Micha Wertheim's hotel speech
I put on the same jumper. That you don't think I'm wearing just anything. Good. One pillow is really enough. One pillow for one head, and quite possibly an extra pillow somewhere high up in a cupboard, but four big pillows and six small pillows is far too many. There is no one who sleeps with sixteen pillows, not even the Queen of England. After all, the latter, like the vast majority of hotel visitors, has only one head. It is sympathetic that you take into account the possibility of Siamese twins coming to stay in your hotel, but I suggest that in that case you simply ask if they would like an extra pillow.
I am a grown man, since I was 12 years old, I don't take cuddly toys with me when I go out of bed. Mr Bear, Peep the Mouse, Doggy Fluff, Cloth, Dino, Kiki, Apie, they have all been at home with me in a box for a very long time, and before I put them out of my bed, they have always slept just fine in bed with me without pads. In the extremely unlikely event that I should decide to take my stuffed animals to your hotel, they can do just fine without a pillow of their own. The only thing that all those pillows on the bed with me, mean to me is total panic, a panic attack, that's what I get, because where should I put all those pillows when I take them off the bed? Just on the floor I find dirty and disrespectful to the people who have to clean up my room. On the desk then? But what if I then suddenly feel the urge to write a novel at night? I can't, because the desk is suddenly full of those pads. And now I hear you thinking: who is going to write a novel in a hotel room in the middle of the night? Well now, I would answer that question with the counter-question: why is there a desk in every hotel in the Netherlands, a hotel, that is too small to work on? Or am I supposed to put those cushions on the chair? No, because that chair is to sit on, that's what I paid for, so I just stuff it, stuff the cushions in the window sill so that the curtain doesn't close, waking me up at 5.30 a.m. by the teeming morning light.
And that bed runner of yours, I don't need that either. I didn't ask for it, I don't need it. Nobody needs that bed runner, nobody. I don't know if I find it dirtier, what I find dirtier, that dusty piece of cloth itself or the name, bed runner, it feels, it smells like incontinence. Who on earth came up with the idea that I have to walk across my bed in my hotel? I come to that room to sleep, that's why I booked a hotel, not because I want to take a stroll around my room before sleeping, and if I really feel a very strong urge to take a stroll around my room it doesn't have to be over the foot of my bed, no bed runner is needed. What should I do with the bed runner? Do you really think that an unwashed piece of cloth gives me a sense of luxury? That seeing that mixture between a bedspread, a mop and a doormat makes me feel for a moment that I am as rich as the Shah of Persia? And why should I put the bed runner as, where should I put the bed runner when I want to sleep myself? Do I have to grab the dirty thing first, fold it and slide it under the bed? Do you guys really think that I feel a sense of luxury when I spend half an hour cleaning up pillows and a bed runner when I arrive at my hotel? I took that hotel just so I wouldn't have to clean up after myself for once. I take a hotel to relax.
But apparently this is not allowed, because even turning off the light is a puzzle that often takes an hour off your sleep. It's great fun, of course, all those lights and buttons that never turn off the right bulb and there's always another bulb coming on somewhere, after which you have to go naked to a lamp that won't turn off to turn out the bulb, only to break your neck over the bed runner lying on the floor, which you didn't see because the light was off. One nightlight and a large lamp is really more than enough. If I want to try lots of different types of lamps, I'll go to IKEA.
And if you are going to design the room ergonomically, don't hang the thermostat by the door, hang it by the bed. That way, when I lie awake at night because you guys are always heating up those rooms like it's a Finnish sauna when I come in at 11 o'clock at night, I can at least turn it off without having to figure out how all those lights go back on before turning them off again.
And which of you actually thought that it would give me a sense of luxury when the bottom toilet paper is folded into a triangle? Do you guys really think that only then will I believe that everything is nice and clean? Because if you want to show that everything is nice and clean, you can also choose to make everything nice and clean. That's how it works in the rest of the world too, we really don't need toilet origami for that. When I see that little arts and crafts project on the toilet roll, I mainly think: yuck, someone has touched the toilet paper I want to wipe my hole with later. That folded up piece of toilet paper in no way satisfies my wish to be left alone, because I don't want the people from housekeeping to be able to see with a glance that I have been defecating if the toilet paper is no longer folded, with the result that after every visit to the toilet I desperately try to fold the paper back, which is impossible with wet hands.
And speaking of the bathroom, why do you think we hotel guests are all germaphobic? When I go to a restaurant, there are also no paper lids on the glasses I drink out of, never, that's because we assume the people in the restaurant have washed those glasses neatly clean. You can also tell from a glass that it is clean. Why do you guys think I wouldn't be able to have that trust in a hotel room, anyway? And then you have to hope every time that the cups are made of glass, because sometimes they are plastic and then for some inexplicable reason they are sealed in a plastic bag that is so tightly sealed that nine times out of 10 the cups snap the moment you pull open the bag, leaving me brushing my teeth and having to rinse with broken, leaking cups. And that cellophane left over, is that really so terribly good for the environment? Because when I read that story about the towels I have to throw on the ground to save the environment and save the planet, you are very concerned about the future of the planet. Now I am also concerned about the future of our planet, but are we really going to save it by throwing towels on the ground? Isn't it an idea to open hotels only to people who live within walking distance of the hotel? Then you prevent guests from taking the planes. I am not saying we will save the world with that, but I suspect that flying less is better for the environment than throwing towels on the floor. But strangely, there is no card in any hotel suggesting that we save the environment together by not going on holiday anymore. No, towels, you should throw them on the floor, that's how we are going to save the world. Then again, I'm no scientist, it could just be that towels are a major contributor to it, to global warming. In that case, wouldn't it be an idea to lay out a little less different sizes of towels for me? One towel I can do everything with, and not eight different towels stacked in such a way that you have to flip them all over to get to the biggest one, after which I spend another 15 minutes trying to neatly fold those towels for fear they will disappear into the washing machine anyway and I will end up being responsible for rising sea levels.
Anyway, miraculous that you believe there are any people at all who dare to shower in a hotel. I haven't taken a shower in a hotel in years. I do watch out. For that, those taps have simply become too complicated. You can twist, pull and bend them all, but they never do what you think they are going to do. I suspect it is easier to perform open-heart surgery than to fathom how the average hotel tap should be operated. How many times have I stepped out of the shower with the burns just because I wanted to turn off the rain shower, but in reality turned off all the cold water, ending up under a cascade of scalding hot water, leaving my skin after showering looking like I had spent a week walking naked through the Sahel.
Speaking of boiling hot water, where do you guys get those tiny kettles? From the gnome supermarket? And if you put down tea bags, isn't it also an idea to put down tea glasses instead of espresso cups where a full tea bag won't even fit? If I want to see gnome stuff, I'll buy a ticket to the Efteling. Where, just like at the better hotels, all men in idiotically high hats and weird suits stand at the entrance. Who came up with that? The more ridiculous the suit, the fancier the hotel? I get that you want to stand out, but can that really only be done by forcing your doorman to stand at the door in humiliating clothes? Believe me, I love going to the theatre and I love magicians, they also wear a top hat, but that's because they have to pull out a rabbit. You don't need that hat to hold a door open. In fact, you don't need staff at all to hold doors open. Sure, there are people who cannot open a door themselves, but they usually don't go to a hotel, but to a rehabilitation clinic, where the doors then open automatically.
Listen, I don't work at Randstad, but I would still venture to say with certainty that hotels can do just fine without crazy suits. Even hotels that call themselves boutique hotels, because let's face it, boutique hotels don't exist at all. If you, as a hotelier, decide to open a guest house in a building with all thresholds, stairs, ceilings that are too low and walls that are too thin, don't call it a boutique hotel, call it an error of judgement. You won't hear me talk about it, I've also been wrong many times in my life, but don't try to justify your own mistakes by just sticking a French word on it and the connotation, on, which in no way covers the connotation. Or, it is actually very simple, either you have money and then you sleep in a hotel, or you have no money and then you have to sleep in the porterhouse of a boutique. You can't sleep in a boutique, a boutique is a shop, in a shop everything is for sale. A hotel where everything is for sale is called a brothel, so stop talking about boutique hotels, just say it for what it is: a very impractical property with far too little light, far too big twilight lamps and far too high prices. So much for my latest review on Booking.com.
I will be honest, there is only one thing I can stand worse than all the unnecessary frills in hotels, and that is the questionnaire I have to fill in every time I have stayed somewhere. I deliberately didn't go to work at Guide Michelin. It often feels like homework, then I think: oh nice, a hotel, but then I think: no, soon that mail will come, ‘we're so curious and what you thought of it’, and before you know it I've finished a day later than I'd hoped. Anyway, I was not asked to recite my review on Booking, but to hold up a mirror to you all. There are always those, two mirrors, in every hotel room. The regular one, around which there is a frame of muted LED light, and on which everything looks nice and soft. You understand, my preference is for that little hollow mirror that you can pull towards you on which every dot on your nose suddenly looks like a 90-euro truffle.
Well, if I were to present it to you, I could say nothing but: just stop it, stop it, stop dancing to the tune of all those spoilt guests with whom you can never do it right anyway. A whole week of you nodding yes in front of those people, only to read on Booking that you didn't do it right, I would immediately follow Marco Goecke's example, and now I'm going to try to see if the gentleman from technology has managed to do my PowerPoint that I pressed into his hand just three seconds ago. The German, thank you, that's the first slide, succeeded. The German choreographer who made the news this week, I don't know if you have seen it, I'll read out: on Saturday, Goecke encountered a reviewer in the foyer of the theatre in Hanover who had called his dance performance mediocre. At that, he pulled out a plastic bag of dog shit and rubbed it in her face with an open newspaper. I admit, that's not neat, but I suspect it would be terribly illuminating. Therefore, why keep spoiling all those spoiled people?
I am not part of the climate crisis, also a slide, stolen admittedly from net, next. Tap. See, I paid attention. By fuelling tourism? But you're actually helping people who really need it. Pats, next. We go through now, see, there are, it's a very complicated, I have to be very honest, this little graph is not entirely clear to me, but I was looking at it and suddenly I was very shocked, because you see, up there, that's engineers, that's a little ball, then you have doctors, but then you come here and there are all these little balls of which it's not entirely clear, then I started zooming in, can I get the next ...
But anyway, as Albert Einstein said... Well, but I, that doesn't at all mean that there are no opportunities for people who do want to go on in the hotel business, because I see all of you, you want so much to help those spoilt people. And of course those opportunities are there. For example, this week I saw a startup that had designed a kind of platform that they use to provide terrorists, potential terrorists, with a map, that allows them to see exactly how to get a guest, a hotel, well, let's see, the next slide. Expect Mayhem, it's called, and so then you get a floor plan, and so then with a first shooter, you can totally practise it, how you want that, how you want the attack... But anyway, I don't want to let you ponder any further about how to proceed. Well, next slide. There are, of course, lots of possibilities. For example this one, well I realise that I could put those... Yes, you see, so you could put a hotel there. Location, location, location.
Anyway, don't be fooled by a staffing organisation whose logo is a straitjacket. I mean, who are going to say what's good for the staff, let's face it, right. And also don't, don't be fooled by the people who claim that the view of their room is so terribly important, that it's correct on Booking, look, it all seems very unfair, of course, those people here, those, but if you look closely, it's really just the same room, only the view is slightly less disturbing, because, and it's, I haven't been photoshopping, but when we go to the next one, we see this other room, and then you have to look very carefully. One more next slide? Just one more next slide. That's where the terrorists are already inside. Then you don't sleep well. It's really the picture that used that one. Okay, not my choice. In short, don't be fooled, and for anyone who gives a bad review, there is actually a very, very easy tool that I actually always carry with me. Stick it over it and have a good bubbly. Thank you.