I remember, one evening, a woman whom I’d met once or twice, came to tell me that her daughter, who’d completed her diploma in Hotel Management, actually wanted to take up a job in the same field. I thought she was asking me where she could find a vacancy, so I guided her accordingly, told her to post her biodata to the HR departments, watch out for adverts in the newspapers, go to placement agents, pass the word around through friends and more. Her expression stopped me. No, she virtually screamed, no job. Then what, I asked. She wanted me to convince her daughter that a job in a hotel was no good, that she should take up a ‘decent’ placement in a Chartered Accountant’s office. I jest not, she said so. What would a hotel management student do in a CA’s office? Serve tea? Re-arrange the furniture? Dust it? I never met the girl, but felt bad for her. After ‘allowing’ her to take up a course (presumably) of her choice, the parents were clipping her wings. Later, I learned that the girl had become an air-hostess….not quite the approved thing, but it paid twenty times more, so it was ‘okay’.

There were times when persons I knew were either too ‘embarrassed’ to acknowledge my presence or too awkward to say niceties to me because conditioning prevented them from interacting with staff working in hotels. I must say, though, over a period of five years, many of them got over their ‘shyness’ and have become good acquaintances. A part of this could have been because I wrote regularly for a local paper, hence joined the ranks of ‘thinkers’. What a paradox!!

A recent discussion about this has prompted me to write this. Although Goan women have rapidly moved out of the mould of teacher, doctor, musician, clerk, many have become artists, actors, adventurers, a certain mindset remains. I’d like those who don’t know much about working in a hotel to know that guests may come and go, but colleagues stay on forever, and they are fellow Goans, perfectly decent persons who earn an honest living and help you in times of distress (when I needed help, my colleagues were more than family). Some believe guest relations is a brainless job. Ah well, everyone can’t be a neuro-surgeon. Dealing with customers requires a different kind of skill: it, too, requires a high level of professionalism.

Anyone who has worked in a five star hotel in Goa for over two years can work anywhere in the world, with pride. It’s about sticking to rules and regulations when fellow Indians want to wipe their hands on a curtain and not pay for the damages. It’s about perfection in whatever one does, whether it’s cooking or looking after a lawn. In guest relations it’s about collecting, collating, analyzing feedback and inventing systems that would improve/generate income ….uses up a lot of grey cells, I can tell you.

It’s about judging people and handling situations. It’s about knowing what’s happening in the tourism industry, the lack of policy/infrastructure and making an effort to rake in the moolah in spite of it. But…if one can earn a living by flashing a smile and greeting someone nicely, enjoy the good people, pretty surroundings, laughter, why not? And yes, a hotel is a perfectly decent and safe environment to work in, as much or less as any other office.