Meeting with Corporate

I am really enjoying my time here at Wardman Park. I am feeling more comfortable with my job and what I need to do to be successful in dealing with guests and being able to work with co-workers and managers. I have acquired my own system on how I like my station set up and how I work with guests. My hotel is extremely busy right now as we have been sold out night after night, which brings great benefits for our hotel, but also establishes new challenges for the front desk staff as we are the ones that put people on wait status, or have to deal with a lack of rooms to give out due to a oversold situation. We are the mediators because we break the news to all guests and some are more understanding than others. This past week all the guest service represenatives had to meet with Marriotts Corporate Company as a group. The idea is to express concerns, questions and to be able to request for changes that will in return create a better enviornment at Wardman Park. As a group we got express our thoughts about each manager in our department, so that Corporate can see what needs to be fixed or altered in order to better serve and help their employees. We were all suprisingly on the same page on what needed to be changed and how the managers could better serve us at the Front Desk. It is nice to see that the Marriott Corporation lets our staff have a chance to voice our opinion in order for us to all improve as a whole. I asked one of the Corporate staff members how will we know if our feedback is actually going to in return show results and she said it takes time, but that is her job to inform General Managers and Assistant Managers of the concerns. In return they speak with the managers from our department and work with them to slowly alter certain situations in order to be more successful when we come to work everyday. The Marriott International is a well established company and has made a wonderful name for itself. I am glad that they are concerned enough to help us all to improve no matter what ranking we are with the company.

Going Green

After a little more than two months working at Wardman Park everyday brings new people, new challenges and more learning experiences for me. Everyday I get better on how I talk and interact with guests. One project that are in the works is recycling more at the Marriott. Everyday we go through and throw away several amounts of key packets, folios(receipts), reports, faxes etc. Since our hotel is the biggest hotel in D.C. and we are still in the beginning process of transforming our hotel to becoming more green, it has been hard to regulate. We have some people focused on recycling everyday and some more laxed. We really don't have recycling cans in the hotel, so it makes it difficult for everyone to contribute. One way we ask guests to help out is that in every room we have a green bag for people to recycle if they choose. We have written verbage in their rooms explaining how to contribute and help out the environment. A little goes a long way and I hope that soon our hotel gets more recycling cans and contribute more ways to help the environment. Also, another way that the Marriott hotels in the local D.C. area have contributed to helping our community and environment was about two weeks ago when we had a coastal clean-up day. Our guest service represenative staff was the largest department their. We were pretty excited that we helped lead a positive example to others and show are community spirit.