CRITIQUENT

Dear respected proprietors of this hostel (Bluesky Hostel in Glasgow, UK). I wished to share with you some selected thoughts that crossed my mind whilst staying in your lodgings:

1. Trusting your employees to choose appropriate music to play at a volume of their own discretion in the reception/communal kitchen/dining/only area with available power points is a courageous and probably well founded decision. Some may dissagree, but I think that the rewards speak for themselves.
2. Blinking/scrolling/flashing blue lights in a plastic tube make a bold and aesthetically pleasing choice of decoration for the aforementioned area. The disco ball is also tasteful.
3. Bunk bedding allows one half of your guests to see the underside of the mattress above them. I was delighted to see that you pay attention to, and take advantage of, such nuanced channels of communication. Nothing quite says “welcome” like unidentifiable liquid stains.
4. A big sign saying “NO REFUNDS — sorry for any inconvenience” may be too subtle a message. Especially when that sign is the first thing your guests will see on entering the premises.
5. Posters, paint smears and adult hand prints in primary colours not only decorate your walls, but also cover up any deterioration and unrepairable damage to your building — very successfully.
6. The bag of bread, paint-buckets full of Fruit Topping & What, not butter! and unflavoured bran cereal has equalled if not far exceeded the included breakfast I have been privy to at other supposed “hostels”. That must have cost you at least four pounds a week to put on. What beneficence!
7. A ratio of 1 toilet to 30 people makes perfect sense to me. As does the lack of power points in the dorms.
8. It is great to hear you are an equal opportunity employer. It’s laughs all round when you have two non-native English speakers trying to work out their problems. “She becomes boss in few minutes…” “If you have books for 6 nights” — so professional and constructive towards conflict resolution.
9. Organisational charts which depict a stuffed animal as the supervisor of your organisation, completely allay my fears that this has all been an elaborate candid camera style set-up.

Thanks for the memories.