HOST

I just finished up with a neat program through work called HOST - Hotel On site Training. It was held at the Hilton downtown. It was all day yesterday and today and they put us all up in big junior suites on the 22nd floor....hehe.

Basically the purpose of the program is to train you on all the different departments of a hotel - to learn what it takes to run a hotel and what it takes to make an event happen that we plan in our daily jobs. We sat through two departmental meetings with the events and sales departments where they discuss every meeting they have on the books for the next 120 days. We also met with revenue management, front desk, room service, guest services, security, engineering, purchasing, culinary and housekeeping. I saved culinary and housekeeping for last because those were our favorites. :)

Housekeeping was actually the first department we toured yesterday. The hotel we were at had 820 guest rooms on 25 floors, so you can imagine how much laundry was piled everywhere. I felt overwhelmed just by looking at it! They had the neatest machines that impressed us all - after the gigantic machines wash 300 lbs of towels at a time and then dried, they are manually fed through this big machine that figures out whether it is a bath towel, hand towel and washcloth and then folds it and stacks it. My dream machine!

At the end of the day today, our last department was the culinary department. So we put our chef smocks on and headed into the kitchen! The two chefs (with their big tall chef hats on) had ingredients all ready for us and then we had to make 50 dishes of different appetizer dishes for our own reception we had after that. It was really neat! Me and another girl made the "seasoned shrimp with corn relish" salad. I totally felt like I was on a cooking challenge on Biggest Loser where they have to make their own food - but at least I didn't have to count the calories as I made the food. :) (Yes, I watch way too much reality tv)

We also toured all the big suites at the hotel and got to see the room where John McCain stayed during the Republican National Convention! The Hilton was the main hotel that housed McCain, Palin, etc during the RNC. It was quite interesting to hear stories from all the different departments – from sales to room service to security! Apparently the whole hotel was in lock down and there were secret service at every entrance. We also heard stories about when Tiger Woods stayed there and about how the Vikings stay there every night before they have a home game. Room Service said those guys can eat! One guy apparently called and asked if the Prime Rib was large enough to be a snack!

So it was a really neat couple of days! It was nice to have the opportunity to do that and I learned a lot - I certainly have a huge appreciation for all the work that hotel employees have to do! Oy!