Disposable Culture

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This is what $140 a night gets you. A lousy paper/styrofoam cup the likes of which you wouldn’t even find included with the purchase of a watercooler.

When some American hotel chains were reportedly caught not cleaning their rooms properly last year, most chains panicked after a ridiculous public outcry.

So here’s what we are left with. The Lowest Common Denominator. Forget solving the actual problem of lazy cleaning staff (Edit: or poorly equipped, as Paul rightly points out in the comments below), and take the bottom of the barrel route by doing away with glasses entirely and putting an even greater burden on the environment.

Oh, and that yellow paper the cup is sitting on? It’s a reminder to place it on your bed if you want your sheets cleaned to “help reduce the amount of water and energy we use.”

Long live disposable culture.

(This post was written with the new Wordpress app for the iPhone and while it’s not perfect, it’s a big step in the right direction. With ubiquitous wireless access everywhere I go, it’s less of a barrier to blogging!)

July 23, 2008 | Filed Under Writing 

Comments

  • Paul on July 23rd, 2008 7:47 am

    Are you sure that the problem is “lazy cleaning staff”? Many people — mostly women, mostly immigrants — who clean hotel rooms are given such a demanding schedule by the hotel management that they barely have time to do a thorough job. Rather than hire an adequate number of cleaners, hotels prefer to cut costs, even if it results in lower quality. The cleaners are generally poorly paid and very hard working.

  • Adam on July 23rd, 2008 8:32 am

    Fair point, Paul. It constantly amazes me how companies will cut corners just to save a few bucks, only to have it turn into a PR nightmare not long after.

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