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A confession
2010-10-14 13:49 (1608 Views)

I know, I know - this has nothing to do with cash, trade or custody or for that matter any business what so ever. Well, the latter is not quite true since the topic is sometimes related to business travel. And even though I am a bit embarrassed to blog about this topic here is my confession.

I have problems switching the shower on when in a hotel.

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It is ridiculous and a bit embarrassing admitting this, but it is the truth and I hope by blogging about it more people will step forward so we can unite in a global request for a more logic way of getting water out of a shower.

I mean how many times have I been arriving late to a hotel somewhere in the world and in then starting the day standing in the shower trying to figure out how the heck you turn the d...mn shower on. Of course I am also always in a hurry for the first meeting and always and I mean always some smart water pipe engineer have come up with a new intricate way of turing the water on. Most of the times I am clever enough to succeed in finding out how to get water in the tub, you know, getting water out of the lower tap in the bath tub (and then the jumping in the tub starts to avoid burning my feet). But how you then redirect the water up in to the shower that is another story. Maybe it is a hint that I should take a bath? Is it cheaper for the hotel if I take bath, instead of a shower, or .. no...? And honestly I do not have the time or patience to take a bath in the morning before the first meeting.

So then it starts, the fumbling with all the wheels, buttons, displays and what not to try to figure out the logistics. After the first minutes of desperate fumbling I usually take a deep breath, slide one half step back in the tub and take a thorough look on the mechanism on the wall. Than I start to pretend I am the water pipe engineer, try to think like him/her and start to do some reversed engineering in my head. And then I attack the knobs and buttons like a mad man. In principal always to no avail. So it usually ends up with a call to the reception asking (embarrassed) "Excuse me, but how do you turn the shower on?" They are of course always helpful, but I know that as soon they put down the phone they will start to giggle and tell the rest of the crew behind desk that room 435 do not even know how to turn the shower on. Humiliating!

I therefore propose that all hotels in the world must have showers with two knobs. One for hot and one for cold water and there should be a blue dot on the cold water knob and a red dot on the hot water knob! Than I will most definitely have no problems. I hope.

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Comments

  1. ulfnoren's Avatar ulfnoren
    Hakan,
    This is a very valid concern and I can assure you that you are not alone. Agreeing on Standards and Consolidate is extremely difficult but it most be brought out in the open and I do hope that your blog entry can start a global movement of protests. I suspect that this will be nasty as a cartel consisting of shower producers and the deodorant industry most likely are behind the current state of play. The worst hotel ever in this respect is Radisson Berkshire in London that have not one, not two, not three but as far as I have detected four different solutions for how the shower works. I have solved the intriguing mysteries of three of them but have to admit that I failed on the fourth and had to take a bath. Which was quite nice. I just checked in at the Radisson Slavyanskaya Hotel in Moscow and they can serve as a role model. ONE control (cold, clearly marked in BLUE push to the left and warm, clearly marked in RED to the right). Shower = UP, Bath = Down. Next, I hope that you will attack the Electricity Contacts Industry and the producers of Lighbulbs. A storm of restaurantgoers should also demand a conversion table of names in various languages for Fishes and Berry's in every Restaurant Worldwide. It is still possible to save this world but we need to act NOW.
  2. Patrik Havander's Avatar Patrik Havander
    : ) ....Hakan, you sound like my grandmother did. She also referred to pop and rock music as "dunka dunka"-music. I think we are roughly in that space right now.
    Your story reminds me when I stayed at one of the top hotels in London -Grosvenor House (...at a substantially discounted rate of cause). I was invited to a black tie event in the evening and I had an hour or two before the reception started. I was swept in the soft, warm and fluffy bathrobe and was planning to take a bath.. When I turned the tap on I get instead of water...I get a big moaning sound from the water pipe. I called the reception and they told me that some construction workers had accidentally cut of the water pipe to the Hotel and the whole place was out of water. I could not even wash my hands, instead I had to dash of and run to a neighboring hotel and take a shower there...so much for a nice hotel room..
    Updated 2010-10-14 at 15:58 by Patrik Havander
  3. arne's Avatar arne
    I travel quite a lot and literally NEVER had such a shower ... I'd love to try it. You're lucky, aren't ya? :-)
  4. Michael Kimander's Avatar Michael Kimander
    Thank you Hakan for going public with this giant problem. I would say that this is mainly a problem when you are in London. I don’t experience this problem when I’m travelling in the Nordics, Germany or Luxembourg.
  5. Susann Lindqvist's Avatar Susann Lindqvist
    Thx Håkan for sharing a well written and funny story. I´m not a big traveler but I tend to find out how the shower works before entering them)
  6. Kenneth's Avatar Kenneth
    Michael..... I have to agree with you...somehow it appears that any British development within "plumbing and heating" stopped around the year 1900....I have a friend who used to live in London in a appartment on the 6th floor...Because the appartment was located on the 6th floor and because the shower was not fitted with some strange "gizmo thing" it was completely impossible to take a regular shower there were simply not enough pressure on the water. Basically you could choose between a hot tub and if you were in a hurry a "sitting" shower.....
  7. Goran Fors's Avatar Goran Fors
    Håkan
    You are spot on here but I must say that I look forward to exploring a new shower to see what new inventions they have come up with. The possible ways of confusing me is still not gone even though I spend som 120 days in hotels per year.
    Maybe we should have a rating of the strangest hotelshower?