Intern's Story: Rine, Norway  

After working one week in the reception of Jing An Hotel I have been trained to do check-in and check-out. I can now welcome the guest and check in the guest by myself. I am also learning how to exchange money and what happens if the guests have other questions and how the receptionists handle situations they did not see coming. I am learning how to communicate with people from different parts of the world, and how to use different languages like English, Chinese, Norwegian, German and Japanese. The other people I work together with teach me Chinese, so I am improving my language skills.

I begin my work at 09.00 o'clock in the morning, then I change to my uniform and go to the reception of the Jing An Hotel. The first hours until 12.00 o'clock are the busy hours for check-out since check-out time is 12.00 o'clock. After that, we go for lunch in the cantine that is in the Shanghai Hotel. After lunch, which lasts for about 30 minutes, I go back to the reception and continue my work. I do check-in and late check-outs and money exchange. When there are no guests in the reception we tidy up the place, and take a rest. Then, the people I work with use the time to teach me Chinese, and I teach them English or Norwegian. I finish my work at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

I like the fact that this hotel is much smaller and more personal than the Shanghai Hotel, so I really get to experience different work environments and I enjoy that. My co-workers are friendly and helpful when I ask them questions, and they seem very eager to teach me how to do the work. I have been taken around in the hotel, and have been shown different types of rooms and the restaurant, gym and beauty center. The managers have introduced themselves to me, and told me that I should not be afraid to ask them if I have questions about the work.

A Typical Day as a Hotel Housekeeper

I arrive in the hotel at 7.45am, then I use my electronic staff card to show that I have arrived in time. I then go to change my clothes into the uniform. At 8 o’clock all the housekeepers meet in the office, and then the manager tells about the duties for the day, and divides the housekeepers into pairs, and tells who will be in the different floors. After that I go with some of the other housekeepers to a certain floor and make the beds in the rooms that the guests have already left. When I have made up all the beds, I help the other housekeepers with other type of work like cleaning in the rooms.

We have lunch from 11.30 until 12.00, and after that we go back to our floor and do the rest of the work. When we are finished with the rooms in the floor, we bring a list of things that we had to put in to the rooms, because the guests had taken use of them, and fill up the trolley that we have in each floor. Then we organize and clear the "work room" (the room that we have all the things like trolley, sheets, towels and stuff like that in). After all this we are finished, and we go to the office and deliver the list of the floor which shows how long time we have used in each room and things like that. Then we go to change our clothes and use our staff card to show that we have left the hotel after 8 hours work.


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