The last housekeeper standing

Now I’m usually not one for throwing pity parties, but given the mass-employee walkout that occurred this week at the Monhegan House––I feel like I’ve earned the right to complain. Prior to Monday afternoon, our inn crew consisted of 15 able-bodied staff members (which is understaffed under normal circumstances, but throw in record-breaking guest counts and a global pandemic and we’re talking serious overtime stress on employees). As we stand today however, the Monhegan House is manned by just 10 folks, not including Holden and Sue who have at this point taken up full-time positions across all facets of the inn (housekeeping, front desk, trucking, helping in the Nov, hosting, etc.).

Anyway, that’s five people who quit mid-season within a mere 48 hours.

To make matters worse, those who walked out left massive gaps in our most essential and unprepared areas of the hotel: we lost our only full-time dishwasher, one of our three servers, a line cook/Novelty chef, my other fellow housekeeper… oh and our head chef of course.

The reasoning behind the multi-person evacuation is complex and perhaps not worth getting into in depth on the blog, but essentially all five were part of the same family and each had issues with management, other staff members, the workload, extensive hours, and general dislike of being on the island. Two of the quitters did put in their two weeks, but naturally left a week early, spurring the other three to bounce the very next day. Despite the abrupt departure, I can’t say I was surprised to hear that they were leaving. It’s no secret that all hospitality and food service institutions are struggling across the country, so basically I think you could ask any server, housekeeper, bartender, etc. how their job is going and they’d probably tell you that they hate their life. Plus, hiring a group of related people is always risky. When one goes they all do. The real domino effect.

As expected, things were chaotic during the period of time between when the five of them announced their decision to go and when they actually left. There were meetings, pleadings, rumors, long talks, and tears, lots and lots of tears.

Oddly enough, it’s kind of a beautiful thing to watch a business fall in a seemingly irreparable way before gradually picking themselves back up. For instance, at our big staff meeting when Sue revealed the mass-departure and informed us of the upped hours and extra work we’d all have to pitch in on to keep things afloat, everyone began to offer up what they could: an extra shift in the dish pit here, an hour-earlier start time there––you could feel the desire from the team to make things work somehow.

It’s been a few days since I began my journey as the solo housekeeper for the entire Monhegan House, and believe it or not, things have been… manageable? Exhausting and stressful too, but manageable at the end of the day. Sue has essentially stepped in room-wise as the other housekeeper that left in order to help me with half of the turnovers when she can, which is an incredibly tall order for a woman who already works 14 hours a day every day. So basically the rooms haven’t been too bad so far (however we’ve also only been having between 5 and 11 turnovers a day since everyone left, and come Sunday’s whopping 18 guest departures, that lull will soon end and turn to chaos again).

It’s the common areas and bathroom duties that really put a strain on me.

Since the chores for things like showers, bathrooms, hallways, the lobby, and parlor are always broken up between two people, I’ve had to take up everything on my own, meaning I’m doing a two-person job every single day. Each morning now I get up an hour earlier to clean all of the showers, unlock the bathrooms, clean all of the bathrooms, restock towels and bath mats, do hallway checks, restock ice, clean the parlor and lobby, and clean out the vacuums. And since I start earlier, I do it all before eating anything for breakfast which is tough given the physical demand behind each of those morning tasks. After room services, I have to do all of the vacuuming and dusting/wiping as well which used to be something I did one or the other of.

Alas, the luxuries of being understaffed and not extremely understaffed.

The 4 PM stuff which I practically did every other day beforehand now all falls on my shoulders as well, and days-off are no longer (though Sue is trying to give me 3/4 of a day off per week when she can, during which I just have to do all the morning chores and then I’m free to go). So much for ever sleeping in again, but it is better than nothing.

It’s interesting the way my coworkers and those around the island who know about our staffing crisis treat me knowing that I’m the sole housekeeper now. Everyone calls me a “warrior,” or a “lone soldier” and tells me how amazing and strong and loyal l am to the inn. Maybe they’re just being extra nice in the hopes that it will prevent me from dropping the Monhegan House too. Either way, it is nice to feel appreciated for the extra effort I’m now forced to put in in order to keep things running smoothly. In a weird way, the responsibility of being the only housekeeper gives me a sense of pride and importance. I like knowing exactly how everything is running at the hotel and the knowledge that every chore is performed correctly and in my preferred method.

It could just be me romanticizing the grind a bit too much in this scenario, but I think I’ve got a healthy attitude about it all.

Simply put though, no one should be worried about me leaving. I signed a contract and made a commitment to being here until September 29, and I’ll be damned if I don’t follow through with said promise. Plus, I love Monhegan too much to let a tough job push me out. In all honesty there’s very little that could put me over the edge to go home early. I’ve suffered through enough shitty jobs and hectic shifts to know that all work experience (even overwhelmingly challenging work experience) serves you well in life. I’ve always been a firm believer that the worst jobs teach me the most (not to say that this is the worst job, though it does probably win the title for hardest).

And it’s not like anything the Monhegan House is experiencing in regard to employment retention is unique or special. We’re seeing country-wide if not global shortages on service industry employees, unfortunately leading too many small businesses to shudder their windows.

If you take anything away from today’s rant, let it be this: be kind. Be kind to your servers, tip your housekeepers, be patient with your to-go orders, have empathy for anyone doing a job you yourself wouldn’t like to be doing. Everyone is trying their very best to serve your needs, but 110% is simply not enough to keep up with consumer demands at the moment.

Oh yeah, and maybe feel a little bad for me and my new one-man cleaning gig.