So report the non-working of the “new” hot plate. And Venera duly replaces it with one that looks unfortunately familiar. J twiddles the controls. Yes, it’s one of our previous rejects. Light will come on, which is probably all that’s ever checked by staff, but no relationship between free spinning knobs and actual temperatures on the burners. Or as J puts it more professionally, defective thermostats. Which has to be conveyed to Venera more or less without words. Is “kaput” international? Anyway, she gets it and reappears with what is now our fourth cooker in two days - have given up keeping track of the grand total. V presses almost her total English vocabulary into service: no good change tomorrow. We all nod and smile.
The simplest, and obviously standard, method of finding replacements is to liberate them from other flats. And presumably this game can continue for some time before ultimate repair or replacement is required, so long as the hotel isn’t full. The interesting question is what happens to the rejects. Do they go to a housekeeping area and get a sticker labelling them hopeless? It would seem not. Do they wind up in housekeeping unlabelled, innocently waiting reassignment by the uninformed or the uncaring? Or are they simply stuck in the flat that supplied our replacement in the hopes that the next occupant will never want to cook - or at worst will complain to a different employee?
(Consider including accompanying photograph of hotplate in question but appearance battered enough to be mildly embarrassing, though no doubt effective in discouraging any possible envy of our Mediterranean winters.)
(Consider including accompanying photograph of hotplate in question but appearance battered enough to be mildly embarrassing, though no doubt effective in discouraging any possible envy of our Mediterranean winters.)