If you spend a lot of time on planes, trains, and in hotels, check in to Jacob Tomsky‘s wicked but instructive Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality (Random House). The book, most definitely irreverent, is jam-packed with handy tips about how to get upgrades, what-not-to-do-ever, and numerous examples of how bad behavior always backfires.
Tomsky climbed the ranks from bellman to management at two unnamed major hotels, in New Orleans and New York. (In homage to the hospital known for its psychiatric clientele, he calls the Big Apple hotel "The Bellevue.") Many of his observations will make you cringe. But there’s golden advice within his angry tales, including: 1) Always say yes to the bellman, and 2) Always slip $20 to the front desk agent. (It works, I tried it at my last hotel stay.) Check out: http://at.law.com/LTN1304JT.
