Heads in Beds

                                                               

Last night I finished reading Heads in Beds, a Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality.   It is one of the funniest books I've read in awhile and made me vividly remember all of the things that went on at Medical City Hospital, behind the scenes.  By the end of the book, though, it was really kind of sad.  The alcoholism and drug use, the treatment  received on both sides of the Front Desk, and the treatment by Management of their own co-workers was literally exactly what I experienced in a hospital setting.  Let's face it.  A hospital is nothing more than a crappy hotel with sick people.  If you'll permit me a bit of black humor, hospitals could go mano a mano with the hotel business any old day and quite possibly win that contest.  The same crazies that check into hotels, often wind up checking into hospitals a little later, or vice versa, and a lot of the staffs are interchangeable.  Ditto the same scams, hustles, and turf wars.  Back behind the scenes, you will see and hear stuff that will make you laugh so hard you can't breathe.  You will see and hear stuff that will shock the ever lovin' scrubs off of you.  It will also make you sick.  If you want in on the dirty dirty, loyalty is the price of admission. 

One of my favorite parts of the book was the Appendixes.  Subjects were: Things a guest should never say, Things a guest should never do, Things every guest must know, Standard LIES that Spew from the Mouth of a front desk agent, and lastly, a multiple choice Brief Guest Survey where the choices provided for you to choose from, were snort worthy.  Let me just say that this book will NOT be returning to Half Price Books to be resold as it's too funny to let go of.  It's a keeper, at least for now anyway.