【英语生活】从卡恩事件揭秘豪华酒店的秘密生活

If not for luxury hotels, where would politicians connect with prostitutes? Where would celebrities rendezvous with porn actresses? Where would an exhibitionist paying $800 a night for a room publicly display sex acts in his window to pedestrians on the Highline?

To guests who pay thousands of dollars per night for a suite in luxury hotels like The Plaza, The Trump International, The New York Palace or even the Sofitel, the hotel is their home away from home. With this customer base, whatever complexities or eccentricities the guest is accustomed to in their private home will likely be requested in the privacy of their hotel suite. In my many years as a concierge, I was glad to oblige anything that would make them happy. It was not an issue to have specific bedding purchased exclusively for the guest during their stay; I didn't hesitate for a moment to provide a client with an 'unauthorized' private tour of the trading room floor; I was eager to maneuver my way past the waiting list to enable my guest to score the coveted Birkin Bag that she had to have that day.

My experiences in delivering 'your wish is my command' service to this luxury clientele came with enough blush-worthy encounters to fill a book. It certainly didn't hurt that I simply do not judge my guests, and let them know it. But something about my open willingness to serve exposed me to a world quite different from my own world. When spreading rose petals on a bed wasn't decadently romantic enough, I was asked instead to fill the bath tub with chocolate. When every available flavor of ice cream in a ten-mile radius wasn't quite right for my guest's craving, I had to find a chef who would concoct artisanal peppermint ice cream that would satiate his palate. When nature failed the male libido of her lover, I was asked by a guest to procure Viagra on the spot″with no mention of a prescription.

The Dominique Strauss-Kahn incident has incited lively conversations among industry colleagues as well as among most of my staff at a private company that supplies concierges to hotels, where many of us come from long histories as concierges in various NYC luxury properties. It has presented a new perspective on what we often shrugged off as nothing more than annoying guest behavior.

Colleagues and staffers alike have shared stories. The guest who asks for a pack of cigarettes to be sent up to the room and receives us at the door fully naked. The guest who calls down 'just to chat' and has porn blatantly blaring in the background. The guest who explicitly propositioned me to accompany him and his wife to a swingers party″the same party that I had earlier helped him find. Was this a criminal offense? Should I have gone to management to report harassment? But this man was not my boss. He was my guest, and it was my job to make the guests feel at home. (Although in those types of cases, I demurred.)

Our formal hotel training was focused primarily on the guest experience. Our emotional comfort was treated as an aside. Sure, we had safety training pertaining to things like an intoxicated or irate guest who threatens physical harm to us or other guests. Certainly, we were never formally told by management not to report incidents of guest behaving badly. But none of us are able to recall standardized procedures or policies to report indiscriminate guest behavior toward us.

In the same way that family matters are usually handled within the home especially with the rarefied elite″hotels exist in an insulated reality. In the hotel universe, issues are often best resolved in a gentlemanly and discreet manner that avoids unnecessary public drama for the guest or for the hotel. As a hotel Concierge, it has never been my experience that a hotel covers up an incident that presents a danger to staffers caused by an unruly guest.

除了豪华酒店外，还有什么地方能把政客和妓女联系在一起呢？名流们会在哪里和色情女明星约会呢？暴露狂会在哪里以800美元一晚上的价格开个房间，然后向窗外Highline公园的行人公开展示其性活动？

对于每晚豪掷数千美元入住广场酒店(The Plaza)、王牌国际酒店(The Trump International)、纽约王宫酒店(The New York Palace)甚至索菲特酒店(Sofitel)等豪华酒店套房的客人来说，酒店就是他们的另一个家。在私密的酒店套房中，这些客人可能提出任何他们在自己家中习以为常的复杂或怪癖的要求。在多年的接待员生涯中，我一直乐于去完成能使他们感到高兴的任何事情。比如，在某位客人入住期间为其购买特别的专用寝具，这根本不是问题；我曾毫不犹豫地为一位客人安排未经许可的秘密参观纽交所交易大厅的活动；我还曾积极调动关系，想方设法越过等待名单，帮助我的客人买到她当天就想要的抢手铂金包(Birkin Bag)。

在我按照“你的愿望就是给我的命令”这一宗旨向这些豪华酒店的常客提供服务的过程中，令人感到脸红的遭遇足以写成一本书。这当然无伤大雅，我不会对我的客人进行评判，我要让他们知道这一点。但是，我这种竭诚为他们效劳的意愿使我进入了一个与自己的世界完全不同的天地。当把玫瑰花瓣洒在床上已经不够浪漫的时候，我被要求在浴缸中注满巧克力。当方圆十英里内可以买到的每种口味的冰激凌都不能满足客人的要求时，我不得不找到一位主厨亲手调制一款能够满足客人味蕾的薄荷味冰激凌。当某位客人的情人无法自然勃起时，她要我立刻去给他购买伟哥，而且根本就没有处方。

多明尼克·施特劳斯·卡恩(Dominique Strauss-Kahn)事件已经在业内同行以及我们公司的大部分员工当中激起热烈的讨论。我担任合伙人的这间私人公司向酒店提供接待员，我们当中的许多人都是从很早以前就开始在纽约各家豪华酒店担任接待员。这件事让我们从一个新的角度去看待我们经常千方百计要避免的激怒客人的行为。

在同行和员工当中都流传着一些故事。比如说，有位客人要求你把一包烟送到房间，然后赤身裸体地站在门口迎接你；有位客人给你打电话只是要求“谈谈”，一边却在肆无忌惮地大声播放色情片。还有位客人曾直截了当地要我陪他和他的妻子去参加淫乱聚会──这个聚会正是我早些时候帮助他们找到的。他这是犯罪行为吗？我应该向酒店管理者投诉他骚扰吗？但这个人不是我的顶头上司。他是我的客人，我的工作就是让客人感到宾至如归。（尽管在这些例子中，我持反对看法。）

我们接受的正规的酒店业培训主要关注的是客人的感受，我们的情绪是否愉悦则被放置一边。当然，我们接受了安全培训，比如防止醉酒或发怒的客人对我们或其他客人造成身体上的伤害。而且酒店管理层也从未正式告诉我们不要向他们报告客人的恶劣行为引发的事件。但是，我们谁也想不起有什么标准化的程式或政策，投诉客人不分青红皂白对我们施加的行为。

和通常的关起门来处理家务事的原则一样（尤其是对上流精英来说），酒店也是一个独立于外界的现实世界。在酒店行业，人们常常以一种绅士的、谨慎的方式使问题得到最好的解决，这样可以避免客人或酒店处于不必要的公众关注之下。作为一名酒店接待员，我从未发现哪一家酒店会刻意掩饰蛮横的客人给员工带来危险的事件。