outcome of self-control and education.
Chesterfield says: "If you are in authority and have a right to command, your commands delivered in _sauviter in modo_ will be willingly, cheerfully, and, consequently, well obeyed."
_Attention to Details._
Hotel housekeeping is a science. The crowning excellence, as all acknowledge, lies in giving strict attention to small things. Successful hotel-keeping is an artistic achievement in which everything is in its right place, is of the proper grade, shade, quality, and cleanliness, harmonizing in every particular.
Details are repulsive to the lazy or the listless. Let the housekeeper feel the greatness of her position and the importance of her duties, if she so desires to succeed. Enthusiasm is an element that can least be spared--one that must accompany the housekeeper at every step.
The question has arisen whether the housekeeper should learn without rules, by blundering experience, or should she take what the approved experience of others has found to be the best. No one doubts the answer. The true way is to submit to rules and regulations and methods of experienced and practical hotel housekeepers that have made their profession a life-long study.
THE PROGRESSIVE HOUSEKEEPER.
The ocean is an everchanging wonder of kaleidoscopic views and no eye ever wearies of its beauty. The earth arrays herself in such gorgeous costumes so pleasing to man's sight that few there are who want to leave her to try another. The child tires of the old ragdoll and cries for the "Teddy bear." Put a new dress on the old ragdoll and it will again become the favorite.
If a housekeeper is not progressive, her employer will tire of her. The onward trick of nature is too much for the average housekeeper, and gladly would she anchor, but to do so means to sink. She must keep up with the times, she must travel the pace of progress.
There is nothing new under the sun, but there is constant metamorphosis. Time brings changes. Competition is strong and housekeepers must be on the alert for any accomplishment that will aid in their calling.
In America, life is a universal race for exalted positions. Then get out of the rut and keep up the long list of illusions, of which a rapid succession of changes and moods and styles and ideas is the secret.
You must keep busy. There is only one sin that you can commit; that sin is idleness. Polish the old things and make them look like new. Do not let your footsteps become so narrow that they will end in a turkey-track. Keep up your practice of thoroughly cleaning rooms, overhauling furniture, and sending out a mattress now and then to have it repaired. Take up a carpet and have it cleaned. Give the radiators a coat of bronze. Have the ceiling lights cleaned. Paste up the wall-paper that is hanging from the wall. Polish the brass on the stairs. Put in an order for some new material of which to make dresser covers.
_Decorative Dresser Covers._
The writer has just completed some very pretty dresser covers for the parlor floor rooms, en suite. The work is fascinating, and the linen-room girls and parlor-maids can lend a hand at making them. Any kind of linen material can be adapted that can be laundered with ease and success. Plain white linen is a well-deserved favorite and makes thoroughly useful, as well as fashionable, dresser-covers. A cheaper material can be found in linen toweling--just as pretty and just as durable as the plain white linen.
The dresser cover just covering the dresser and not allowed to hang down is the favorite mode just now. It can be simply hemmed; but a charming and more attractive pattern is with scalloped edges and elaborated ends. These scallops are made with a spool, medium size, No 50 being especially suitable. Put the spool on the edge of the material and with a lead pencil, draw a crescent and then another, clear across the end. Pad the scallops with common white darning-cotton, using the old fashioned chain-stitch. Before putting the work in the embroidery-hoops, sew a strip of muslin, about six inches in width to the edge of the dresser cover. This will aid in getting the work placed in the hoops and will enable you to do smoother and more satisfactory work.
Embroider the scallops with linen embroidery floss, size "D," using the buttonhole stitch. An eyelet at the termination and just above each crescent will add materially to its effectiveness. Rip off the muslin and launder before cutting out the scallops. This will prevent the ugly fringe seen on so many embroidered dresser-covers.
THE HOUSEKEEPER'S SALARY.
Too many housekeepers of the present day neglect the small things. They want to draw large salaries and let the house take care of itself, while they visit with the guests and gossip and have a good time. The clerks are kind and do not report to the manager the little complaints that come to the office every day; but the housekeeper's conscience should tell her that she is not earning her money.
The housekeeper that is above her profession, is not interested in her work, and that is trying to get into some church society, had better not engage in hotel housekeeping, for her housekeeping duties will require her constant attention at the hotel. There will be some difficulties to settle at all times, which will require her presence. Maids work better when they are conscious of a vigilant overseer. They take more pride in their work when they know that every nook and corner is being inspected by the housekeeper. Especially is this true if the housekeeper is successful in commanding the respect of her subordinates.
The housekeeper that lays the blame of some grave mistake on her assistants is not worthy of the name of housekeeper. Had she been there, attending to her affairs, it would not have happened, for she would have prevented or stopped it.
The housekeeper, by diligence, attendance to her duties, and by economies, figures greatly in the success of a hotel, and makes her own position. The position does not make her. Then it is fairly reasonable to suppose that such a housekeeper should make her own salary; that she should command and receive her price; that she should be paid according to the amount she is really worth, and not the fixed scale that the hotel pays. If a housekeeper can show by her books, by her management, and by her economies, that she is worth more than her predecessor, she is entitled to more pay, and by all means should receive more pay. The average salary paid a housekeeper is not enough to properly clothe a housekeeper. After her laundry bills are paid, what has she left to lay up for the "rainy day," to say nothing of an old age, when parsimony and incompatibility of temper and "set ways" make her, in any place, an unwelcome personage.
_The Faithful, Efficient Housekeeper._
The housekeeper that sticks to her post and is always looking after her work is surely worth more to her employer than one that has worn the carpet threadbare in front of her mirror, or one that puts in a great portion of her time at the bargain-counter, or the theater, or with a novel in her hand. Surely, the hard-working housekeeper, the one that makes her occupation a study and is always at her post, is worth more to her employer than the housekeeper that is trying to do society "stunts," to ring in with people of fashion, to "out-dress" them. But the majority of hotels pay much the same salaries to housekeepers, good, bad, and indifferent.
The progressive housekeeper that thus looks after her employer's business every day, always at her post in the linen-room, is uncomplaining, shoulders the blame, and is not always knocking on his private-office door and entering complaints about this or that, is surely worth more than thirty dollars a month to any hotel man. If he does not think so, he should not blame the progressive, faithful, reliable housekeeper, if she promptly accepts a position with better pay.
INSPECTION AND CLEANING OF ROOMS.
The housekeeper, or her assistant, should go through every room twice a day. In the morning, the housekeeper should take the house-plan, inspect every room, and check up the rooms that have been occupied. If the bed in a room has been used, and if there is baggage, she should check this also, and should turn the report into the office by nine o'clock. Then, in the afternoon, when the maids are supposed to have finished their work, the housekeeper should take her pencil and pad and thoroughly inspect every room and the maids' work. She may find a ragged sheet or pillow slip; if so, she should make a note of it. Some room may be short of a towel, soap or matches; she should make a note of this also. Around the gas-jets and in the corners, she may find "Irish curtains" (cobwebs); in the commode, she may find a vessel that was forgotten; in a dresser drawer, a man may have left his cast-off hose, and suspenders. Some maid may have swept the center of the room, while under the bed and under the dresser there may be dust of two weeks' standing; in another room, the housekeeper may find a bathtub forgotten--all of which she should write on the pad. This work will occupy two hours of her time in a two-hundred-room house. When the maids come on watch at six o'clock, each one should be given instructions to go back and finish her work. In some hotels, the maids do not go off duty of an afternoon, but continue working until six o'clock. In this case, the housekeeper should issue her instructions at once.
HOW TO CLEAN A ROOM.
There are many ways to clean a room, but there is just one best way to clean it thoroughly. "Dig out the corners" should be the watchword of every successful housekeeper. She would rather the maid would leave the dirt in a pile in the center of the room than fail to clean out the corners.
If one word could be selected that means the most and needs the most emphasis in the science of housekeeping, that word would be "cleanliness." The first desideratum, therefore, of the chambermaid, is the scrub-pail and a piece of oilcloth--some maids use a newspaper--under it to protect the carpet. The first thing to do is to clean the small pieces of furniture. If the furniture is new, it should be only wiped with the dust-cloth. If it is old and marred, it should be washed with warm water and soap, and oiled with a good furniture-polish. It should then be set in the hall. The dresser drawers should be washed and the marble cleaned with sapolio; the mirrors should be polished, the windows washed, and the shutters dusted. The crockery should be cleaned and put in the hall. The bed should be covered with a dust-cover. The cobwebs should be swept down with a long-handled broom. The lace curtains should be shaken, and either taken down or pinned up. The closet should be swept out. The toilet-bowl should be scrubbed inside and out with the toilet-brush, and a disinfectant powder put in. The stationary wash-bowl should be scrubbed with sapolio, and the faucets polished, not forgetting the chain. The bathtub should also be scrubbed with sapolio, and the floor washed.
The door should now be closed and the sweeping begun. A very good plan is to scatter wet paper over the floor to keep the dust down. The corners should be dug out and the dirt swept to the center of the room and taken up in the dust-pan. If the carpet is old, it should be sponged with warm water and soap, to which a little ammonia has been added. The carpet will look like new after this process. After the dust is well settled, all the wood work in the room should be washed; the bed and dresser should be washed and oiled, and all the furniture should be symmetrically arranged, and the windows closed on account of storms.
One chambermaid can successfully look after eighteen or twenty rooms a day. Not all of the rooms are occupied every night. The maid should take advantage of the dull days to clean her rooms thoroughly; she should clean one room every day.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD BEDS.
Competition is great, and success will come to the best and cleanest hotel. The traveler loves to slip into a bed with perfectly laundered sheets that do not look as if the maids had sprinkled, folded, and pressed them between the mattress, as chambermaids ordinarily do in hotels where there is a scant supply of linen.
Sometimes the chambermaid will ask the laundryman for a pair of sheets to make up a sample-room, as the guest wants to receive a customer. The laundryman replies: "Well, just as soon as the machinery starts again, you may have them." There has been a breakdown; the belt is off; or something has gone wrong, and they have sent for the engineer to fix it. Then the housekeeper must go to some unoccupied room and strip the bed and use the linen for making up the bed in the sample-room, while the guest walks the floor and frets over the delay. Much time is saved if the hotel is supplied with plenty of linen.
Sheets that cover only two-thirds of the mattress do not add to the cheerfulness and comfort of the guests. Many well grounded complaints are entered about this. Special laws have been enacted in some states, within the last year, regarding the length of sheets.
Occasionally a guest finds it expedient to make his bed over, if he would have any comfort. The maid has put the double fold of the blanket to the top; it is a warm night, yet he fears to throw the blanket off--he might take cold. So he concludes to make his own bed, putting the single fold to the top, that he may throw some of it back.
HOW A BED IS MADE.
Good bed-making is the one trait par excellence in all good chambermaid work. To make a bed artistically is one important feature, and to make it so that the guest may rest comfortably is another, and, finally, just how is the best way to make a bed is a question worthy of consideration.
In our big country of America, the traveler from Maine to California sees many styles of bed-making. In New Orleans is seen the picturesque canopy of pure white mosquito-netting tucked in neatly all around. In Kansas City is seen the snowy spreads plaited half way to the foot with numerous little folds. In New York is seen the pure linen hemstitched sheets, turned back with a single fold.