Turkish Hotels : Socialist Paradise? By Alfred N.Muggins

12/5/22

    Even the Hotel, the pool area and the Bar areas were like a Socialist Paradise, thought Alfred! There were plenty of staff in the hotels, he observed. The Turks, it seemed, knew how to run an economy, unlike modern Britain, and maybe some other parts of Europe and America, for whom the principle of the least number of staff the better was unfortunately paramount in this sad age of extreme efficiency, and maximum profit for shareholders, at the expense of the poor workers!

     He would go to the bar, and ask for a coffee (that would confuse them!).

    “What kind of coffee?”

    “Well what have you got?” Alfred would say, and they would start reading from a list of coffees on their ordering hotel mobile phones.

    “An Americano?” suggested Alfred, assuming that would hopefully make it clear (remembering the kind he would usually ask for if he was ever in a Costa Coffee or some such place in the UK). A proper coffee, such as an Englishman (or an American?) could drink. Not a frothy Italian Cappucino or a fancy Latte! And definitely not a deadly strong Turkish black coffee (That might be the death of him, or any unsuspecting European for that matter!) Thankfully the bar man knew that one, and how it could be made. As an afterthought Alfred added, “And add a bit of milk please!”

     The bar man organized his drink using a coffee machine, while another took his room card over to another lady at the till, who checked his card to pay the bill. Then he brought the receipt and copy over for him to sign. Then a waiter offered to take it back to the sunbed for him, so he led the way back to his sunbed!

     He just wished his bank, which had just closed all its nearby branches in recent years, and forced him to use the Post Office to pay any cheques received in, and to do most of his banking through his mobile phone app., would be so helpful! If he wanted any help he had to go through difficult security questions over the phone, and often got fobbed off onto automated answerphone options before he could get through to a real helpful human being at the other end of the line!

     He thought they had cut far too many staff, and other organisations were the same. Alfred wondered why the unemployment level was still so low in the UK, but there must be plenty of other jobs people could do, which presumably they were being employed in. There were plenty of jobs in which, in his opinion they could do with more employees and higher staffing levels (particularly in answering phones, helping to explain things more clearly to struggling customers, the police – so they might actually stand a better chance of protecting law and order and catching criminals, the NHS, dentists, social workers, and a whole host of other jobs which were currently not being staffed very appropriately by companies and organisations!).

     Anyway it was good to see, thought Alfred, that in Turkey hotels provided good work for plenty of people, and workloads could be shared! That was his early impression at least.