Guide To Hotel Housekeeping - free ebook by Mary E. (Mary Elizabeth) Palmer

MARY E. PALMER

The greater part of the contents of this book was published, in instalments, in The Hotel World, of Chicago....

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A Foreword.

My chief purpose in writing this book was to place a few guide-posts along the route of hotel housekeepers to warn them against certain errors common to women engaged in the arduous and difficult occupation of keeping house for hotels. If anything that I have set forth herein shall make the work of hotel housekeepers easier, more inviting, or more efficient, thereby contributing to the satisfaction of proprietors and to the comfort of patrons, I shall feel amply repaid for writing this book. Mar

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The Manager and the Help.

The average hotel manager is only too prone to complain of the incompetency and the inefficiency of hotel "help." It is true that it is difficult to secure skilled help, for there is no sort of institution that trains men and women for the different kinds of hotel work. Each hotel must train its own help, or obtain them from other hotels. Thus there is no uniform and generally accepted standard of excellence in the different departments of hotel-keeping. A good word should be said in behalf of t

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Feeding and Rooming the Help.

Employes, such as housekeepers, clerks, cashiers, stenographers, stewards—though few stewards use the privilege—and bartenders, are permitted to take their meals in the main dining-room. Other office-employes take their meals in the officers' dining-room, from the same bill of fare used in the main dining-room. Chambermaids, bell-boys, and other "help," are served in the "helps' hall," from a separate bill of fare. Their food is good, as a rule; when it is not, the fault usually lies with the ch

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Requirements of a Housekeeper.

Every profession or trade is made up of two classes: the apprentice and the skilled workman. The young woman looking for a position as hotel housekeeper should not forget that careful training is fully as important and necessary in her chosen vocation as it is in medicine or cooking; that she must learn by slow and wearisome experience what it has taken years for the skilled housekeeper to acquire. The apprentice may stumble on the road to success and may even fall by the wayside. In order to su

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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

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The Hotel Proprietor's Wife.

Implicit confidence should exist between the housekeeper and the proprietor's wife. This does not mean that the proprietor's wife should take the housekeeper automobile riding. Any proprietor's wife that enters into such a degree of intimacy with any of her husband's employes distinctly displays the hallmarks of plebeanism. The writer does not want to become an iconoclast, but she believes that all business should be conducted on a business basis. There must be an unwavering loyalty to the inter

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Character in the Hotel Business.

There is no royal road to success for the hotel clerk, steward, manager, or housekeeper. The hotel business is peculiar in many respects; it teaches conspicuously the great importance of character. 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, intel

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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 towe

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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 e

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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 hou

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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 ge

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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 ins

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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

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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 s

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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 K

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How to Clean Walls.

To clean a painted canvas wall does not require so much skill as patience. A painted canvas wall is very easily cleaned. Many housekeepers have them washed with ivory soap and water, and obtain good results. Others add a little ammonia to the water, and still others use the powdered pumice. The cost of painted walls are great, and it is a great saving to any proprietor, if the housekeeper can successfully clean a painted wall without calling the decorators. Perhaps the most practical and most ec

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How to Get Rid of Vermin.

The worst kind of house-pests, if you do not know how to get rid of them, but not the easiest to exterminate, are bedbugs. They do not confine themselves to any section of the country, though the International Encyclopedia gives the belief "that up to Shakespeare's time they were not known in England," and that "they came originally from India." In Kansas, the bedbug is improperly called the chintz-bug, and is believed to dwell under the bark of the cotton-wood tree. There is no authentic truth

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The Superiority of Vacuum Cleaning.

This is an age of surprises and scientific researches. The up-to-date vacuum-cleaning machine is a huge debt to an ancient past. It is a big improvement over the methods employed in days gone by. As a preventive for moths, it has no equal. In hotels where this labor-saving device has not been installed, carpets must be carried to the roof to be cleaned, or sent to the regular carpet-cleaners, and soon converted into ravelings. Carpets are very expensive, and, if you want your money's worth from

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The Linen-Room and the Linen-Woman.

The linen-woman has in her care all the beautiful and expensive linen in the hotel; if she is careless in counting it when sending it to the different departments, careless in counting it after it has been returned, there will be a deficit in the "stock-report" at the end of the month. The linen-room is a position of trust. The linen-woman should be as accurate in counting her employer's napkins and table-cloths as the cashier is in counting his employer's dollars. The following set of rules and

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Care of Table-Linen.

A table-cloth should be long enough to hang over the table, at least eighteen inches on all sides. Pattern cloths are prettier than the piece-linen. They are more expensive, but it pays to buy the best for hotel use. Linen, to have sufficient body to wear well, should have a certain weight to the square inch. Table-linen should weigh at least four and one-half ounces to the square yard. All pattern-cloths have the napkins to match. The napkins and table-cloths should have a tiny, narrow hem. The

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Laundry Work.

"Order is Heaven's first law," sang the poet, and to keep order in a hotel seems not such an Herculean task. System makes work easy, and the superintendent of the laundry must insist on the work being systematically performed. Soap and water are the most important materials used in the laundry work. To do good work with little or no damage to the linen, soft water and good soap are absolutely necessary. In many parts of the United States, the water is permanently hard, and is a perplexing questi

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The Housekeeper's Rules.

If the management does not provide the housekeeper with rules, she is safe in formulating the following: 1. Maids must report for duty at 7:00 a.m. 2. Maids must lock all doors when leaving rooms. 3. No maid is allowed to transfer chairs or furniture from one room to another by order of the guests, unless they have an order from the office. 4. Maids must report at once any articles which are misplaced or taken from the rooms. 5. Keep all soiled linen in closets. 6. Maids must not lea

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The Parlor Maid.

Excepting the linen-room position, that of parlor maid is the most desirable situation that the hotel housekeeper can offer a girl. The wages are usually better than those of a chambermaid, and her work is not near so laborious. At all times, the parlor-maid is neatly dressed, suave, serene, and courteous. A quiet and unobtrusive manner is absolutely essential. She needs to take many steps during the day, and thus youth and a slender figure are the first qualities in one who wishes to make a suc

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About Chambermaids.

Some person that does not know anything about the life of a chambermaid will tell you that the "chambermaid has no protection, no morality, and is without the influence of a fixed place or home atmosphere;" finally, that "chamber-work is the most degrading occupation a girl can engage in!" If a girl is not capable of a higher calling, why should not she make beds in a hotel when there is such a crying need from the hotel managers for conscientious and painstaking work? It is not every girl that

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Miscellaneous Subjects.

The housekeeper should furnish the houseman with a synopsis of his duties every morning. In addition to this, he has, of course, his regular duties—sweeping halls, dusting, cleaning cuspidors, washing windows, hanging curtains, moving furniture, laying carpets, and cleaning lights. Sweeping roofs and keeping gutters clean fall to his share also. Fortunate indeed is the housekeeper that can have a houseman for each floor. A skull cap and an over-all suit would be appropriate apparel for the house

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Why Hotel Employees Fail to Rise.

The reasons why some people never rise above commonplace positions should be made clear to all that seek employment or better conditions. In every field, there are those that never take the initiative, and they make up the great majority. They are apparently afraid of doing too much work, or of making themselves generally useful, or of doing some bit of work that has not been assigned them, for which they might not be paid, forgetting that the world's greatest prizes are generally bestowed on th

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Suggestions in Case of Fire.

It is hard to tell a housekeeper what to do or what not to do in case of fire. No two hotels are alike, and no two fires occur in the same way. Circumstances are to be considered first. Much depends on the location and the progress of the fire, and whether it is night or day. It is an old maxim "that fire is a good servant but a hard master." Shakespeare wrote: "A little fire is quickly trodden out, which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench." It is bad policy to delay sending in the alarm to t

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The Evolution of the Housekeeper.

The greatest wonder to my mind is that more women that must of necessity earn their livelihood, do not adopt the profession of hotel housekeeping. What nicer or more profitable way can a woman earn her living. Standing at my window of a stormy morning, I see many women going early through the wind and snow, sometimes rain, to their work, and I can not help comparing my daily tasks to theirs. Many of these women stand all day behind the counters of some large dry-goods store, where they are desig

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