In the shadows of the hotel

Lauren Vane

A hotel room at the Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa in Downtown

Huntington Beach became a classroom as Huntington Beach High School

students were taught a lesson they’d undoubtedly been taught before:

how to make a bed.

Two students watched intently as a housekeeper showed how to make

the perfect bed, from hospital corners to fluffing the pillows. When

the demonstration was over, it was time to be tested on what they had

learned.

“This is going to be hard!” said Johanna Yach, 16, of Huntington

Beach.

Yach and Tiffanie Bennett, 16, of Huntington Beach, both juniors

in the Entertainment and Tourism Academy at Huntington Beach High

School, joined 15 of their classmates at the hotel, to take part in

the second annual Groundhog Job Shadow Day, an opportunity for

students to try their hand at various positions around the hotel.

“I just think it opens up a whole new avenue of choice for them,”

said Cormac O’Modhrain, the hotel’s general manager.

Job shadowing allows students a firsthand glimpse at what it would

be like to work at a large resort and exposes them to future careers,

O’Modhrain said.

“They were all fascinated by how sophisticated our business is,”

O’Modhrain said. “They were genuinely surprised and impressed by the

sheer size of the resort and what it offers.”

Yach said she has always driven by the hotel and wondered what it

would be like to stay here. She said she would like to open a

restaurant someday with her sister.

“I’m not quite sure what I want to do, I just want to make sure I

have lots to chose from,” Bennett said.

Both Yach and Bennett got the opportunity to see a side of the

hotel that guests rarely see. Deep in the inner corridors of the

Hyatt, Steve Rodondi, the hotel’s director of housekeeping,

introduced the girls to the behind-the-scenes world.

“There’s a lot more to housekeeping than people think,” Rodondi

said.

Explaining everything from morning briefings to how to stuff a

comforter in a duvet cover, Rodondi gave the girls a glimpse into

just one of the many trades that make up the hotel’s work force.

“Sometimes the best way to learn to do something is to just dive

right in,” Rodondi said. “This way, they get a chance to see it in

action. Maybe they’ll be a little more prepared in the job market.”

Even though Bennett and Yach spent half the day doing housework,

they were having a good time and laughing while they folded perfect

hospital corners.

O’Modhrain said that when he asked the students at the lunch

following the experience how many of them would like to come back to

work at the hotel, every single hand shot up.