A paperback by Anchor Books, 2012, 288 pages.

Synopsis:

"Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know.

Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge.

Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly."

This writer seems to live and breathe hotel life after his life's work of managing a hotel front desk. Tomsky's anecdotes, customer do's and don'ts and descriptions of his hotel colleagues reminded me quite a lot of the similar hints and revelations made by Imogen Edwards-Jones in Hotel Babylon. Funny and clever enough to be amusing, but also very American. At least I hope most Finns will not rise up to that level of rudeness as hotel customers just in one heartbeat in situations when they have no actual reasons for the rage.

I will bring this to Tampere meet-up today and ask if pippis wishes to read this as I remember her reading the Hotel and Air Babylon stories, too. Maybe another dose of the hospitality business would be welcome :)?

Oh yes I do! You surely know your fellow crossers! I love hotels (proper ones, not some roadside motel or hostel types) and observing people staying in them shows the weird and wonderful in humans. Now all I need is a quarantine at home and some time to read everything..

Ummm..this wasn't as funny as I was expecting (didn't LOL even once), had fever "revelations" and was a tad too prolonged and explanatory. Idiot customers exist in every single business, bad habits never die and there's never enough gratitude towards the customer servant - and that most certainly shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone working behind a till/desk. In a way this is probably a huge eye-opener to those not travelling much, but otherwise it's just a bit of workplace gossip. Hope the poor bastard makes it as a musician, he's so clearly done with hotels.
Oh, one more thing: I hope from the bottom of my heart tip culture never becomes the main source of income to anyone this side of the Atlantic.

A wish has to be fulfilled!

Many thanks for this wishlist surprise!!

Well, this was quite a disappointment. What we have here is a guy who hates (or pretends to hate) his job, for some reason thinks everyone should know (or care) about it, goes on to write a book about how much he hates his job. Great.
"Oh, the stories he has but he'd never tell. Right? Wrong." Nope, seems about right, there's barely anything resembling a story in this one, unless you count bitter resentment to your bosses (wow, who's ever heard of THAT before?!) or stealing from your workplace or repetitive mentions on drinking/drugs or, most importantly, commands to TIP UPFRONT (was that a minimun of $20, preferably at least $50?) if you expect the front desk to DO THEIR BLOODY JOB. Geez. Lucky for me, I mostly stay in hotels that offer a bed for my head and nothing much more, so I don't need to deal with idiots like him (nor with those tip-needy bellhops/concierges, for that matter. But perhaps in the US they exist even in the cheapest motels, don't know about that)

** Comment for Around the World -reading challenge: at some point the author takes a break from whining and goes to stay in Denmark for a while. I've been to Copenhagen a few times plus Roskilde (not the festival, even though I really wanted to when I was younger!). Not really a destination I'd choose for my holidays, but works nicely as a short stopover on the way someplace else.

At the meet-up

I picked this up from the left-over pile in our well-attended meet-up and thought that this might be amusing but after reading your comments... Well, we'll see. Thank you for the book anyway and it was great to meet again!

Käyn hyllyäni läpi ja merkitsen saataville kirjoja, joita en ihan välttämättä halua tai jaksa lukea.