[Taken from a conversation on the old forum:]
In the words of that old McDonald jingle, “You deserve a break today.”
If you’ve trained your staff and have someone who can supervise the inn in your absence, schedule some time off for yourself. And if you haven’t trained someone on your staff to step into your shoes, reconsider the importance of training.
My housekeeper is working towards being able to replace me.
In addition to housekeeping, she can take reservations, check guests in, conduct tours of the inn, and secure the inn at closing.
I still need to train her to use our computer reservation system with hotels.com to avoid reservation conflicts.
I also need to train her to at least put out the breakfast buffet.
With the skills she has, I’ve been comfortable taking half days. I work from 5:30 AM (prepping breakfast) to 11 AM and if she isn’t swamped with housekeeping, I have her answer the phone, take reservations, and greet in-coming guests while I take the rest of the day off. (Since she doesn’t know how to use the hotels.com reservation system, I simply block those rooms off for same day reservations prior to leaving at 11 AM).
And if you haven’t trained your staff, you should really consider doing this. After all – what will happen if you have an accident? What will happen if you get called to jury duty? What will happen if heaven forbid, you get sick?
Before purchasing this inn, I “externed” at a bed and breakfast in Austin for three months. The inn had two full time housekeepers and three part time housekeepers. I worked as the breakfast chef.
The full time housekeepers had been fully trained by the largely absentee innkeeper/owner who was busy managing a 20 room boutique hotel with an attached French restaurant. During our hours of operation, one full time housekeeper was always at the inn. Each housekeeper got two days off per week. Gaps in the schedule were filled by one of the part timers who only did housekeeping.