Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages • Hacker News Board

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#211

Post by eybbus » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:24 AM UTC

EFreethought wrote: post #189

foepys wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have stayed at multiple hotels where a machine hands out key cards or numeric access codes when you enter your name and date of birth. When you leave you just throw the key card into a box or feed it back into the machine. No smartphone necessary.

Thanks for the info. I haven't traveled since COVID, so I don't know how things have changed. I bet hotels made a lot of changes due to COVID. I know this is OT: But I am tired of every business I go to bugging me to use their app for everything. I don't want another app to keep track of, and I do not want to get texts all the time.

Thankfully some companies just send you a QR-code via email to interact with what ever system they are using.

If I remember correctly one of my hotels I used sent me a pin code or such via email and then they had a self service to get a keycard, which used the pin code.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#212

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:26 AM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #166

lotsofpulp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, they will inevitably end up with hoarders and people that keep food lying around and then comes cockroaches and rats and odors, etc.

Even if there is some food lying around in a room on the 3rd floor, the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air. Unless the hygienic conditions are generally bad anyway, but then the hotel has a bigger problem than one dirty room...

> the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air

In practice, you can assume they do - it's a simplified but accurate model of reality when you're not researching the life of insects and rodents.

Yes, life does not appear "out of thin air", but it constantly tries to get in, will exploit any crack in your defenses or attention to chase after anything that looks or smells like food or safety. It's simpler to just assume annoying critters materialize out of thin air if you leave the right conditions, and ensure those conditions are never present.

It's kind of like thermodynamics / statistical physics: the air around you doesn't really have "pressure" or "temperature", but you may just as well assume they're a thing, since the alternative would be to talk about kinematics of air molecules.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#213

Post by midoridensha » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:29 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #190

midoridensha wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they just don't want to talk to the kind of people who work at customer service jobs in the US...

Which is exactly the problem I was pointing out, i.e. even greater segregation for our society as a whole, even greater alienation at the individual level.

Maybe, but what's the alternative? Stand in line for 20 minutes so you can deal with a surly customer service person who's too busy playing on their phone to help you, and has a bad attitude too?

Here in Japan, it's entirely different. Customer service people are always polite, so it's always pleasant dealing with them, though westerners frequently complain that such people here aren't "chatty" like Americans; instead they're really efficient and don't waste peoples' time with chit-chat (which in America, frequently seems to result in making people wait longer unless there's only one customer). But I also don't see the segregation in society that I saw in America.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#214

Post by hinata08 » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:30 AM UTC

josefx wrote: post #140

lotsofpulp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since the hotel and the hotel’s insurers ended up paying $800M: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-settlement-m... > Jim Frantz, whose San Diego-based law firm represents another 199 victims including Romo, said Thursday's settlement is a good first step. Now MGM must strengthen the security protocol at all their facilities, he said. >"I would assume a responsible business, after going through…

What the hell, how would they have resolved this if he wasn't living at the hotel? Add mandatory checks to every apartment in the area?

Guns don't kill people, hotel rooms kill people

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#215

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:37 AM UTC

grishka wrote: post #198

lotsofpulp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since the hotel and the hotel’s insurers ended up paying $800M: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-settlement-m... > Jim Frantz, whose San Diego-based law firm represents another 199 victims including Romo, said Thursday's settlement is a good first step. Now MGM must strengthen the security protocol at all their facilities, he said. >"I would assume a responsible business, after going through…

Don't you just love how our society "fights" terrorism? Someone used something to kill someone, so let's ruin that thing for everyone, forever! Also see: air travel. I was a kid in the 90s and so I didn't fly before 9/11, but people say it was a much more enjoyable experience.

There's a world of difference between "you could assemble by some rube goldberg mechanism a bomb out of 100ml liquid containers" and actual firearms designed for easy long range killing.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#216

Post by coderoffortune » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:37 AM UTC

As a person who used to work for housekeeping department in various London hotels I can tell there's no shortage of labour, there's a shortage for slaves. Hospitality jobs, housekeeping in particular, is modern slavery.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#217

Post by vidarh » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #173

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also say that tight immigration leads to automation. Companies will do their best to find ways to reduce costs and increase profits. So limiting immigration will not necessarily lead to wage growth. Also, the employee shortage will only get worse as the number of older american increases and number of working age employees shrinks. If it's bad now, it's only going to get worse as time passes.

> You can also say that tight immigration leads to automation. Companies will do their best to find ways to reduce costs and increase profits. So limiting immigration will not necessarily lead to wage growth. That's fair, but technically I didn't say it would lead to wage growth. My point is that loose immigration allows capital to keep wages at their current levels, or lower them, because it's still probably better…

Norway have had monthly payments to all parents until kids turned 18, very high parental leave, low caps on fees for nurseries (around 300 usd/month), and most of these have support across the political spectrum.

All told, the value adds up to tens of thousands in support per child, and yet it's nowhere enough to keep fertility rates at replacement. As such I doubt Orbans policies will as well.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#218

Post by prawn » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #176

codazoda wrote: post #2

In some Las Vegas hotels I no longer need to stop at a counter or stand in a line and it’s 1000x better experience. I can walk directly to my room and scan my phone. I can scan my phone for parking. I can grab extra keys at a kiosk, if I need them. I never have to talk to anyone, if I don’t want to. I also select the option not to have my room cleaned each day. I’ll ask someone in the hall for towels if I stay long e…

> I never have to talk to anyone, if I don’t want to. I have seen this attitude at more and more people, where does it come from? Meaning not wanting to talk with other people. It's what makes us humans, talking with other people. The alternative is lots and lots of money paid on psychotherapy and the like further down the road, or worse. Because actively avoiding talking to other people it's like bringing your car f…

I favour it because I hate having to endure upsell attempts.

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#219

Post by hinata08 » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:47 AM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #155

matt3210 wrote: post #31

Its not a shortage of workers, it's a shortage of underpayable workers.

I've started to dislike this perspective, because it feels like an "if the only tool you have is a hammer..." kind of explanation. It's a valid perspective, but it's not the only one, and other perspectives are often more useful. Maybe the issue is just that hotels don't want to pay enough. Maybe there is an actual shortage. Then any single hotel can solve the shortage by paying more, but hotels in general can't. Or…

Yes !

As you mentioned, that's basically competition in both ways, for once : expecting more affordable hotel rooms and wage increase at the same time

Macroeconomicaly, that's basically automating casual and repetitive tasks to focus on value, with more skilled and demanding workers. I'm glad that automation is becoming more effective for these jobs ! I mean, robot vacuum cleaners have been a thing for over a decade. Why wouldn't hotels rely on them ?

When visiting countries with a lower GDP in other parts of the planet, I was shocked by the madness of this cheap workforce : they cost nothing, so a lot of workers were working in pretty unproductive jobs. Like ppl don't drive, you have a taxi or tricycle driver to carry you around. If you're middle class, you have caretakers all around. And there is no automation at all, it's cheaper to hire unskilled.

They were working much harder than were I'm from. But there wasn't any focus on value or production or anything.

That's why I politically hate whoever blames jobseekers for any issue, and point these jobs. If you want to rebuild a lower GDP economy, yeah, send everyone to unpaid jobs. If you want to move forward, just automate everything, and let workers have jobs where they add a lot of value.

(Disclaimer : I'm an industrial engineer who wanted to do robotics, but ended up doing DevSecOps/ IT only)

Re: Hotels turn to robots and room cleanings every 4 days to ease staffing shortages

#220

Post by grishka » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:57 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #215

grishka wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you just love how our society "fights" terrorism? Someone used something to kill someone, so let's ruin that thing for everyone, forever! Also see: air travel. I was a kid in the 90s and so I didn't fly before 9/11, but people say it was a much more enjoyable experience.

There's a world of difference between "you could assemble by some rube goldberg mechanism a bomb out of 100ml liquid containers" and actual firearms designed for easy long range killing.

As a sibling comment said, what if that shooter rented an apartment instead?