I have been working in a hostel for the past 5 years and have encountered many people. I think everyone who has ever worked in a hostel, or some sort of customer service job, has some great stories to tell.
One of my first funny experiences happened in my previous hostel, about 4 years ago. Well technically I wasn’t there when it happened, but it’s still quite odd. My colleague was working and all of a sudden she saw ‘something’ running across the floor. She first thought it was a mouse, but when she drove it into a corner, it turned out it was a hamster. She took it home and from that day on she had a nice pet. About 2 weeks later I was working and I overheard a girl on the phone (hey I wasn’t eavesdropping, she was the only one in the lounge, which happened to be where the reception was). She was talking about moving to her new apartment and asked if she could bring her new hamsters. When she hung up, I asked her if she brought a hamster here and of course she did. It escaped and she thought it fell off the balcony (the hostel was on the 4th floor). Since pets were not allowed, she never bothered to ask if we found it.
One of my favorite Dutchies stories is of the first day we were open. It was pretty much a hostel stereotype kind of night. On our first night we were completely full, which of course is a great start, but there were a few groups in house, a few drunk groups… Let’s just say that the night shift receptionist had some certain cleaning tasks no one foresaw on our first day being open. A few rooms had some decorative items hanging on the walls. After that day we decided to remove them. That was an eye opening experience for us.
One of my favorite things about working in a hostel in Amsterdam are the funny and quirky experiences. Never a dull moment!
