Who remembers Matrix printers?

So I did get my uniform, told where the canteen to eat was also for my days off and I started at the reception. No one really spoke anything but Spanish and soon it was apparent to me why I was chosen for reception work. 90% of the guest were British and no one could communicate to them.

Anyway so my first task of the day and any day was to get all those matrix print outs with all guest arrivals, in house and departure. Computers didn’t exist only for the billing itself. So every day all print outs needed to match, you had to highlight those who were on a voucher and the ones who paid themselves. It was a major take taking over an hour and then the guest would arrive. But not individually but in busses. That’s how I met Miranda as every bus was from a different tour operator. And when those buses arrived all needed to go quickly. Out with out yellow highlighters and the registration cards to be filled in. The yellow highlighters were to make sure the guest were checked in. Other colors were for different reasons, for example red where we didn’t have the vouchers.

Thinking back to this time it was actually an easy task but stressful because everyone dreaded the color blue cause that meant room move. And there were lots. People always expected more and always wanted a better room, not to mention regular guest who came back year after year.

I learned the system pretty quickly and it was easy in the end though any room move, that had to be dealt by me as I was the only one speaking English. And explain the housekeeper why all of a sudden they had to redo 20 rooms in my broken Spanish.

But at the end of the day I did learn a lot also how to cope with pressure. One of the most challenging situation during that internship time was when a 16 year old boy threw a bottle of vodka from the balcony into the pool which lead to the pool having to be emptied and cleaned, and me assisting the General Manager translating to the family that they had to pay and leave the hotel. I was 19 at that time and I never had to deal with emotional situations like that throwing guest out of the hotel. But, and definitely more to come later, that situation really taught me how to deal with conflict and managing emotions. Needless to say, I was still learning but learning fast.

Overall I had a super amazing internship and learned to work as a team and appreciate and understand different backgrounds which would benefit me in the future.

Though I have some stories to tell still, at the end of my internship management asked me if I could stay on for another 3 weeks and I did as I really didn’t want to leave the island and that life changing experience. I was also “promoted” to help out in the PR department whose manager was actually German. My main task there was to input guest surveys into some sort of computer system and answer guest responses. This is when I learned one of the most important lessons in life. When inputting all the data, I realized that over the past 3 months 159 (!) guest mentioned my name in the survey for exceptional service! No one ever had shared this with me (others were also mentioned) and I suggested they implement a board in the canteen area for everyone to see the feedback from guest. And they did, and I was happy about this as the housekeeper who also was mentioned with her staff many time came and hugged me at the end of the internship and thanked me for bringing recognition to them. This is not something I learned at school, it was just natural to me to celebrate those who deserve recognition. And I kept that mantra throughout my career until today!