When I go into a hotel room and see signs like these:
the only thing I want to do is hurl all the towels and sheets on the floor immediately and trample them with muddy boots. Am I alone, or is there anyone else in the world who reacts in this appalling way?
I dunno, maybe it's just me, bur I find these notices sensible and commendable: there's no reason why we should use more polluting chemicals than we strictly need to, but I suppose that marks me out as some kind of pain-in-the-arse.
ReplyDeleteWell Gadjo, not a pain-in-the-arse, but possibly naive? I think James is right (although he has a much nicer temperament than me, feeling no temptation to hurl linen around) - the hotel isn't going to use any fewer polluting chemicals; they're just going to persuade you that you're saving the planet in order to make it quicker for the maid to go round, because she won't have to waste time changing stuff and lugging it back to the laundry, and that means they won't have to pay her so much and then she won't have enough money to feed her children. So that's why I think it's a moral duty to chuck towels all over the floor.
ReplyDeleteNo, you're not alone, I react exactly the same way.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I suspect they'll simply make her clean more rooms over the same time period and for the same wage, thereby still being able to feed her children and save up for her ailing mother's life-saving operation. Though, running with your idea, I suppose one could maintain full employment by creating needless work - i.e. Communism ;-) - by not sorting towels into to-be-washed and not-to-be-washed. To be sure to reduce the amount of cleaning fluids expended, one could hide the not-to-be-washed towels in the Corby trouser press.
ReplyDeleteI once stayed in a hotel in Georgia and didn't let the maid change my towels or bedsheets for a whole week (though that was only because I was scared of the prostitutes that the management were trying to foist on me).
And the poor prostitutes just wanted to feed their children too - did you try hiding in the Corby trouser press (I thought that was what they were there for).
ReplyDeleteParrot - what a relief. Australian cynicism forever
Ah, I'm with James ... I don't put the towels on the floor but get very irritated when they don't do what they say and wash them anyhow. A cynical excercise in marketing? Except, we are already there so what have they actually achieved? They certainly haven't encourage us to return...
ReplyDeleteI think you're being 'unaustralian' whispering.
ReplyDeleteProbably, zmkc!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one who suffers from towel rage.
ReplyDeleteI can't bear these sorts of disingenuous notices, where businesses think that we're gullible enough to believe that they're behaving altruistically.
I was a supermarket this evening and saw a poster that said "We care about the local community." Of course they do. That's why they drove half of the local shops out of business and opened in a place that's only accessible by car.
Yay - and they put everything in little plastic boxes because they care about the environment so much.
ReplyDeletethe hotels are trying to reduce washing costs. 1 wet towel = 1 kg, which is cca 0,80 EUR to wash, do the math.... huge expense. But on the other hand think of it like this. They polute the air when they transfer it to the washing facility, then they polute when bringing backto hotel + they use lot of water, lot of electricity and chemicals...
ReplyDeleteTalán
ReplyDelete