Happy Holidays, but...
A cautionary tale in the series of surreal stories from the hidden world of hotels
“What happens at the Christmas party, stays at the Christmas party!”
As the final month of the year nears, my mind wanders back to the early days of my career.
December was a great month for hotel security guards. With hotels hosting huge Christmas parties almost every evening and companies paying for open bars so their employees could enjoy themselves to the max, we could work enough overtime to make more than double our normal salaries.
It would easily be possible for me to write an entire 87 Stories Christmas Collection. The overtime pay was often hard-earned.
Picture if you will what it’s like to have several hundred tunnel builders coming in from all over the country for an evening of fun. Men so large it was hard to believe pick axes had been replaced by machines as the tunnel builders dug themselves under Norway’s mountainous terrain. Most Christmas parties were lavish affairs with fancy food, wines served by waiters wearing white shirts and black ties, and guests dressed to the nines.
The tunnel builders were different. The menu was simple. Roast pork, potatoes, and mushy peas. No need for sommeliers. Cases of beer and bottles of schnapps were placed on tables where other companies would have expensive floral arrangements. I can’t remember if they had a welcome speech or if someone just fired a start pistol or a flare gun to get things started, but it didn’t take long before a certain amount of chaos ensued. Tables were tipped over, fights would break out, and bottles would break. This was a form of normality for the group. They were, for the most part, self-regulating. It was the one night per year they could all come together, eat too much, drink too much, and settle old scores before heading back to the hills to dig tunnels and, probably, fight the trolls that everyone knows still inhabit Norwegian forests. Our job in security was to ensure that we didn’t break our licensing laws. We were posted at the entrance to the conference areas beside signs that said “No alcohol beyond this point.” A gigantic tunnel digger/troll fighter with a newly poured pint said to one of my shorter colleagues: “Are you telling me I can’t take my beer to my room?”
“Yes”, said my brave colleague.
The massive man grabbed my colleague’s shirt, lifted him straight up so they were eye to eye and said:
“Tell that to my face.”
Before my colleague could answer, the giant gently lowered him, emptied his pint in one gargantuan gulp, and said “Merry Christmas!”
Our duties on those nights usually ended by rolling sleeping hunks of humanity onto trolleys and wheeling them up to their respective rooms.
The episode above wasn’t the only time security guards were airborne. When a group of bouncers from the city’s nightclubs gathered in our 21st-floor bar for drinks before their Christmas party, I was on duty. The bouncers hadn’t been in the bar long before we were called. Their behaviour might have been tolerated in a dingy, dark, dive bar at 3:00 am, but it was inappropriate for an afternoon in a five-star hotel. As we rode the elevator up, my colleague and I knew we were outmatched. Even at the best of times, dealing with drunks when you’re 21 stories from street level was challenging.
With groups, our tactic was usually to find the person in the group who still had some sense in them and who could understand that the consequences of the group’s actions could be serious from a legal standpoint.
I took the lead and felt I was making progress in the discussion with a bouncer I had met once or twice before. He was nodding and then gave me a strange smirk. He almost looked confused. Suddenly, both my arms were in a vice-like grip. It was like a robot from an Amazon warehouse had snuck up behind me and was going to hide me on the top shelf behind all the Dr. Ho gadgets. I went straight up and was carried out of the bar. As I passed my colleague, I looked down at him and said, “It’s probably time to call the police.” Thankfully, the two burly bouncers that extracted me set me softly down in the elevator landing.
One of my colleagues always signed up for as many party night shifts as possible simply because he wanted to see how many people he could find fornicating in stairwells, under tables, or in bathroom stalls. He kept detailed statistics. I’m sorry I don’t have them but I do recall he was in double digits one year. He was young and inexperienced in life when he started with us and we almost had to send him to trauma counselling during his first Christmas party season.
Warning, some readers might find the next few paragraphs disturbing.
The year-end celebrations of corporate success were not always fun and games. There are many stories of frustrated employees drinking up the courage to finally tell their boss what they had forgotten to mention during their annual appraisals. Sometimes they spoke with their fists and, in addition to having to change our blood-splattered shirts afterwards, we had to console the souls that were unexpectedly unemployed.
My first encounter with a dead body turned out to be the tour leader for a group from a rural county that had come to the capital to celebrate. Little did they know, that many of them would be laid off in the new year as the company was going through tough times. He decided to hang himself while the party continued in the nightclub. His wife, who had gone to bed early, found him the next morning. The duty manager and I were guarding the sealed room when the police and EMS personnel arrived. After I unlocked the door, one of the paramedics saw the marbling on the body. He patted me on the head and said,
“Why don’t you go somewhere and help someone who needs help? You can’t help this guy.”
Fortunately, most people survive their Christmas parties.
When I opened the Danish and Norwegian news sites today, I noticed that some things never change.
The link under the Tuborg commercial at the top of the page is to a Norwegian newspaper column that states that during December sexual harassment hits an annual high. Other articles in the same newspaper state that the MeToo movement has had no effect on behaviour. 6% of Norwegian employees have experienced alcohol-fuelled harassment from colleagues in the past year. The numbers are highest in the military, police, and hotel industry.
Under the headline, smashed hotel room, one of Denmark’s largest news sites carried a story today about police being called out to three separate hotels in one small city to deal with party-related violence.
A final word of warning to people who think it’s their right to blow off steam and behave like a cartoon caveman who can say what they like, do what they like, and drag women around by the hair.
“It’s only once a year. I deserve it!”
Newflash!
Behaving badly isn’t a God-given right. Not even once a year at your staff party.
If you do get yourself into trouble, you will get no sympathy from the people who come to your aid when you wake up naked and all your belongings, including your clothes, have been stolen by the prostitute you dragged in at 3:00 am because none of your female colleagues wanted to join you for some nachschpiel shenanigans in your room.
Here’s what happens:
The police we call will decide that now you’re sobering up, you are no longer a risk. They will leave you in our capable hands while they have a coffee in the canteen with a couple of the front desk agents you tried to seduce last night.
I still remember watching you wander out into the snow wearing a pink tracksuit, cowboy boots, only one of which had a heel, and a drag queen’s faux fur wrap. That was all we could find in your size in our lost and found room. At least we didn’t send you out the way we found you, whimpering in your room worried about what your wife would say when you got home.
Happy party season, everyone! Behave yourselves!
Stay safe, Always Care
Written with the clarity of hindsight, the accuracy of a faded memory, and countless creative liberties, 87 Stories is a journal of how my gap year lasted four decades, made me an emigrant, an immigrant and gave me a life I never dreamed of.
The surreal stories from the hidden world of hotels series gives a behind-the-scenes look at the wacky, wonderful world of hotels from the eyes of a university dropout who had a storied, basement-to-boardroom career in hotel security. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the episodes!
In addition to my love for writing, I’m also a professor, an educator, and a consultant. I’ve been told that my specialty is saving bacon.
Need a storyteller to motivate your team. You can hire me! Unlike many storytellers for hire, I guarantee that I only tell my own stories…
If you’re looking for a better way to treat your employees this holiday season than getting them so drunk that they might punch you in the face, why not gift them all our book, “Spin the Bottle Service”? Some people say it makes people better guests!
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