Somewhere along the orientation process I missed the fact that for one day a week I have to work a double shift. This is because this hotel offers "Turndown Service" every night. To tell you the truth I had never heard of this before and had no idea what it was until I was trained in it last night.
Turndown service is when you go into a guest's room in the evening, close the heavy curtains, pull back their covers, put a chocolate (along with the breakfast in bed menu) on their pillow, turn on their bed lights and "tidy up" anything else that needs to be cleaned.
That's not me, it's just a picture I found on Google Images
All the VIPs get nightly turndown service automatically but the other guests can request it as well. The annoying/embarrasing thing about turndown service is that not only does it seem a little unnecessary but also that many of the guests don't know what it is either. Last night during my turndown service training, we knocked on doors and said "Good evening, turndown service." People would answer and say, "What's that?" or "What do you need to do?" And we would offer to close their curtains and pull back their bed for them and they would look at us like we were crazy. Then we would give them Artesenal water and posh chocolates and then at least it would feel that the visit wasn't entirely useless and they would close the door moderately happy if not confused.
Last night Juliana and I did 61 turndowns. How long does it take to personally visit 61 rooms on varying floors in a huge hotel you ask? A loooong time. I was afraid that by the end of our shift we would be waking them up, getting them out of bed and then offering to turn their bed down for them. That would be awkward.
One last fun fact about working in New Zealand: there is no overtime pay. And when you are making $13.50/hr (about $11/hr USD) that is not a very fun fact at all.
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