"I am the inside innkeeper dh is the outside innkeeper.".
I kind of have a feeling that is where our lines will be drawn, too. How often do you reevaluate lines and boundries? I read in a book about innkeeping that one thing to do before you even get started is to sit down and, on paper, literally figure out what you are good at and what you aren't so good at.
Good idea or rubbish?
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penelope said:
I kind of have a feeling that is where our lines will be drawn, too. How often do you reevaluate lines and boundries? I read in a book about innkeeping that one thing to do before you even get started is to sit down and, on paper, literally figure out what you are good at and what you aren't so good at.
Good idea or rubbish?
Good idea. Altho Swirt thinks no one will put 'scrubbing toilets' on their list, for some cleaning is an outlet. (Not me.) Sometimes it's not what you're best at either, it's what you'll tolerate better than the other person (that's how we look at it anyway). I do the 'guest relations'- email, phone calls, website, directions, answering the doorbell, check-ins. But hubs does the socializing. He's the one chatting you up in the morning while I'm still getting my beauty rest.
Hubs does the accounting & bill paying, but he doesn't know how much is in the checking acct. We found this to be a nice division...he writes the checks without worrying about the money; I balance the checkbook without having to worry about writing those HUGE checks.
Hubs does the bathroom cleaning because it's easier for him to do that than the bedrooms. Nothing moves in the bathroom. You don't have to figure out what the guest did with the sink or look for stains on anything. And it's faster if he's the one who has to fix a broken shower door or clogged sink.
I do the bedrooms because I'm better at the 'stain patrol' aspect. Whenever he sees me taking the quilts off to the laundry he wants to know if there's a stain. When I say it's just time to wash them, period, he is no longer bewildered, but he used to be.
The tough part about the list (and those lists are in 'how to' books) is that nothing is linear. You cannot say, 'From 8 AM to 9 AM I will serve breakfast,' as if that is all that will be going on at that time. So, you may be good at breakfast prep, but not so good at breakfast prep, check-out, clogged toilet, phone calls, door to door salesmen.
So, you need a list of all the tasks. And it's good to know if there are areas you need help in. But you do have to be able to cross train in the other person's job when, for example, he crashes his motorcycle and is out of commission for a month. Or he has heart surgery and is tired for 6 months after. Or you need to visit your parents NOW but you have guests all week.
We're adding 'trash hauling' to hub's list. He goes to the recycle and we just found out it's 90 cents per bag for trash.
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Bree said:
Nothing moves in the bathroom.
LMBO... I knew what you meant, but it's still funny.
Like the others said, nothing's linear. This is my baby, so it's
all my job, but some things I put off to the point dh can't stand them anymore, and other things we've found he's good at, and still other things we've found he's willing to do and I'm really not. (I seem to have floorphobia... just hate cleaning floors... probably has to do with bad knees.)
He is very helpful and I am very grateful. He works full time (actually 48 hours/week) and I know he's tired. But he's developed a list of tasks that are all his:
- buying and making all the coffee (he does it before he leaves... one guest asked how a non-coffee drinker like me could make such good coffee)
- mowing, edging, lawn maintenance (although I'll help with shoveling snow and raking, cause I like to do them and he doesn't)
- cleaning/vacuuming the floors (floorphobia... it's an ugly thing)
- if he's here at breakfast his tasks are filling pitchers, putting out condiments, fetching herbs, helping to cut fruit
He'll strip the rooms, and is particularly on top of sanitizing the whirlpool tubs. He'll set the table (and then I'll fix it, but at least it's mostly done by the time I get to it). He'll dust the rooms and clean the guest bathrooms as he has time, and help watch the kids. (Neither of us seem to clean our own bathroom much...)
We've found that we miss different things, and obsess about different things. Until recently he never saw baseboards (until he overheard me saying how he misses them and got put out), and I know I miss things too (the other half of my sentence that he didn't hear).
Making breakfast, answering the telephone, developing and maintaining our website, internet directory listings, accounting, and marketing are all my areas, although we discuss them and I bounce ideas off him regularly. I also do all the laundry, just 'cause it's my job somehow. I also deal with the contractor, do simple maintenance (like installing keypad locks and all painting), plan menus, buy food, do room fluffs, make all the beds and track room amenities, and occasionally I remember to watch my kids.
My kids jobs are clearing the table, moving the laundry from the bottom of the laundry chute to the laundry room, throwing dirty towels down the laundry chute, and sometimes schlepping stuff. They've recently discovered the connection between work and cash, so I've just started training them on pulling trash and cleaning toilets... they're not ready yet to strip a room completely, though.
Someday if he leaves his day job we'll have some major shifting to go through and it will be interesting to see how things develop.
=)
Kk.
