Transcript: Episode 209: 4th Anniversary!
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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor episode 208. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/209.
[00:00:14] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.
[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. Calvin Tilokee is the founder and creative director of RevPAR Media, where he helps hospitality brands connect with their audiences through innovative digital strategies with more than 20 years of experience in revenue management and marketing, he has been recognized as a top hospitality, social media influencer and one of the most inspirational figures in hospitality. I was introduced to Calvin on Instagram during, or maybe a little before the pandemic, through his always brilliant hotel meme account @revparblems, which is a very hard word to pronounce, and he was guest number three on top floor back in September of 2021. We have since become pals both online and at conferences when we see each other, and I am very honored that he said yes when I asked if he would join me today as guest host to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the show. Calvin is going to turn the tables and interview me in honor of our top floor birthday.
[00:01:50] Calvin Tilokee: Fantastic, Susan. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm very honored to be your guest for this milestone show. And that first part of your intro of me, I think I'm going to clip and turn it into an actual ad. I see myself walking down the street, like huggy bear with you saying wonderful things about me in the background I have never heard such nice things about myself, so I appreciate that. And if you see it all over LinkedIn, I will give you the, the voiceover credit for sure.
[00:02:21] Susan Barry: Wonderful. You got it, you got it. Put it on my IMDB.
[00:02:24] Calvin Tilokee: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I echo all of your, your sentiments there and the intro you one of my favorite people in the industry. I also don't exactly remember when we got connected, but at this point it doesn't matter, you know? I know you, I love you and happy to be here. So before we jump in, we will need to answer the call button.
Call button rings.
The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals who have burning questions. If you'd like to submit a question, you can call or text me at (850) 404-9630. And today's question was submitted by Faye. Faye asked, “How did you get the nerve to start your company? Did you have a lot of money saved up or a partner with a high paying job?”
[00:03:15] Susan Barry: Well, first of all, Calvin, I have to tell you that I literally had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying the call button intro, so thank you for taking that on. I know that's weird to say other people's words and put 'em in your mouth. But Faye, the answer of how I had the nerve is, uh, quite something, but I'll answer the second part of the question first, which is no, I did not have a lot of money saved up, and no, I did not have a partner with a high paying job. What I had was the audacity. Really, that's not true. Like that makes me sound a lot more brave and confident than I was. When I started Hive Marketing in the spring of 2009, it was like full financial crisis. The whole wide world was a whole hot mess. At the same time, the sort of like second wave of tech boom was happening. Like there were tons and tons of startups, it was the birth of, you know, Twitter and Facebook was coming into its own and getting spread out and all that stuff. And so a lot of people were doing a lot of the not work 25 years for the same company and retire with a gold watch. Like people were doing unusual stuff and like people were getting laid off and, which I had never heard of. I mean, you know, before I had worked for the same company for 10 years.
So I decided that everybody else was doing a bunch of weird stuff, like a lot of unusual sort of not great resume building stuff. So if I did it and I didn't succeed, nobody would hold it against me because everyone would be like, oh, it was a financial crisis. Everybody was hustling, doing weird stuff. You can come back and be a director of sales at our hotel. No problem. You just took a little detour. So it was more about feeling like I wouldn't look crazy if I failed. Thank God I didn't. I mean, failure is a relative term, right? But it's, thank God I'm still in business because I cannot imagine now going back and working for somebody else. It was really like, knowing that, or feeling like people wouldn't judge me if I wasn't successful.
[00:05:36] Calvin Tilokee: Right. That's a very interesting, interesting take. I've spoken to a few entrepreneurs, not sure I've heard that take on it before. There was a lot of noise, nobody would've noticed anyway,
[00:05:52] Susan Barry: I mean, nobody cares what I'm doing, but I was like the Type A follow rule follower, you know? I was like, I'm supposed to climb the career ladder and do this, and then do this, and then move to this type of hotel, and then, you know? And when I was jumping off that ladder, I'm like, all right, well, I better have a good reason so that I can explain it later, you know?
[00:06:16] Calvin Tilokee: Right. You need to justify it.
[00:06:17] Susan Barry: Which is so funny for me. I mean, the fear. Holy mackerel. What about you? Were you afraid or were you just ready? You're like, ah, it's time.
[00:06:26] Calvin Tilokee: Well, I was sort of forced into it. So I started my company during the pandemic. So I was working, working at hotels, a director of revenue, and the hotel closed down for obvious reasons. We had, I think, not even 4% forecast for that April. It was like four rooms, I think forecast for that April. So you know…
[00:06:49] Susan Barry: There was no revenue to manage.
[00:06:50] Calvin Tilokee: No revenue to manage, no people to general manage, no sales and all these things. So we all got furloughed. Then the the hotel closed and then I was just kind of left in the lurch. What was interesting is I actually had an offer, signed offer to start at another set of hotels. I was supposed to start, I believe it was March 14th,
[00:07:14] Susan Barry: Stop it! Of 2020?
[00:07:16] Calvin Tilokee: Yep. That was supposed to be my start date and then that's when everything was just starting with the pandemic and that's when we thought, “Hey, this is gonna last maybe 60, 90 days.” So they were like, you know what? Stay at that hotel, kind of get them through this and then we'll move you over. And of course, when I got furloughed from that hotel, I called that one like. Hey, what, what's going on? Well, we don't have any money to pay you.
[00:07:43] Susan Barry: Oh, no.
[00:07:45] Calvin Tilokee: So yeah, it was kind of just that purgatory there for a while. But this has always been my end goal. Or at least for, I'd say maybe the last three to four years of my hotel career. I kind of saw, this is what I wanted to do. This was where the gap was in hospitality and marketing specifically. So with nothing to do at home, had nothing but free time is like, hey, remember that business idea I had? Why don't I just start doing that now? Let's get the website set up. Let's, you know, work on the business plan and concept and all these different things. And, five years later, I've never gone back.
[00:08:22] Susan Barry: Would you?
[00:08:23] Calvin Tilokee: Not without a fight. So we've kind of touched on how you started your company, but what made you start the podcast? What made you start Top Floor and what was your vision for the show?
[00:08:38] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh. My vision was fame and fortune. No, the reason that I wanted to start the show is that I had co-hosted another podcast before Top Floor very briefly with a friend of mine, and we ended up having to end the show because he took a full-time job and was no longer able to do it or whatever. But I knew that I really enjoyed the medium. I really enjoyed just the process of talking and listening to myself talk and also talking, big fan of the talking part. And so I reached out to Jonathan Albano, who is still the producer of Top Floor to this day, and talked to him about his podcast network at the time, Long Live lodging. And he helped me develop and create Top Floor. It was originally very focused on marketing. When Long Live Lodging decided to stop putting out other shows, I took all their subject matter and stuffed it into the bag. And now, you know, Top Floor is all things hospitality. But the original vision was that it would be a hospitality marketing show, but not just hotels, every sort of area of hospitality. Now it's just a hospitality curiosity cabinet where I talk to every possible aspect of tourism, travel, hospitality in the whole wide world, whether it's marketing ops, all that stuff, just to scratch the itch because I am super nosy.
[00:10:15] Calvin Tilokee: Right, right. So, how has that changed for you over the years? I mean, you said you want to just be a marketing podcast and it's evolved into this other thing. Is that, was that planned or did that happen organically and do you enjoy it?
[00:10:31] Susan Barry: It happened organically and I enjoy it very much. I am so happy to get the chance to talk to people in disciplines that I don't know very much about, and also to find out about all of the different hospitality related jobs that exist that I had no clue. Like, you know, when you work on property, you sort of see the landscape of operating hotels, your local team, maybe a regional team and a corporate team, and that's basically your field of vision. But what I've learned over the years of doing this show is that they're just so many hundreds of things that people can do in our industry that they may, may have never even heard of.
[00:11:20] Calvin Tilokee: Right. Right. So you being, you know, a marketing genius of course, there had to be some thought behind the name of the show. What's the story behind the name Top Floor?
[00:11:32] Susan Barry: It's kind of funny because Top Floor was definitely not the original name for the show. The original name was Going Up, and my idea for Going Up was that I would wear, which I still have a little like bellman slash elevator operator hat on all of my marketing and stand in front of one of those old fashioned elevators with the cage, like an elevator operator. And it would still be elevator themed, but the name of the show was gonna be Going Up. So I thought of that name and I was like, dang, I am so smart. Let's go. Did about one second worth of research and found out that there was another show called Going Up, also focused on hospitality. So I was like, huh, alright. The host had not put on an episode in a good long time. So I reached out and was like, Hey, what do you think? You wanna gimme your name? I'll take it. No harm, no foul. We can be friends, you can be on my show. You know? And that person said, “Oh no, I'll be starting back up, uh, very soon again.” And has, in four years, never put out another episode
[00:12:44] Calvin Tilokee: That's like, it's like that gym membership that you try to cancel. Oh no, I'm gonna go, I'll get started next month. Four years later, they're just still collecting that, $59.99 a month.
[00:12:55] Susan Barry: Yes. I mean, there's so much podcast abandonment and I, you know, I get it in the pandemic, people were doing all kinds of stuff that they had time for. And it's a lot of work and I mean, I'm not trying to sound like a martyr, but it, you know, it's a lot of work. Especially when I got started, I was spending probably 15 hours a week per episode. So I certainly don't do that now, but I understand why people got started and then were never able to pick it back up again.
[00:13:24] Calvin Tilokee: Right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, that person maybe could have made a little bit of money.
[00:13:30] Susan Barry: Uh, hey, I wonder if they will hear this and realize that I'm secretly trolling them years later.
[00:13:41] Calvin Tilokee: Well, I myself have been, have been the victim of subliminal messages on Hospitality podcast, but we'll save that for the discord, for the behind the scenes conversation.
[00:13:55] Susan Barry: Interesting.
[00:13:58] Calvin Tilokee: So, speaking of, you know, interesting moments, have you ever had a call button moment yourself, where you wish you had someone to answer your burning hospitality question?
[00:14:08] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh, yes. I have 'em all the time and I ask, I ask my guests and I always feel like they feel like they got cheated, because I'll be like, “All right, time for the call button. And the question is, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And it comes from me because I wanna know, they're like, didn't you send me a list of like 16 questions here and you have yet another one? But I ask them all the time. I'm telling you, I am a nosy, rosy, and again, sounds a little self-aggrandizing, but I really love to learn, like I really love learning about things, doing things I have never done before. You know, that kind of stuff. So I'm fascinated. Plus, don't you think it's crazy that this one, same industry that's been around for hundreds of years, you never reach the end of the things that you can learn. Just when you think you've got it, you're like, oh wait, just kidding. Here's more. You know? So cool.
[00:15:07] Calvin Tilokee: It's constantly evolving. Well, because it's all surrounded by people and people's behaviors.
[00:15:13] Susan Barry: Yep.
[00:15:13] Calvin Tilokee: And that is constantly evolving and changing and the industry needs to change with it. You know, quick, my quick 2 cents on this whole thing, this conversation that we've had about tech and hospitality for years, which my personal opinion, we are way behind.
[00:15:28] Susan Barry: Yes.
[00:15:28] Calvin Tilokee: We're way behind real life when it comes to tech, you know? I haven't been to a bank to drop off a check or deposit a check in a decade plus at least, I can't remember the last time I've done it. Right now I only have a checkbook because I have one specific app that needs me to send a check instead of, you know, you know, doing it online.
[00:15:51] Susan Barry: Exactly the same.
[00:15:51] Calvin Tilokee: But we're still requiring every guest to show up to a hotel and fill out a reg card and swipe your credit card and go through this process.
[00:16:02] Susan Barry: Show an id.
[00:16:03] Calvin Tilokee: Right. The rest of life is not like this anymore. And hospitality, you know, is slow to do it, but eventually will evolve to reach that. And as long as society and life keeps changing that way, hospitality's gonna have to keep up. So that's why the industry is, there's never the end of it, because it just has to keep up with regular life because it's regular people that are going to hotels.
[00:16:29] Susan Barry: Yep. Absolutely.
[00:16:30] Calvin Tilokee: So now gonna get into some tough ones. I hope you're ready.
[00:16:35] Susan Barry: Mm!
[00:16:36] Calvin Tilokee: What's been your most challenging interview as a host, and how did you navigate it?
[00:16:42] Susan Barry: Oh, my, I know exactly which one it was. I'm definitely not gonna name names, but I'll tell you.
[00:16:48] Calvin Tilokee: I'm pretty sure it's me.
[00:16:49] Susan Barry: It was episode three, Calvin Tilokee, ladies and gentlemen. No, I'll tell you some broad strokes about what makes an interview more difficult. We do a lot of advanced preparation. We send a ton of reminder emails and like, you know, here's some FAQs, do you have any questions? For our interview questions, we send all of those out in advance. We do a prep call. I mean, I'm telling you, I probably run these people insane because we do a lot of advance work and there's a reason we do that. Because while the tone of this show is, is very lighthearted, we take that production quality very seriously and we wanna make a great show that I can be proud of, but more importantly, that the guests can be proud of. So we're trying to like tee them up, here's what to expect, here's what to prepare. And there are some folks who will not read a word, will not listen to a word I say, voice to voice and just act like they fell onto this planet from another solar system the minute before they jumped on this Zoom call with me and have never heard of me podcasting or the hotel business before. The worst offenders are people who don't think about a loading dock story in advance. Everybody has to tell a loading dock story. I describe it in detail, I send examples, I give examples when we're talking voice to voice, and some people just show up with nothing and then have to like try to wing it. Or most of the time it's the I fill in and tell a story because they got nothing.
[00:18:40] Calvin Tilokee: Right? That sucks. That really sucks. Know what it reminds me of? Did you watch a show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel?
[00:18:48] Susan Barry: Yes. I love that show.
[00:18:49] Calvin Tilokee: I've re-watched that show I think like three or four times already. Fantastic show.
[00:18:53] Susan Barry: Have you? I think I need to, I don't think I ever finished it.
[00:18:56] Calvin Tilokee: Oh, it's awesome. One of the best written shows I've ever seen. Fantastic. But there was a part where she's learning her craft of being a standup comedian and she had really hit lightning a couple times with just kind of going on stage and winging it. You know, I'm just gonna talk about my day. And she goes up, and she completely bombs and she has no idea how this happened. And her manager goes, “Well, you know, winging it works until it doesn't.”
[00:19:26] Susan Barry: It's true. Yeah, it's totally true.
[00:19:28] Calvin Tilokee: It's like, maybe next time spend some time preparing your five minute set, you know?
[00:19:33] Susan Barry: Uh, yeah! Hello! The other last thing that drives me wild is — so another thing that we do is I send out a piece of art and some like stuff for people who wanna promote the show, who wanna use it. And we have had a handful of folks completely strip our branding off of everything that we sent them, redesign it, repackage it in a completely different font, color palette, no logo, nothing. And I guess try to present it like they made it. That is the most mind blowing, crazy, making behavior I have ever heard of in my life.
[00:20:16] Calvin Tilokee: It's more time that takes more time to do that than just share what you sent.
[00:20:21] Susan Barry: Plus the whole point is that you were on my show, not that you interviewed yourself, you know?
[00:20:31] Calvin Tilokee: Some random lady came into your office and started asking a bunch of questions and you were gracious enough to sit down, put on headphones, find a microphone, and answer them.
[00:20:39] Susan Barry: It's so weird. I mean, bless their hearts. I think people, you know, maybe learn about branding and think that everything they touch needs to be branded in their company's colors, but hot tip, not media appearances. They do not.
[00:20:55] Calvin Tilokee: Yeah. No, I mean you, everybody has a personal brand, but you know, Tiger Woods has a personal brand, but you know, when he's doing a Buick commercial, he doesn't show up with a different car or hide the label, you know?
[00:21:10] Susan Barry: Right, exactly.
[00:21:11] Calvin Tilokee: They can both exist at the same time.
[00:21:12] Susan Barry: A hundred percent.
[00:21:14] Calvin Tilokee: Oh man. So what episode do people bring up to you the most?
[00:21:18] Susan Barry: It's not a single episode, but it is a series of episodes, which are the ones that I've recorded with my sister. So my sister and I, I think, have made six episodes together. And this is, so, it's just like how things play out, but she is a restaurant owner and a real estate investor. And so when I knew I was gonna do the show, but I wasn't sure like how the format was gonna play out and stuff like that, I asked her if she would record a fake episode with me so that I could practice, see how it sounded, see how call button worked and Loading Dock worked and all that stuff. And she agreed we did it. And it turned out to be so funny that I kept it. And that was the first episode I released, which came out on my mom's birthday, which was the first launch of the show. And so since then, for like many milestones or different occasions, like episode 200 was with my sister. We went to Alaska together, so we did an episode about that. There've been several, and those are the ones that people think are, I think, the best. Like they're the funniest. Maybe I should not let her listen to this so she doesn't start angling for a co-host credit, but they're good. We have a good time when we do 'em.
[00:22:42] Calvin Tilokee: Why do you think those, those kind of struggle chord with the audience so well?
[00:22:47] Susan Barry: I think it's probably because we laugh a lot the entire time and you know how if somebody's laughing hysterically, you can't help but laugh, right? I think that's it. I don't think there's anything smart or interesting said. I think it's just a laugh track for like 30 minutes.
[00:23:03] Calvin Tilokee: Right? Spreading joy. Love it. So we've been here four years now with the Top Floor podcast. How do you measure success of the podcast? Is it industry influence, downloads, something else?
[00:23:18] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh, I don't know how to answer that. I will tell you that I get a great deal of pleasure climbing in the list of podcasts, like top podcasts or whatever. That's pretty exciting to see that our influences growing and more people are listening to this show. But honestly, I think the other thing that I really love — this sounds so corny, but it is true — is when guests, people who have been guests on the show feel like they had a really good time and we had a really good conversation and we stay friends. Like, that's my favorite. You know what I mean? I meet someone, we talk. 'Cause you, it's a pretty intimate conversation, a one-on-one interview and you're in each other's face here on Zoom. So I really like that when I feel like I make a connection with the guest and then it sticks.
[00:24:17] Calvin Tilokee: Well that's the best. That's the hospitality in you.
[00:24:23] Susan Barry: Maybe!
[00:24:25] Calvin Tilokee: So how do you see this podcast evolving over the next four years?
[00:24:29] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh. I feel like we just got started. I cannot believe it's been four years. That seems wild to me. I mean, we've done a lot of episodes. Like, this is episode 209. 209 times? And that there are several that we weren't able to run for various reasons, so we've recorded many more than 209. The next four years… oh my gosh, Calvin, I think there's a few things that are on my dream list or my wishlist. I would like to do more episodes a week. I would like to focus on a couple of different topics. I would like to spend more time on the podcast, and I would like to potentially add some other sort of media to the mix. For example, this is embarrassing. I'm probably blushing. I may recently made a Top Floor magazine in Canva. Just because I wanted to see what it would be like. And I think we could do that. Like, I think I could make that a digital monthly digital magazine, feature the people that we interviewed on the show and then, you know, some additional stuff or whatever. So those are the kind of things that I have on my wishlist. Now, we'll see how realistic that is. Oh, another thing I have on my wishlist is to be able to hire you to help me with Instagram. Our Top Floor Instagram account just chugs along happily. It's not as big of focus as LinkedIn is for us, and so I think I could use some help.
[00:26:19] Calvin Tilokee: Well, everything you just mentioned sounds highly attainable. So we can make that all happen.
[00:26:25] Susan Barry: Excellent. Excellent.
[00:26:27] Calvin Tilokee: So if you could book a dream guest outside of hospitality, who would it be and why?
[00:26:33] Susan Barry: Cindy Gallop. Cindy Gallop is a very famous advertising executive. She's now an entrepreneur and founder of a company called Make Love Not Porn, and she is an amazing thought leader and thinker that I have followed closely on LinkedIn for several years and have read a lot of her Harvard Business Review articles. She wrote an article basically, I'm gonna mess up the title, but I'll put it in the show notes for this episode that talks about all of the advice that women in business get that you should ignore. And I swear to you, Calvin, when I read that article, I was like, oh, okay. And I, it changed my brain chemistry instantaneously. So she's someone that I admire tremendously and would love to get a chance to meet. And then I think this is probably for a lot of women entrepreneurs. The other person they would say is Sarah Blakely, just because she's so flippin cool and delightful. And I think she would be an amazing guest. She's got a wonderful personality. But those are my two.
[00:27:44] Calvin Tilokee: What's one risk or creative experiment you'd love to try with Top Floor that you haven't yet?
[00:27:48] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh. I would love to do an investigative journalism style piece. I'm not exactly sure what it would be, although I have some ideas in the back of my mind that I can't say while we're recording. But I would love to do that, like a deep dive into what happened with this thing or what happened with that. Another thing I think would be really cool is to do a series about either historic hotels or the history of things that happen in hotels. You know how old timers will talk about, “Oh, I used to have to do a bucket check and it was a real bucket.” And then a bucket check became an Excel spreadsheet and that, you know, all that stuff. Like I would let, I think it would be cool to dig into that and see where it came from.
[00:28:42] Calvin Tilokee: Yeah, that's really cool. That's really cool. You could probably find yourself in some interesting locations.
[00:28:49] Susan Barry: Yes, exactly. Oh my gosh, that's, I didn't even think about that 'cause I don't normally do video. But if I could do it with a video crew and like chase down the origin of the bucket check. Probably one person will watch it and that would be you. So thank you.
[00:29:05] Calvin Tilokee: You, you know I'm in, you know, I'm for sure. Are there new formats you'd like to ex experiment with? Live shows, video collaborations?
[00:29:13] Susan Barry: I would love to do more collaborations. I would love to do a live show, although I'm terrified that no one would come, and I'm really feeling torn about video. Actually you should give me your opinion about this. Top Floor has always been an audio first show. We're an audio show, and part of the reason that we don't show, even though we record on video, we don't put out the video, is that we're super tightly edited, so ums, ahs, things like that come out long pauses, stuff like that. And it's hard to match up to video. It's time consuming and expensive. So I haven't done it before. As I think about maybe adding a second episode or another topic or something like that, I'm like, man, I feel like I'm missing out if I'm not doing video. What do you think?
[00:30:08] Calvin Tilokee: I think if it's working, continue to do what you're doing. Obviously you've been doing this for such a long time and you're clearly successful with it. Maybe once in a while you do a video show, maybe a special occasion. Such as this one?
[00:30:25] Susan Barry: That’s a good idea.
[00:30:25] Calvin Tilokee: You could have a special holiday podcast episode where you're on video.
[00:30:32] Susan Barry: Can you imagine, maybe I should do like a cabaret show, but it's on Zoom, so it's just like, looks like the Brady Bunch and then there's like dancers in one, a peacock in the other, confetti gun, t-shirt toss. What do you think? Should I do that?
[00:30:45] Calvin Tilokee: I think if it's come through your mind, go with it.
[00:30:51] Susan Barry: I think it would be creepy, probably.
[00:30:54] Calvin Tilokee: It might be, but I'm sure your engagement would be very high.
[00:30:58] Susan Barry: Maybe. Maybe I'll try it. We'll see.
[00:31:01] Calvin Tilokee: Yeah. Give it a shot. Listen, there are no bad ideas.
[00:31:04] Susan Barry: Um, yes, there are. There definitely are bad ideas.
[00:31:10] Calvin Tilokee: Oh, man. All right, so we're getting down to the nitty gritty here. Thinking ahead to your 10th anniversary episode, what do you hope people will say Top floor has contributed to the industry?
[00:31:24] Susan Barry: I think the legacy I hope we can leave with this show is that people listened and learned about or got ideas for a next job, a next aspect of their career that they didn't think of before. That they heard someone talk about I designed textiles for the hospitality industry and thought, “Oh my God, that's my dream. I've always wanted to do that. I didn't know it existed.” Or, I am the SVP of marketing for this train company and I put together train trips for people across Scotland. All of these like interesting, unique jobs that you never hear about in the career center at college. I hope that there are people listening who are like, yes, that is for me and I wouldn't have known about it if I didn't listen to this show.
[00:32:21] Calvin Tilokee: Right, right. Fantastic. Fantastic. Alright, you ready for the loading dock?
[00:32:28] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh, yes. I'm ready for the loading dock.
[00:32:32] Calvin Tilokee: Okay folks, before we close out the special fourth anniversary episode of Top Floor, we're gonna head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:32:46] Calvin Tilokee: Susan, what is a story you would only tell on the loading dock?
[00:32:51] Susan Barry: Okay. This is a two-parter and it's related to the way that I describe the loading dock to potential guests. So when I'm trying to help people understand what the loading dock is and what kind of story to tell, I always give the example of the most frequently told story on the show, which is this. Anyone who has worked at the front desk, particularly night audit, but sometimes during the day as well, has had the experience where a guest wakes up in the middle of the night, thinks they're going to the bathroom, but goes out the front door instead and locks themselves out of the room 'cause they're asleep and then they have to come down to the front desk in whatever they're wearing or whatever they're not wearing. My loading dock story is that, Calvin, I know that that happens in every hotel because I have done that. Not one, but two times. Here are the stories.
Number one, I was on a flipping work trip. This was like an incentive trip that our general manager set up for my sales team. Like a special one aside from the company incentive trip, right? And we were staying at this resort. This was in my twenties. This was a very big drinking crew, like partiers, and we had a very good time. So I woke up in the middle of the night, locked myself out of my guest room and ended up… The way that the resort was set up, it wasn't just like a big tower of rooms that you could go down the elevator and go to the, you had to go outside and like, walk through the snow. So that was a hard no for me. So instead, I curled up on the coffee table in the elevator lobby on my guest room floor and slept there for the night until I was awaken the next morning by families of people in snow boots, clumping down the hallway to go outside and go skiing. And then I thought, well, I guess it's time for me to go get my key now.
[00:35:03] Calvin Tilokee: Wow.
[00:35:05] Susan Barry: So that was the first time.
[00:35:06] Calvin Tilokee: And what were you wearing or not wearing?
[00:35:09] Susan Barry: I think I was actually wearing like a full pajama situation. So I think I was okay.
[00:35:14] Calvin Tilokee: So you were warm, or at least comfortable.
[00:35:16] Susan Barry: It was more, not what I was wearing that was the problem. It was more that it was the middle of the night and I had probably 724 gin and tonics and was like too freaked out to go outside and go to the front desk. You know what I mean? Like I thought I was gonna get in trouble.
[00:35:37] Calvin Tilokee: Right.
[00:35:37] Susan Barry: But it also happened again another time. Because I like to learn things the hard way and it was this: my husband and I many years later, we're living in Washington, DC area and we go to the Lansdown Resort in Virginia. This is a really cool place walking distance from DC — that's not right. Not walking distance, driving distance from DC! And I think I even won a gift certificate or something. I can't remember why we went there, but we went, we were going to wine country and blah, blah, blah. Woke up, had to go to the bathroom, went out the front door of the guest room, and I think those guest rooms had a weird configuration too. We'll blame it on that. My husband is asleep and snoring at a volume that could only be replicated by like a Metallica concert, like in the crowd cheering like it was so loud. So I got locked out, but I knew what was going on. I'm like knocking on the door like, dude, wake up. He couldn't hear my knocks over his snores, because I could hear his snores out in the hallway. And so that time I did have to go to the front desk in not as many clothes as the first one.
[00:36:59] Calvin Tilokee: Right. Right.
[00:37:00] Susan Barry: Still not full on naked, but it was highly embarrassing. Oh and I don't think they still have these anymore, but there used to be, the emergency phone on the elevator landings where it would just ring straight to the desk. And I tried to do that to get somebody to come up that didn't, it didn't work. The phone was dead.
[00:37:19] Narrator: It was just for show.
[00:37:20] Susan Barry: Yeah, I guess so. It was broken. Anyway, all I can say is maybe put a post-it note on the door to your guest room when you go to sleep that says, be sure this is the right door before you lock yourself out, dumb ass.
[00:37:43] Calvin Tilokee: And you might have to leave a small light on so you can read that in the middle of the night as you're trying to use the restroom.
[00:37:49] Susan Barry: I mean, it's amazing to me how often that happens. Have you ever done that?
[00:37:54] Calvin Tilokee: I haven't done that. I have not done that. I'm actually trying to think. I mean, I've done things like, I've used a tub instead of the toilet at night.
[00:38:04] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh. Oh, 'cause you were just confused about where you were, right? Not on purpose.
[00:38:11] Calvin Tilokee: Yeah. Well I was just kind of pointing the different direction. I'm like, okay. I mean, it all works out in the end, I suppose. You know, goes down to the same place. But no, you know, I have never done that. I would have to think so next time I'm on the show, I'll have a prepared loading dock question.
[00:38:28] Susan Barry: Excellent. Well, something else that I have heard that I never experienced, but is apparently like the second most common thing that happens is guests run the bathtub, like try to run a bath and fall asleep or pass out, and then the bathtub overflows. Like, apparently this happens all the time. I'm shocked that this never happened to me. Not that I never did it, but it never happened in any of my hotels. That I knew of.
[00:38:56] Calvin Tilokee: Right. Actually, it's sort of my story.
This is an old one. This is maybe 20 years ago. So I'm staying staying in the city. It was, I believe, probably my 25th birthday or something in that neighborhood. But hanging out, my brother's down there with friends, he brings some of his friends from college we’re all hanging out. We go to a bar and I'm a fairly sizable guy. I am about six foot right now. I'm definitely over 200. My brother's bigger than I am. One of his friends is, was bigger than he was and they had this little guy. He's like the Timone to our Pumbas, right? So we're, we're pre-gaming in the room. He is trying to keep up. And so by the time he gets to the bar, he's pretty much out on his feet.
[00:39:49] Susan Barry: Oh no.
[00:39:49] Calvin Tilokee: So at some point he has, he's just gone, had too many, he throws up, he is trying to get him to the bathroom. He throws up on some guy's sneakers. And the guys, oh. And we are like, yo, he's totally messed up man. Like, you know, whatever. So now we drag him back to the hotel, but he is dead weight. He's completely unconscious. Tried to get him into a cab. Took like four tries to get somebody to actually pick up or allow us into the cab with this pretty much a corpse because we're carrying him by shoulders and legs. Get to the hotel and we've gotta carry him across the lobby like this to get to the elevator back. And everyone at the front desk is looking like, what is going on? Is he dead? They're like, is a crime being committed here in our hotel lobby? Are we witnesses? So we take him all the way upstairs, give him to the room, put him in the tub. Just in case he decided to up chuck again at some point during the night, he wouldn't soil anything but his own clothes and he woke up there in the morning.
[00:40:56] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh. What was his reaction? Was he embarrassed? Or was he just like, eh, it happens?
[00:41:02] Calvin Tilokee: He was a bit embarrassed. I think confusion would've been the word. That next morning he's like, “How am I here? What happened?” I don't remember the last thing he remembered, but it certainly wasn't sleeping in the tub.
[00:41:18] Susan Barry: Oh my goodness. Well, Calvin Tilokee, I cannot thank you enough for guest hosting our fourth anniversary episode 209. I really appreciate you being here.
[00:41:32] Calvin Tilokee: Oh, thank you so much. This has been a real honor. Thank you for having me do this. I am honored to be on the show again, and of course, being the person to honor your fourth anniversary episode and get to ask you some questions for once. So thank you so much.
[00:41:46] Susan Barry: Awesome job. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/209. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen and your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.
[00:42:25] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor Podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 8504049630 to be featured in a future episode.