want to know what's happening in a hotel - ask the maids

[ensho]

is what I thought while watching what's happening in India.

so this morning I came across this:


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5254371.ece

Bombay: wealthy owe lives to hotel’s cummerbund heroes
Staff shielded guests from gunmen’s bullets


-snip-

Among the workers there were some whose bravery and sense of duty led them to sacrifice their own lives, witnesses said.

-snip-

The Taj Mahal had been renowned for its sublime service for decades. Few of the hotel’s wealthy patrons would have predicted, however, that the men and women who delivered their meals and carried their bags – people earning a fraction of the sums of those they served – would display such courage and composure as the death toll quickly rose around them.

As the terrible events of Wednesday night unfolded, the staff of what had been Bombay’s finest hotel leapt into action. Scores of tales later emerged of unnamed workers hiding guests, barricading doors, tending the vulnerable and issuing orders.

-snip-

The soldiers said that they were led by a hotel employee as they fought a sequence of running battles with gunmen in corridors and rooms strewn with dead bodies and seriously injured guests.

-snip-

Faced with conditions that the troops, India’s toughest soldiers, said had tested them to the limit, the staff of the Taj Mahal remained astonishingly composed, witnesses said.

-snip-

Before the attacks, the Taj Mahal was possibly one of the most civilised places on earth, largely thanks to the people who worked there.

-snip-
-------------------

[bigbrother05]

1. nobility of spirit know no class (caste)

This really is no surprise, it is always the least of us who consistently rise to the occasion

[ensho]

2. yes, I've done hotel maid work and hotel laundry work

hard work! I'm so in solidarity with hotel/motel workers world wide.

[jberryhill]

3. Those are prime jobs done by dedicated folks

I've stayed at the sister Taj in Delhi, and if the staff there is any indication, they are top notch professionals at what they do - from check-in, bellhops, bartenders, and room maintenance. They are also extremely well paid by local standards. Quite frankly, the staff at the Taj are more interesting people than most of the guests.

Any job done well, and well compensated, is not "lowly". Particularly at a five star international hotel, the staff is generally well educated and have at least a basic vocabulary in several languages.

That's true in a lot of places. It's in the US where the hotel industry relies upon paying chump change to marginal staff.

[Mister Ed]

4. Hotel Rwanda redux n/t

[EFerrari]

5. Astonishing. Restores your faith in humanity.

K&R

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Thanks for posting -- K&R!

[Cleita]

7. Maybe we need to hire hotel managers and staff

from India to turn our bankrupt corporations around.