Kent Babin on Warpcast

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

The generic hotel experience, based on years of international road warrioring: 🧵 1/4 The check in agent must spend eight minutes mysteriously typing away at their computer and running back and forth to their colleague at the next counter while you stand there. Checking in online, indicating your arrival time, getting your digital room key on the app, being a regular guest, etc. does not change that at all. When you first enter the room, the TV is always on, blasting obnoxious muzak on loop, and displaying “Welcome” followed by your last name in all caps. Your first order of business will be to frantically locate the hidden remote. Your next order of business will be to collect and put away all the random cards, leaflets, welcome letters, spa information, and no smoking reminders that litter the bed, bedside tables, desk, and minibar countertop, like in a deranged mini Easter egg hunt sans the yummy chocolate.

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

2/4 The pillows on the bed are thicker and harder than two stacks of bricks. If you request thin fluffy feather pillows, they will be thicker and harder than 1.5 stacks of bricks. There are enough pillows on the bed to accommodate a polycule of six FTX employees. If you remove excess pillows and hide them on the closet’s top shelf, they will magically reappear on the bed the next day, only now dirtier. Your job will be to find which ones to remove again. Before going to sleep, you must play a 30-minute game of “find the switch for this last light”. I checked and this is not part of @bryanjohnson’s prescribed bedtime routine. And once you figure it out, there is still a ceiling smoke detector right above your head that insists on blinking blindingly every three seconds to remind you that its battery is fine, just in case you were worried.

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

3/4 There is only one available power socket near the bed, and it’s never the right type for your charger. If it happens to be the right type, it’s also recessed in some weird way so that your charger can’t plug in. The water in the shower is either arctic cold or blisteringly hot, and the difference between them is a 0.01° rotation of the dial. There is a conditioner bottle in the shower. I have yet to meet someone who uses conditioner. Let alone trust some hotel’s secret conditioner recipe. The shower is designed to leak water onto the bathroom floor. This is meant for housekeeping’s job security. Room service is legally required to end the call with “your food will be ready within to 35 to 45 minutes”. Doesn’t matter whether you ordered a Caesar salad or a six-course gourmet meal with chocolate soufflé.

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

4/4 If you leave the DND sign on, room service won’t knock on your door even though you ordered. But if you remove it, it’s housekeeping that will knock for the turndown service. Don’t try to be clever, you cannot time the DND removal and win this. Breakfast service ends exactly at the time that you are ready in the morning. The pool closes at exactly the time that you come back from work in the evening. The gym, on the other hand, is open 24/7 even though you never go to the gym. Checkout is just a performative ritual. You can either spend ten minutes in queue, reviewing bills, and handing over your credit card; or you can just dump the room key in the “express checkout box” and walk out. Neither makes any difference. LMK if I missed any.

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Untucking the sheets from the foot of the bed is a gym workout in itself and it's near impossible to avoid untucking the bottom sheet in the process.

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

I am genuinely in awe of the housekeeping people who do this multiple times every day

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