Audio clip from interview with Rejoyce Williams, June 12, 1996

Did you ever have any unpleasant incidents with any of the hotel guests? Well, one time - well, a couple of times. I remember one time I was doing a room. My inspectress was in there with me. She came in. She was white. I was doing the room. She was going through guests' clothing and stuff, looking at it and going on. And I know that they had a paper bag sitting on the dresser and it was filled up with cigarettes. So I went on in the athroom. I was doing the bathroom and everything and I was doing all this work. She was still bin there and she was talking about how pretty the clothes and stuff was and she was taking them down and looking at them and going on. So the next day when I went to work, the security guard came up to me, came up where I was working, which I worked on the 16th floor. He asked me, he said, "What's your name?" And I told him my name. He said, "Did you do room" - I forgot what the number of the room was -"Did you do that room yesterday?" I said, "Yes, why?" He said, "Well, the guest is complaining, filed a report, said that the maid took cigarettes and some nylon stockings out of the room." I said, "Well, yeah, I did the room. My inspectress was in there with me when I did the room." I said, "Now, if anything was taken, you go talk to her because I do not wear white stockings and I do not smoke. So now, if anything came up missing, you go talk to her. Don't talk to me about it because I haven't took anything out of there." I didn't hear any more about that. So they didn't bother me anymore. So later on about six or eight, maybe a year later, they came back up there one day and asked me, "Did you do such-and-such a room yesterday?" I says, "Yes, why? What did I take this time?" [Laughing] I said, "What did I take this time?" He said, "You took some necklaces," something I suppose they had taken out of the room. I said, "look, I've been here for five years and I haven't took anything out of nobody's room." I said, "I don't bother nothing in their room." I said, "I do not wear no white stockings and I do not smoke. So don't come up here talking to me about anything." So they let me alone. They didn't bother me anymore. Did you ever have to file any grievances with the union? No, I never did. One time, again, a guy came in. They was smoking. They had all this drugs in the room. And I walked in the door that morning. I was going to do the room. And I had to turn the fan on and close the door and come out of there it was so lit up. And he come down there asking me about some drugs. "You took my stuff out of my room." I said, "I haven't took nothing out of your room. You better go back and look for wherever you had it at." I said, "I don't use that mess, so don't come here with it with me." I didn't hear no more from him, either. So now, was that the hotel guest talking to you? Yes. They had called down and told the inspectress, too, called downstairs. How could he report that somebody had messed with his drugs? [Laughing] I don't know. I guess he figured some of it was missing. Wow. I didn't have no more problem out of them. I refused to do the room. Are there any other incidents in the hotel that you remember that when you sit down now and talk to your friends about? That have happened since I've been out there - away from there? Yes - no. While you were there. No more than the day that we - my girlfriend and I, we went down- the inspectress came and asked us to go help one of the girls to do some rooms because she was running behind. So me and my girlfriend, we went down to go help do the room. We took one room, which was a checkout room. She was across the hall in another checkout room. So me and my girlfriend kept on. We were doing this room and she was doing that room before we even went down there. So I asked my girlfriend, I said, "Why is it taking her so long to do that checkout room?" Well, a guest had checked in the room, hung their clothes in the closet and everything. We could look in the mirror in the room where we was in across to the other room and see what was going on over there in the bathroom. She was all up in this man's clothes in there taking a bunch of silver - she took a bunch of silver dollars out of there. I told my girlfriend, I said, "Girl, let's get out from down here because we're not going to be no part of this." So she looks. She said, "What is she doing? I said, "She's taking money out of there." I said, "Let's go." We finished that room, me and her got on up and we left and went on down the other end where we were working. Well, tell me when you saw something like that happening, would you report it to anybody? We didn't report it because me and her was down there and we didn't want to be involved in it. But she got fired behind it because the guy called up and called down to housekeeping and told on her.