How being a housekeeper helped me become cleaner, procrastinate less, gain better time management, and better appreciate those who do thankless jobs.
In the summer of 2022, I became a housekeeper at the Kohler Resort hotels in Kohler, Wisconsin. I had tried out being a server a few months before and was horrible at it. Once summer came quickly, I realized I needed to find another job. My good friend had decided she would be a housekeeper at the Kohler hotels, so I decided to do the same. This was definitely out of character because up until this point I had always been extremely messy. I have now had this job for the past two summers, and it has honestly taught me a lot.
The first thing that being a housekeeper has taught me is pretty obvious, and that is the importance of keeping a space clean. Before this, I had never really cared about the mess. I never had a “dirty” room per se, but it was rarely organized. This job sparked a change. I was cleaning for 8 hours a day, seeing firsthand how gross things can be if you let it get out of control. Something burned in my mind forever is the dirt that comes out of bathtub jets after only a couple of uses. Housekeeping also taught me that it isn’t very hard to clean. Before this, I think I saw it as an extremely daunting task, but this job made it much more approachable. Due to this, especially once I got my own place, I now take more pride in keeping things neat and clean.
Another thing I learned from this job is the true harm of procrastination. I have always been a procrastinator, and have always known that is not a good thing. I knew that if I tackled things in pieces, without putting anything off, I would have less stress and more success. Despite already knowing this, housekeeping made me see it more clearly. I could SEE the tangible effects of waiting to do something. An example of this is if a room was on do-not-disturb for days and I was not allowed to clean it, it was SO much worse than the rooms that allowed me to clean every day. The ones I consistently worked on had so much less cleaning/organizing to be done. It made it easier to see the effects of putting things off. While I still have some procrastination tendencies, it definitely helped me to do it less.
Something else I learned from this job is time management. There would be days where I would have so many rooms, that I would have no idea how to get them all done. At times, I would have a hallway with rooms double the size of the ones from the day before, and therefore double the work (with the same amount of time to do them). This helped me to learn how to allocate my time. It forced me to put the hard tasks first, work quickly, be as efficient as possible, learn how much time to spend on things that are important versus not, be honest with myself about time wasted, and hold myself accountable for my work.
The final thing that housekeeping taught me is how hard people in these industries work. Before this job, I had worked in retail and with kids, but it was nothing like this. Housekeeping is extremely hard work. It is mentally taxing because of how much stress comes with getting rooms done in time while also making things absolutely perfect for guests. It is extremely physically taxing due to how fast you are moving and the awkward, hunched-over positions you have to be in all day. There were people at these hotels that had been working there for decades and they all work so hard, and still are so kind to everyone. I felt extremely inspired by everyone around me and gained an even bigger appreciation for those who do these thankless jobs.
Despite housekeeping being the toughest, most draining job I have had, I am thankful for my experiences there. It was neat to work at a place where everyone was a different age, was from different countries and backgrounds, spoke different languages, and all supported each other the same. Although my friends can attest to my complaints about the work itself, it taught me a lot and helped me to become a harder worker.