Stories From A Hotel Mystery Shopper My Life As A Road Warrior, Part 2
Stories From A Hotel Mystery Shopper My Life As A Road Warrior
, Part 2
I began my stint as an undercover hotel mystery shopper when I was in my early 20s. I spent over 5 years traveling around the world, checking hotels and cruise ships for cleanliness, service levels, and integrity. I averaged over 325 day a year on the road.
I had more airline miles accumulated than you can imagine. Given that I spent more than three weeks a month on the road as a hotel mystery shopper, the last thing I wanted to do in my free time was pack up and travel somewhere!
I spent an inordinate amount of time in airports. If this is a job (I cant call it a career, its just too grueling to condemn oneself to a lifetime of this pace of work), you would be interested in, let me tell you the motto of the average road warrior, no matter what your business. It is HURRY UP AND WAIT.
You bust your hump getting yourself to an airport at any given time of day or night. You will rush to an airport, forsaking food and drink, makeup, blow dried hair, and matching clothing, and most of all, sleep. And then you will wait. And wait. And wait some more.
When I was a hotel mystery shopper, there were no cell phones (GASP!). There were no Gameboys, no iPads, no Kindles, no Blackberrys. Pagers were all the rage. I did not carry one. Fax machines were barely en vogue. So when you were stuck at an airport, you did one of four things. You worked, you slept as best you could in an airport chair, you drank, or you read.
I look back now at the volume of books Ive read in airports and on planes and they could fill a library on an island nation. Unfortunately for me and for bellmen worldwide, I just refused to buy paperback books. So I traveled around the world with about 30 pounds worth of airport boredom relief in my carry-on! Im a REALLY fast reader. What I would have done for a Kindle in those days!
And thats IF your wait commenced before you boarded your plane. I cant recollect how many times when I was a hotel mystery shopper that I sat on planes on tarmacs waiting. The worst time was once in Dallas. That was the trip from hell. And even today, I dont remember where I was coming from or where I was going. I just remember sitting on that plane thinking to myself nobody knows where I am right now, and nobody cares where I am right now. Being a hotel mystery shopper was a very lonely job.
As an aside, when you are a hotel shopper, you no longer refer to geographic locations by their given names. They are known simply by their airline code. I used to fly out of MRY, then it became MSP, then for a short while it was SJC, where I could sometimes fly into SFO or even OAK in a pinch! If youre a road warrior, you know exactly where I lived in those 5 years.
Back to Dallas (DFW). Once we pushed back from the gate, we sat on the tarmac waiting for weather to clear for 6 hours. Yes, 6 hours on the ground, mere yards from the gate. Then we got into the air and headed out. We got as far as Oklahoma City. Much to the surprise of the captain, there was bad weather there too and we were sent back to Dallas. For some unexplainable reason, since we had been able to finally depart from Dallas, one would assume that it would be safe to land there. Guess again. We circled the big D for another hour before being able to finally land.
By now it was about 1:30 in the morning and the line at the ticket counter was about 200 people deep. I went to the nearest pay phone (remember, no cell phones in those days!) and called American Express. Sometime, membership DOES have its privileges!
by: Michelle Morrison Warren
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