[Closed] No manual workers ? WTF ?

I presume they mean no manual workers using it as digs while working rather than an outright ban on a particular profession

I'm on another continent but we often have "no crews" or "crews welcome" to indicate a places preference with respect to construction crews and the like.

Perhaps this is similar?

Yep, calm down OP - it just means no navvies allowed.

Presumably the owner has previously had issues with copies of the Daily Sport being put in the wrong recycling bin and the bog getting pebbledashed.

Post the link here and let us make some inquiries. Should be fun and kill a bit of time.

We have a holiday let in the Dales, we just say 'No Daily Mail or Sun readers' on Air B&B. Although to be fair, they'd fit right in with the locals who are mainly Express readers.

If this is a caravan (and given the recent Pontins debacle) is it code for 'no travellers'?

As above, just sounds like it's holliday only, not digs for people working away from home.

It can't be that decent if they are concerned that manual workers would be interested in booking it.

Depends, the client usually books my hotels and they have a fixed budget usually. So I've had nice apartments during COVID while hotels have been desperate and some shockers in normal times. They just aim for the nicest they can get for £75/night.

Not about how cheap it is, as long as it's the same price as the minimum acceptable digs in London.

No manual workers working away from home. In my years on the railway I've worked with some right manky folk, folk pissing the bed every night that kinda thing.

No manual workers working away from home. In my years on the railway I’ve worked with some right manky folk, folk pissing the bed every night that kinda thing.

Yeah but I've worked with some right manky folk in IT or what I'd class as "non manual Oil and Gas" TBF.

Depends, the client usually books my hotels and they have a fixed budget usually. So I’ve had nice apartments during COVID while hotels have been desperate and some shockers in normal times. They just aim for the nicest they can get for £75/night.

Not about how cheap it is, as long as it’s the same price as the minimum acceptable digs in London.

You saying that reminds me of the Britannia in Aberdeen. How they get away with HSSE escapes me as when I've been forced to stay there electrical sockets etc. hanging off walls.
That said it also seems the hotel drives behaviour? I don't think anyone actually choses it... and you bumped into the same people in other hotels that were much nicer and the same price, it's just the Britannia was always the last one booked up.. but when you did get there sleep was not something you could do... there were almost always all night parties in rooms.

As above, just sounds like it’s holiday only, not digs for people working away from home.

Weird wording but then I guess people on AirB&B aren't necessarily professionals.

Just struck me as weird... and the more I thought about it the weirder in 2021 as many "manual" jobs are no longer really manual on the way I'd think manual? (Like many car mechanics are X% computer based).

Post the link here and let us make some inquiries. Should be fun and kill a bit of time.

As others have said I'm leaning to its bad wording for holiday only ???

OH sent it by text with a load of others and I don't have air B&B on the phone so I got some weird combo of not the website (as it detected mobile) and not the app... but if you want to look it's Bracklesham Bay (if you put that in and don't mind clicking a few it should find it)

I guess as much as anything I started wondering what "manual worker" means in 2021?
I've never really thought of myself either way... some jobs have been very non manual and others I get dirty fingernails.

Is it shared bathroom, etc type of Air bnb? Maybe they don't want a bath ring of tarmac or woodshavings every morning.

No dogs, no Irish?

but if you want to look it’s Bracklesham Bay

No Saturday kids obvs.

i’ve had an air b and b booking canceled because of the town we were living in. it was a town with a reputation for being pretty rough, but not everyone who lives there is a drug addict.

Probably another thread altogether, but 'worst places you've stayed in'

In my last job I spent 6 months travelling around Scotland (I know! How bad is that? Have travel will bike) working in pretty much every hospital in the country, a fabulous time visiting fabulous places and meeting wonderful people.

I worked for a big corporate at the time who had a central booking person arranging (most of the time) accomodation for us. From top dig in Dundee and Edinburgh to pubs on the Isle of Skye It was cracking.

And then we got put in a pub in Conon Bridge. At the door to my room the receptionist offered me a key to open the door and in the end she just kicked it open as there was no jam for the lock, I pushed the single bed up against the door overnight, I had carpet in n the toilet and bathroom. My mate Stuart had a shower room with the light switch under the shower head in the bathroom. We all had shared bathrooms with the guys who were working on the Kessock bridge. They rolled in at 3am and left for work at 7am, the bathroom was a treat.

The food however was fantastic, £34 a night.

The ones I can't quite fathom are the ones where the rooms are so much sruffier than the ground floor. Stayed in loads like that, mouldy carpet, smells, lumpy bed, shower doesn't work, room barely bigger than a broom cupboard. But the breakfast room could pass for a fancy restaurant.

They rolled in at 3am and left for work at 7am, the bathroom was a treat.

Sounds like when the guys I worked with worked for BKs. Towns around Sellafield sound delightful.

Just struck me as weird… and the more I thought about it the weirder in 2021 as many “manual” jobs are no longer really manual on the way I’d think manual? (Like many car mechanics are X% computer based).

Still very much manual. Plus folk still have to install the cabling, trunking and false ceilings to hide them.

You saying that reminds me of the Britannia in Aberdeen. How they get away with HSSE escapes me as when I’ve been forced to stay there electrical sockets etc. hanging off walls.

I remember being at a wedding reception there years ago and it was fine back in the day but I've heard some right horror stories about it in the past 5 or so years maybe more

On the estate where we live, there is an AirBnB. There is a single normal access road, with little clusters of 4-5 houses off this road, accessed by a small private drive.

The property in question often as 2-3 contractors turning up in 2-3 lwb or xlwb vans. This causes mayhem for the rest of the residents in those little cul-de-sacs. ( no prob for me i hasten to add). I feel quite sorry for the access problems this causes for the residents.

So, my guess its a poorly worded courtesy for the residents rather than a slight on anyone who works with their hands.

Ian

No Saturday kids obvs.

Deserved more.

Saturday's kids live in council houses, wear v neck shirts and baggy trousers.

Probably another thread altogether, but ‘worst places you’ve stayed in’

Britannia Airport Hotel in Manchester. Parked the car up and may as well have left the keys in the ignition for the chance that it would still be there in the morning. In reception I wouldn't have been surprised to see a chalk outline of a body on the floor, and the room itself was cold, damp, musty, dirty, old, tired, and miserable.

I believe the Britannia group make a big deal of being awarded the "worst hotels in the UK" award each year so I can't imagine it changing.

On the plus side it was fairly cheap. And the car still had all four wheels when it was time to leave.

It can’t be that decent if they are concerned that manual workers would be interested in booking it.

Can't work out if that's 'humour' or sneering, classist snobbery?

Probably another thread altogether, but ‘worst places you’ve stayed in’

White Lion in Machynlleth, dirty, damp, musty, telly didn't work, mattress was very well used. Woke up at 3am itching all over and couldn't get back to sleep, I had to wash the T shirt I was wearing in bed 3 times before the smell went away. I didn't hang around for breakfast.

Naaa, worst "hotel" has to be the Darlington Spa Hotel.

It's a collection of portacabins on Tees Valley Airport. I've no idea how they derive the name.

I’ve no idea how they derive the name.

The shop round the corner?

As OP quite happy whatever directions the thread goes.

I did stay in a place in Bath which rivalled the Britannia on cleanliness... but like above the ones with the breakfast/reception areas are the weirdest.

I once stopped in a doss house near st Thomas when my kid was in ICU that was the complete opposite. No reception but tiny rooms very clean!

(Recommended by the PICU staff)

Wandering off a similar one in Copenhagen the only downside being where it was and not having breakfast or food that doesn’t come from a vending machine.

I’m still intrigued however as to what everyone here classes as manual or non manual! (Even though I’m convinced the bracklesham one was just poor wording)

As mentioned above post diagnostics requires mechanics to touch stuff but then is a surgeon manual work?
I realise this isn’t a legal term I’m just intrigued ... and something that’s changed (IMHO) a lot in the last 20-40 years. Ie is a crane operator manual or not ??

If I could post a picture I’d post one of Manuel off of Faulty Towers, but I can’t so the joke is lost.

I used to work all over the country, stayed away from home 6 nights a week doing "manual work". Days Inn magor services was the only place I walked out of, it was rank.

My folks have an AirBnB on the outskirts of the Lakes. They've just instigated a similar clause to the OP 'no manual workers', but maybe better phrased. They had a long-term booking from a bunch of lads working on the new water pipeline, and they absolutely trashed the place - beer cans everywhere, kitchen uncleaned, curry spilled on the living room carpet and furniture, bathroom left damp to go manky, just used as a doss house during the week before (presumably) going home to the wife and a tidier home at the weekend. It's not like it's a fancy place, but the cost of cleaning up after them was significantly more than it was worth. Same group tried to rebook for a later stint and were politely told 'no'.

to counter this.

We have some "manual workers" staying in some of the flats let out via ABat student accom I work at. They've been there for about 6 weeks now and are really good keep their kitchen area clean take their rubbish, lots and lots of beer bottles to bins and recycling. They are less trouble than some of the students still in the building.

Not disagreeing Bruneep, and certainly not wanting to tar every worker with the same brush, but it's impossible for a provider to tell who'll be tidy and who won't in advance. We stopped allowing pets in the cottage, after many years of letting responsible owners bring dogs in for a small cleaning surcharge, because one family brought two great hairy things in and allowed them into the bedrooms. They shed absolutely all over the place and it took us a week to clean up properly - if we'd had a short same-day changeover, we'd have been handing over in a mess, which wouldn't do anything for us.

it’s impossible for a provider to tell who’ll be tidy and who won’t in advance.

But that is true of every booking you take is it not. Do you think Mr & Mrs Middle class will be better than Mr concrete pourer?

We only take bookings via the company so the company pays and will be more likely to ensure their employee's look after the place.

I think the worst was a place in Doncaster. I go back up to Durham every winter to meet up with old Uni buds, obvs by train (wouldn't feel safe to drive for days after!) I normally get the early train from KX, but it was RWC final the same day so I got the timetable out to work out if I wanted to be in Durham around lunchtime, where would I need to leave after the RWC finished and be dead cheap. That was Doncaster (York would have been better but way more expensive)

I stayed in the second cheapest place (god knows what the cheapest would have been). My room was entirely internal, no window at all, bathroom vent went to the corridor. When you turned the light out it was pitch black....totally. Breakfast was a prepacked abomination. Fortunately the pub I had scoped to watch the RWC was advertised as doing breakfasts...but I was soon corrected on arrival, although they were perfectly OK with me getting a McD from over the road and taking it in instead. The clientele was....fun. I've never seen pints going down at such a rate at 8am, and that was just the women. It was when the half time whistle went, and the trays of Jagermeister and Tequila appeared that things got properly lively!

The oddest was a place in Switzerland, real old cuckoo clock place but the bathrooms were the real revelation, a single piece plastic moulding with sink, shower and toilet! And the shower was so small, to wash you front was no issue but I could barely turn round in it....so to get the shower on your back it was easier to leave the cubicle, turn 180 deg and then get back in again!

I’m OK ... rubbish at manuals

But that is true of every booking you take is it not. Do you think Mr & Mrs Middle class will be better than Mr concrete pourer?

You're right, it is, and no, you can't automatically assume one will be better than the other - hence the statement about the dogs, they were owned by a nice, middle-class couple, but they were in for a long weekend and caused that much mess in 3 nights. The logic is now around damage limitation from extended bookings: With the workers we had a problem with, they were block-booked for a period of months while the job was on. Even though they were normally going home at weekends, their booking was 7 days a week, which means we can't send a cleaner in during the booking (why should we, if they're looking after the place?). Letting out student accom like you are, you may have different policies, I don't know. You may have just got a better class of navvy.

As I implied earlier, 'no manual workers' is badly phrased: 'No manual workers taking block bookings of more than x days consecutively' would be better, admittedly. But it's a case of damage limitation, damage that an older couple who rent out a holiday property they own and run themselves don't want to have to deal with.

the bathrooms were the real revelation, a single piece plastic moulding with sink, shower and toilet!

I’ll raise you the entire room being a single-piece moulding like the one I stayed at in Japan. Even the bed base was plastic and creaked when you moved.

I used to go to Barrow-in-Furness and my employer did endeavour to try and save some money by putting us in some $hitty B&Bs. I seem to remember one where you had to open the bedroom door in order to open the wardrobe or some silly shoebox nonsense. Never got to enjoy the delights of the Magic Stick (Majestic) which the others ‘enjoyed’

I stayed in a hotel in Stockholm with no windows - just a big domed roomlight that every room in the courtyard could look down into. It was midsummer, there was no a/c and it was 30 degrees and we’d spent the evening drinking Aquavit in the finest Swedish midsummer tradition - I was wrecked. I spent the next morning on a boat cruise around the archipeligo because it was a few metres from the hotel door and so involved minimum movement - I just laid down a bench seat trying to sober up before flying home.

pyro

As I implied earlier, ‘no manual workers’ is badly phrased: ‘No manual workers taking block bookings of more than x days consecutively’ would be better, admittedly. But it’s a case of damage limitation, damage that an older couple who rent out a holiday property they own and run themselves don’t want to have to deal with.

Being perfectly honest I just don't see how the manual workers bit ties in?
Being a even bit more honest, I'm sure my mum would be oblivious to her dog shedding hair, not for any other reason than it's invisible to her.

I'm not even sure when/if I am a manual worker and not. If I'm doing remote consulting then that's pretty cut and dry but I'd guess refitting a server room would be manual?

Having done this for quite a few "posh" hotels my perspective is BOH is often filthy and server rooms a real health hazard. I'll only name one 😉 perhaps but the Thistle at Haydock Park was filthy... we needed breathing apparatus just to vacuum it out. (I was really there to set up some servers running VM's (that could support their antiquated FOH system on supportable HW running some version of netware) and interfaces to the FOH/POS system but cleaning out the filth was necessary to ensure the system kept running)

The reason for picking this specific hotel out was the GM complained to my company about "the length of my hair" and "sending a hippy" (whatever the length its 12 yrs ago it was'nt long enough for a ponytail)
I have a feeling he thought "manual workers" should be shaved .. he did mention something about "when I was in the force!"
I still laugh when I drive past ...

The clientele was….fun. I’ve never seen pints going down at such a rate at 8am, and that was just the women.

You must not have met Emma a reverends daughter on our Geology BSc. "boat race" team and about 6st dripping wet.
A pint of cider and black just disappeared.

I think the "manual workers" term when used in this sense has something to do with the amount of skill/training involved, so a tradesman isn't a manual worker.
Filling sacks with gravel you're a manual worker.
Refitting a server room you're not.

Probably another thread altogether, but ‘worst places you’ve stayed in’

Objectively it was a shithole hotel in Prague I booked for a lads 'weekend'. I have to take this squarely on the chin, but I let numbers overtake good sense. We'd been before for 3 days, which meant 2 nights and came back wishing we'd had more time. When we decided to go the following year it worked out it was much cheaper to go Weds to Weds and as the 'great deal' I'd got on the hotel meant it wasn't prohibitively expensive to stay for a week either.

Turned out, the 'great deal' I'd found was for a manky, former soviet dump of a place with the sort of rooms you wouldn't dare use a UV Light in which happened to have the same name as one of the nicest hotels in Prague. Whilst when you're in your 20s, Prague (at least in the early 2000s) was fantastic for 2 nights, maybe 3 if you've got the stamina, after that it will start to eat your soul. So we spent happy days seeing the amazing city, and evenings sat in our dirty hotel, watching 1998s 'The Tribe' starring Joely Richardson dubbed into Czech, I film I've never seen in English.

At least that experience came with a lot of stories to tell, I've actually probably stayed in worse, I stayed in a place in Sydney the owner had long lost the battle for ownership with cockroaches and effectively created a lawless anarchic state beyond a invisible border which divided front from back of the building. If you stayed in the front, you got reasonable (for a Backpackers hostel) room, a reception desk where the owner smoked weed and slept, and a kitchen which was 99% roach free, some say even 1% is too much when it comes to cockroaches, but those people clearly hadn't visited the back of "Great Aussie Backpackers" where the 99% kept from the front lived. My room was affectionally called "The Doss" it was full, floor to ceiling with 'stuff' like the back of a badly run charity shop, where people moved in and for whatever reason left, and never came back leaving their stuff. It was said it was the last stop for many backpackers who'd spent their last cent, couldn't find work and walked to the airport, leaving anything bulky behind. It did have it's advantages though, because the owner didn't go back there, it was free to stay, so whilst it was the last stop for lots of backpackers, it was a roof over your head until you found some work for others. I made the horrible walk to the Airport too, but not from there, and I took all my stuff with me.

No, the worst place I've ever stayed is actually quite nice on the face of it.

It's Eastwood Hall in Nottingham, it's a Hayley Conference centre, and I pray must of you never know the relevance of it. I've been more times than I care to count, and it was the same every time, like Hotel California, only more beige, you can never leave. I would arrive on a Monday afternoon, Sunday evening if my luck had completely run out. You'd be shown to your group, because your employer was paying and it was being run by a megalomaniac trainer (my Dad is a former megalomaniac trainer) they would want to make it as efficient as possible, which meant pretty much every hour, of every day was assigned to something with your group. Now you're dealing with the worse kind of people, people like me. Corporate 'suits' all horribly insecure with a veneer of over-confidence. From 8am to 11pm you 'networked' you ate together, drank together and worked together, there was never any downtime, ever and you'd be there until Friday, midday if you were lucky. By Weds you'd realise you hadn't seen natural light since the weekend, because of the size and in fairness quality of the spreads they laid out 3 times a day, the snacks in between and the all expenses paid bars it was like the worse kind of Xmas evening gluttony slump you've ever experienced, but worse. I'd fight to get 30 mins a day of fresh air and time to myself, but if you were spotted leaving, you'd be asked where you were going and why. Never again.

The Merchants Hotel in Manchester. Grim in the extreme - the Tripadvisor reviews reflect my experience

When my partner and I were just starting to go out and her flat mate decided she didn't like me we found the cheapest b&b in Bexleyheath. Everything was filthy (the b&b). The owner made small talk about how he was leaving to move to Thailand because of the young girls. Didn't fully click at the time, I think it was pre Gary clutter's time in Thailand..

A place that had the only room free in Portsmouth, dirty threadbare carpet, dirty threadbare beds, beige nets that weren't beige originally, silverfish and woodlice brazenly wandering around.
The padlock and chain on the fire-escape door was a nice touch.

I mean, it wasn't dirty but returning to your dorm bed in the small hours to find the night clerk had sold it to someone prettier who hadn't clocked my stuff was still under the pillow was a dampener on a night in Edinburgh.

Not the worst though, that was the hotel, somewhere in Busan, that I got dumped with a classmate on our first sea trip by a company "agent" who didn't speak a word of English except "I come tomorrow tomorrow". Turns out that wasn't for iterative effect but actually 2 days time. We had bugger all clue what to do, where to go, no immediate cash, no clue when we were supposed to be leaving and were still jetlagged from 28h of flying (inlcuding a mad dash from Incheon to Gimpo because nobody had actually booked us flights to Busan followed by a mostly unoccupied flight in a plane that smelled of overheating electrical insulation). The hotel looked like somewhere they filmed Old Boy in; steel doors (many battered), dingy and just generally not where you want to be with no money, no language, no working mobile and no working bank cards.

Turns out that wasn’t for iterative effect but actually 2 days time.

LOL

it’s a Hayley Conference centre... You’d be shown to your group, because your employer was paying and it was being run by a megalomaniac trainer (

Ah... I got selected for a "leadership course". I should have pushed back as I have no wish to be in any leadership role but I had a 6mo old baby at the time and it seemed like I might get some sleep...

By Weds you’d realise you hadn’t seen natural light since the weekend,

Bloody hell... I'd forgotten a week in Vegas... the "conference centre" was discounted due to being the scene of a famous mass shooting but what got to a colleague and myself was not seeing the outside for days. We went site seeing through tunnels to other hotel complexes...

I was lucky to be staying in a cheap doss hole a 10 min taxi ride away but after about day 2-3 the 2 of us started feeling "on edge" in a non descript way. We started trying to go "outside" in the real sense rather than "outside" being a enclosed underground complex with a slightly higher roof.

I think the “manual workers” term when used in this sense has something to do with the amount of skill/training involved, so a tradesman isn’t a manual worker.
Filling sacks with gravel you’re a manual worker.
Refitting a server room you’re not.

I'd go along with that from a personal perspective.
TBH got me wondering... bike mechanic? Outdoors instructor ? (even refitting the server room as I think that was what the GM at Haydock Park regarded it as)

I guess its a crossover ?

Filling sacks with gravel you’re a manual worker.

Probably a good bar to set ... but then using a compactor? Using a specialist vehicle (cement mixer) etc?

Loads of stuff that I'd really not want an untrained person doing on my stuff...

I guess the GM thought we were there to vacuum up 20 years of dust, grime and dead rodents and insects... and plug some stuff in .... and perhaps didn't understand that getting a system designed to process credit cards by a manual carbon machine and paying by cheque running on a 20yr old unsupported OS involved a little more than knowing how to use a vacuum.

Makes me wonder really how many jobs today are really filling sacks with gravel and don't involve much more training and skill than commonly appreciated?

Loads of stuff that I’d really not want an untrained person doing on my stuff…

To me manual and untrained are two completely different things. I think the wording in the advert was clearly just terrible, but no work crews is probably better terminology. IME its not what the work crew does it is just that make them dirty its just if one or two in a crew are dirty it pulls the entire crew down. Could be IT contractors could be people working on the roads.

I got put in a room in a B&B run by Tony Robinson dressed as Mrs Merton.
She was putting her kids rooms to work now that they had grown up and moved out.
I ended up in a half sized kids bed in a box room (im 6ft 4"), a TV with no aerial, a stack of dvds and no dvd player. the breakfast menu might as well have just not been a menu, as it was porridge or porridge.
She was very nice, though it did have somewhat murdery vibe.

shared the breakfast table with one of her grown up kids (maybe 20, and presumably had an adult sized bed) who was making very apologetic eyes at me over the table. She looked mortified.

Its the only place ive ever bailed from and got another digs after the first night.

who was making very [s]apologetic[/s] help me eyes at me over the table.