Orientaion

On October 7th, 2008 my class and I went to The Albany Marriot. We are on are to starting are 100 hr internship. My whole class wore tan or black pants with a navy blue collar shirt, it can either be long sleeve or short selves, along with are outfits we wore in closed black shoes. It took us about 5-10 minutes to arrive at the hotel, I was pretty excited because I never been to a hotel before. To be professional we went through the employee entrance door, instead of the front way to enter.

As walking through the back door I checked my self through the mirror to see if I looked presentable. We walked through the hotel, into our meeting room. As we walked through the meeting room I saw restaurants, lounges, and housekeepers. I learned that everything isn’t as pretty as you would think. I never got to see the back side of the hotel, like the dishes are people in the back stacking dishes. It was really good though to get to see that. We also meet with a housekeeper as she on her way to cleaning a room

All my class mates go issued a name tag, name card, some got a mug or a teddy bear, and we all got a note card. What I found interesting was that they had the room set up with nice white table clothes and with bottle water with glasses to drink from. I thought they weren’t going to that because we were only students on an internship from high school.

In the meeting room we were introduced by the general manager of the hotel, his assistant, and other managers who reside in the hotel. It manager of a different department explained how they got into the hotel business. I really liked this one lady she was head of the food and bervage, she had a good personality and she seemed like a fun person to work with. The manager of acccountist also had a good story on how she worked her way up. She was once a nurse, and went to college for nursing to ending up in the hospility field as acccountist. I also learned how people worked there way up from the bottom to the top. I found that very interesting.

In the meeting I learned a lot the hotel and the history of the hotel. I didn’t know that the person who owns A&W Drink Company is the owner of the Marriot. The Albany Marriot is a Columbia Suxxex owned. They just carry the name Marriot because it is nationally named for good service. I got copy of a little book of rules that I have to follow to make sure that I am a successful employee. The manager of the hotel was telling me how he can hire anyone, and train them. But he can’t hire or train someone to smile and be nice to people. What he meant is that he likes to hire people with a lot spark and outgoing. To me that was a hint on what he wants to expect from me and my classmates.

During the meeting there was an event going on that consisted of 290 people, and the person who set the whole thing up came in and talked to us about it. I never thought that a lot of people go into hotels and eat. Going to the hotel I learned how people interact on an everyday life. The hotel has a nice lobby that was just updated and it cost $4million to due it over. I also met a guy who has a lot of gold keys. A gold key is a key that you get for doing your job good, and getting noticed by guests and your boss/employees.

Learning in class, and learning in the hotel will make me more understand the lodging filed better. I like learning by the book, and I like hand on skills also. From going to the hotel I learned more about being in the hotel and the feel of working in the hotel. I hope that going to the Albany Marriot I learn a lot of things that will make me successful not in the lodging field but in any job field that I plan on going into.