Welcome to our hotel - feel free to wreck it
Welcome to our hotel - feel free to wreck it
· Giles Tremlett in Madrid,
· Wednesday July 4 2007
It is a pastime normally reserved for millionaire rock stars, but yesterday a group of stressed Spaniards were given the opportunity to release their pent-up fury by smashing up a hotel room.
Equipped with pickaxes and sledgehammers, they set about walls, baths, bidets, mirrors and the executive fixtures and fittings of a Madrid hotel - and were told, for once, that there would be no bill to pay.
Encouraged to think about bosses, mortgage payments and the sheer unfairness of their work-home balance, the carefully selected group of uptight office workers, taxi drivers and housewives set about the task of demolishing dozens of rooms with unabashed glee.
Some 200 Madrid workers had responded to an advertisement in one of Spain’s business dailies last week offering them the chance to participate in the unusual stress therapy session.
A rigorous testing process, which included inviting people to imagine that a punch ball was their boss’s head, saw 30 of the angriest and most frustrated volunteers selected for the task.
Dressed in workers’ overalls and hard hats, they were then let loose on the second floor of the Hotel NH Alcala with a battery of demolition tools.
Overworked mothers proved to be among the most aggressive stress-busters, according to a spokeswoman for the organisers.
“There were a large number of women volunteers with both difficult jobs and households to run,” she said.
Toilet bowls, bidets and wall-sized bathroom mirrors were among the most satisfying targets for a swinging sledgehammer. Television pictures of the destruction in progress proved what all business travellers already know - that hotel walls are remarkably thin.
“The marble counter tops were the most spectacular thing of all,” the spokeswoman said.
A psychiatrist, Laura García, said a bout of furious destruction with a sledgehammer was a particularly efficient way of releasing tension.
“After a number of blows exhaustion sets in and endorphins are released, making you feel much better,” she explained.
Those who helped destroy the hotel are invited back for a free night once it has been redecorated in the promised, ultra-modern style. On that occasion, however, they are asked to leave their pickaxes at home.
exhaustion – wyczerpanie, zmęczenie
glee - radość
overworked - przepracowany
pent-up – tłumiony, skrywany
pickaxe - kilof
punch ball – gruszka bokserska
rigorous – surowy, rygorystyczny
sledgehammer – młot oburęczny
spectacular - spektakularny
stress-buster – niszczący pod wpływem stresu
swing - wymachiwać
unabashed – niespeszony, niepohamowany
uptight - spięty
