Three Attendants, Twenty-Five Arrivals and an Unwell Child
Green Leaf Resort, Ganpatipule, has 60 rooms. On a Friday in peak season, housekeeping has three room attendants and one supervisor; a fourth attendant has gone home with food poisoning. There are 22 checkouts by 11:00, 30 stayover rooms, and 25 arrivals expected today. Two rooms are blocked for maintenance: 104 has a damp smell from a leaking bathroom seal, and 212's air-conditioner is making a loud noise. Check-in time is 13:00. At 11:30 the front office calls to say a family of four with a confirmed booking has arrived early and the children are unwell; they need a room within 30 minutes. The executive housekeeper is also expected to inspect two rooms for a travel-agent familiarisation group at 15:00.
1. Sequence the housekeeping work from 11:30 to 15:00 and justify what comes first.
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The first priority is one clean, ready room for the unwell family within 30 minutes. That is a guest-welfare issue, not a convenience issue. The supervisor should choose a vacant clean room if one exists; otherwise, the supervisor should personally strip and check the quickest checkout room while an attendant cleans it. The second priority is the 25 arrivals by 13:00, because front office cannot check them in without ready rooms. The third is the 30 stayover rooms, which can be serviced after arrivals are secured. The fourth is the two familiarisation rooms for 15:00 inspection.
The arithmetic explains the pressure: 22 checkout rooms must be cleaned, 25 arrivals need rooms, and only a small number of vacant rooms are available after two are blocked. Three attendants cannot clean 22 rooms to standard in 1.5 hours, so the supervisor must stop inspecting and start working, call an off-duty attendant with approval, and ask front office to stagger check-in times. Safety and guest welfare come first, then arrival readiness, then routine stayover service. The supervisor should not spend the first hour on paperwork or on the two familiarisation rooms while the arrival queue builds.
2. What should the supervisor do about rooms 104 and 212, and what must not be done?
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Rooms 104 and 212 must remain blocked until the defects are fixed and the rooms are re-inspected. For 104, maintenance should repair the bathroom seal, dry the area and remove the source of dampness. The supervisor should not mask the smell with air freshener or sell the room as 'just a little damp', because the next guest will complain and the underlying leak will worsen. For 212, maintenance should check the air-conditioner mounting and fan; if it cannot be repaired before 13:00, the room stays blocked and front office must reallocate any booking.
The supervisor should record both rooms in the maintenance log with the time reported, the fault, the action taken and the expected release time. The front office must see the same status so the rooms are not accidentally sold. If a guest has already been assigned to either room, the supervisor should tell front office immediately so the guest can be moved before arrival. The principle is that a blocked room is not a spare room, and housekeeping should never trade a quick sale for a complaint about dampness or noise.
3. Write the handover note to front office and explain how the early-arrival family is handled without breaking the arrival sequence.
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The handover note should list, in room-number order, which rooms are ready, which are being cleaned, which are blocked and the expected ready time for each. It should name the room allocated to the early-arrival family and state that it has been inspected. It should also flag rooms 104 and 212 as blocked and give the maintenance reference. The note should be time-stamped and signed by the supervisor so front office can rely on it.
The early-arrival family should be given the first ready room, not a room reserved for the 15:00 familiarisation inspection. If no room is ready within 30 minutes, front office should offer the lobby or a shaded seating area, drinking water, and a clear update every 15 minutes. The supervisor should not promise a room and then withdraw it. The arrival sequence is protected by allocating one room early, keeping the remaining checkout rooms in a cleaning queue, and telling front office the realistic ready times. This is better than cleaning rooms randomly and having no reliable answer at the desk.