A day in the life of-Hotel Manager

There isn’t really such thing as a typical ‘day in the life’ in my job. Every day you could be doing something completely different, from training new staff to liaising with suppliers, from chatting to guests to decorating the hotel for Christmas!

The day almost always starts pretty early and I’ve usually got a list of things to do (I’m a compulsive list-writer) – one of the main things you need to be in this job is organised, as there’s not really anyone to structure your time for you. When breakfast is over and all the guests have gone skiing, I’ll generally try and catch up on any paperwork that needs to be done.

I’m responsible for food, drink, linen, wine and cleaning supplies so on any given day I could be checking stocks/placing orders and doing accounts in relation to this. We’ve found that all the suppliers can be bribed with a bit of cake and a coffee into being super helpful – the same goes for the maintenance men, whose hearts are definitely found in their stomachs.

After a quick break (and hopefully a bacon sandwich if our chef is feeling generous) I usually do a check of all the rooms in the hotel to make sure they’re clean and tidy – this took a while at the start of the season but all the staff are pretty good at the old cleaning lark by now.

Unless it’s a transfer day there’s usually a few hours in the afternoons to appreciate the perks of the job, ie. Skiing! As the season’s gone on, I’ve found myself getting so much quicker, and paperwork which used to take me all day can now be done in less than an hour. This can only mean one thing – more mountain time! It’s definitely one of the things you wouldn’t get with a standard nine to five and is the best cure for stress ever.

I’ll usually come back to the hotel around 5pm to see our guests on their return from skiing and make sure they’re all fed and watered with a cuppa and some cake. Then I’ll oversee dinner service, making sure that the staff are working together to make sure everyone gets a nice, prompt meal and of course a few vin rouges at the hotel bar. Then it’s back to paperwork – anything from organising rotas to planning the staff meeting.

As I said, however, there isn’t really a typical day in this job – if there’s one thing I’ve learnt this season, it’s to expect the unexpected. So whilst the basics of my job – running the hotel – go without saying, you never know what other things you’ll be needed for. Staff are pretty good at getting injured on the mountain and I can often be found cooking in the kitchen, cleaning rooms or serving on the bar to fill in. That said, the variety is exactly what I love about this job!