HOSPITALITY STUDENT JOURNEY: The Weight of the First Keys
- Elena Santiago
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
Early in 2026, we decided to follow the career progress of a young Filipina whose lifelong dream has been to become a Hospitality professional.
A young woman from a modest family in Iloilo province overcame her parents’ objections, empty pockets, and years of doubt to enroll in a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management, proving that passion, persistence, and a little help from government support can unlock even the heaviest doors.
Follow her journey with Discovering Hospitality each and every month to see the highs and challenges that come our way in life.
Part 4
The day they handed me the supervisor’s schedule, my hands were shaking more than they ever did counting the day’s takings at the sari-sari store.
It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon. The Front Office Manager called me into the small glass office behind the reception desk, the one that always smelled of coffee and printer ink. She didn’t make a big speech. She simply slid a printed roster across the table and said, “Starting next week, you’re covering the evening shift as Acting Supervisor. Three agents. You’re responsible for the board.”
That was it. No ceremony. No new uniform. Just a piece of paper and the sudden understanding that the people who used to joke with me during quiet hours would now look to me when something went wrong.
The first week was a masterclass in humility. I still remember the exact moment it hit me. A guest was complaining loudly about a room that wasn’t ready. One of the agents, someone I used to share merienda with, froze. In the old days I would have stepped in as a peer, made a joke, and fixed it together. Now the guest was looking past her and straight at me. The title had changed the air.
I felt the old sari-sari store training kick in before the hotel training did. At the store, when a customer was angry about a wrong price or a late delivery, you didn’t hide behind the counter. You stepped forward, listened longer than felt comfortable, and solved it with whatever you had. So I did the same thing. I walked around the desk, apologized without excuses, and personally walked the guest to a ready room while arranging a small gesture. When I came back, the agent looked at me differently. Not with distance, but with a quiet relief. That became the pattern.
Leading people who used to be your equals is a strange kind of loneliness. You still laugh with them, but you stop sharing every complaint. You start noticing things you never noticed before: who needs a quieter word after a difficult guest, who is carrying too much, who is quietly excellent and never says so. I learned that the hardest part of the first supervisory role isn’t the technical knowledge. It’s learning when to step in and when to stay silent so someone else can grow.
There were nights I went home exhausted in a new way. Not from physical work, but from carrying the shift. From knowing that if something slipped, the responsibility stopped at me. I would sit on the edge of my bed and think about my mother behind the sari-sari counter, how she used to manage the whole neighborhood’s small emergencies with nothing but calm and a notebook. I started keeping my own version of that notebook, small observations about the team, reminders to myself, lessons I didn’t want to forget.
The first time I signed off a night report as supervisor, I stared at my own signature longer than necessary. It looked the same as always, but it felt heavier.
Looking back, that first supervisory role didn’t make me feel like I had “arrived.” It made me realize how much further there still was to go. But it also showed me something important: the instincts that kept a small neighborhood store alive, attention, fairness, quiet courage, were the same instincts that could hold a hotel shift together.
The keys they gave me weren’t just for the rooms anymore. They were for the people.
Until the next update.
Elle
