End of an ERA - Sales & Marketing

They say everything comes in a circle. Even in the time of Christ, ancient Innkeepers had someone out in the desert flogging their digs to the locals. In the 20th Century, some anti-deluvian attempts (cocktail waitresses in short skirts with brochures) hustled in the hustings blindly covered the neighborhood. Now and then, for the sheer lack of weight, they fell up. I worked for one in Denver.
     Bad News.
     The Hospitality Business got "sophisticated" in late 20th Century and a bit in this one with the infusion of Europeans, who, by and large, always thought they were better than Americans at pouring wine, serving dinner, draping towels over their arms and teaching us "Mericans" a thing or two bout service.....sure.
     So, we got Belgians (mini-Nazis), Danes, some Nazi-like,French, Eastern Europeans, (garlic on everything), Italians (Jesus!), and a smattering of others everyone had a better idea than everyone else - and they all were unified in hating the Americans. We just were poor, sub-standard morons, however, "trainable."
     In my experience, hotels had the history of hiring the least educated, porly experienced lower waged rung of American workers. In many cases I saw them abused as to their rights on the job, and, uneducated, they accepted the unfair treatment and continued laboring under those conditions. Towards the end of the 20th Century, a degree of legal sophistication had arrived in the industry, law suits blossomed, HR departments got smart(er) and so did some of the lower waged workers.
    Sales and marketing people did not. Always considered the "Kleenex" division of Hospitality, they were often fired or hired on the spot making any career plans impossible. It was uncommon to find a person at one hotel in that slot longer than two years. A massive shift in the national economy would drag down travel patterns, the hotel manager would fire the sales dept to protect his own job in the eyes of his boss, then move on to hire " better " people.  This continued forever. Today, those Generator positions have pretty much dissolved now and shifted to other lower salaried positions, eliminating the headache for hotel General Managers. As a career, I would no longer recommend it.
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