LENOX -- Let them eat cereal!
It wasn't the most charitable sentiment but when you've just been yanked from a deep sleep by a shrill wristwatch alarm on a quiet Sunday morning, generosity of spirit is in short supply.
I was at the Gateways Inn, a bed-and-breakfast in the Berkshires, for a getaway weekend with my husband, Hansi Kalkofen . Kind of. We had set the alarm for half past 7 so we could be downstairs for breakfast. Sort of. We were guests, after a fashion.
It was time to report for kitchen duty.
We had come to Lenox to get a hands-on taste of the pleasures and pains of innkeeping. As frequent patrons of B&Bs, we knew that owning an inn came with its share of headaches. Cranky guests. Maintenance troubles. Endless loads of laundry. We also understood why innkeeping could be tempting. The freedom. The serenity. The sociability of it.
So when an editor suggested I sign up for an "innkeeper for a day" program at the Gateways, one of a handful of New England inns where aspiring innkeepers can learn the ropes by working with actual ones, I couldn't resist. Our weekend crash course would be a comprehensive overview of the job, from the practical, like bed-changing and reservation-taking, to the managerial, such as marketing and financing.
When I mentioned casually to Hansi on the drive to Lenox that there was manual labor involved in the program -- which, including all meals and two nights of lodging, cost $800 -- he stared at me incredulously. "You mean we're paying to punish ourselves?" he said.
The program's goal: To temper fantasy with reality.
Our first revelation, as we stifled yawns on our way to the kitchen to make breakfast for the guests, was that innkeepers rarely get to sleep in.
But we weren't thinking about that drawback when we arrived on a Friday afternoon in late April. Fabrizio Chiariello, who has owned the Gateways for 11 years with his wife, Rosemary, met us at the door -- our first customer-service lesson and our first hint of the demands the job puts on innkeepers' personal lives.
Fabrizio, 61, believes all guests should be greeted when they arrive and all phone calls answered by a live person. That personal touch, while important, means innkeepers inevitably spend a lot of time answering calls, waiting for guests to check in, and doing other clerical tasks. It also means they can easily become burnt out if they don't find ways to distance themselves from their never-ending duties.
The Chiariellos' solution: They employ a general manager on weekdays and they live in a private home behind the inn, which provides what Rosemary, 48, calls "psychological relief" from the job. Still, they conceded, they've sometimes considered selling the inn or converting it into condos when, for example, lousy weather hurts business (as it has this year), local tourism slows down (as Fabrizio thinks it has in Lenox), or a chef stole money or showed up drunk (which is why Rosemary now does all the cooking).
Our first evening at the Gateways, however, was a breeze: a tour of the property, a dinner at the inn's restaurant, and a free night to do whatever we liked. After a leisurely Saturday breakfast, we got down to business. Joining Fabrizio on the inn's sunporch, we spent the next 6 1/2 hours in an intensive private tutorial (with a lunch break) on the administrative aspects of innkeeping.
We covered seemingly every aspect of buying and operating an inn: choosing a location, securing financing, arranging inspections, conducting due diligence, developing a website, writing a business plan, crafting a marketing strategy, hiring personnel.
We also heard a few horror stories about guests : The couple who put a take-out pizza on the bed, letting grease soak through the comforter, sheets, and mattress. The person who ruined an antique armoire by prying it open with a pocketknife. The couple who complained that their anniversary was ruined because their fireplace wasn't roaring strongly enough.
Our heads swam with questions. Would we want an inn small enough that we could do the housekeeping ourselves, or big enough that we could hire a staff? What would we do if a disgruntled customer posted a negative comment on a travel website, as recently happened to the Gateways? Rosemary had three tips: Make an online management rebuttal, ask a satisfied guest to post a compliment, or ask your friends to write nice things.
Innkeeping has its joys, too, the Chiariellos reminded us. You are your own boss. You are not trapped in a cubicle. If you close during the off-season, you can travel frequently. And although a few guests will be difficult, others will be a delight. With some return customers, "it's like relatives coming home," said Fabrizio. "You chat about their families, you watch their children grow, you follow their lives."
After the all-day tutorial, Fabrizio gave me a training session on the inn's computerized reservations system, and revealed one of its secrets: The software lets him make notes about customers' preferences and family situations so he can provide more personal service if they return.
"Guests expect you to remember them," he said.
My husband's file, for instance, might indicate he requested skim milk, while another couple's record may note the woman was expecting her third child. And once in a while guest files are marked with the letter W, short for "Warning." Translation: They were troublesome and aren't wanted back.
The lesson of the day was obvious: Innkeeping is truly a business. Running a successful inn requires managerial expertise, financial know-how, customer-service skills, and marketing savvy -- not simply a gregarious personality.
On Sunday morning, still worn out by Saturday's all-day seminar, we groaned when our alarm went off. But we had to get up: We were expected downstairs at 8 to prepare and serve breakfast, help with guest check-out, and clean rooms -- hands-on experience the Chiariellos insist is critical.
At some innkeeper training programs, "you learn about managing money but not how to change a bed or fix a tub, and that is essential, because innkeeping is not all about chatting with the guests," said Fabrizio, who concedes he and Rosemary were naive about such day-to-day realities when they bought the Gateways.
As soon as we walked into the kitchen, Rosemary handed us a pair of aprons. Within minutes, my husband was cutting strawberries, slicing chocolate pound cake, and delivering fruit, yogurt, and orange juice to a buffet table in the dining room.
I mixed Belgian waffle batter, while Rosemary began making eggs Benedict -- toasting muffins, poaching eggs, baking prosciutto, sauteeing asparagus, and melting butter for hollandaise sauce. Watching the labor-intensive process, I wondered aloud whether it was worth the effort. Wouldn't scrambled eggs be easier?
Smiling knowingly, Rosemary imparted a nugget of innkeeper wisdom.
"Eggs Benedict makes a lasting impression," she said, "so it's worth it even though it's time-consuming." In other words, eggs over easy don't cut it.
Consider that another innkeeping lesson: Guests expect to be pampered. So innkeepers tend to pull out all the stops -- fancy breakfasts, solicitous treatment, luxurious linens -- especially at a place like the Gateways, which markets itself as an elegant, European-style inn with refined service. Even a single scuff or stain can offend a picky guest.
As a result, B&B owners must continually redecorate, buy new furniture, and upgrade amenities. When Jacuzzis became popular, for example, the Chiariellos installed jetted tubs in a few rooms. Now that high-definition television is in demand, they plan to upgrade the inn's TVs. The constant improvements are expensive, yet innkeepers can't always cover those costs by raising room rates. So innkeeping requires careful budgeting.
With Rosemary as our instructor, we prepared and served breakfast from 8 to 10, grabbing a bite to eat whenever there was a lull in action. By mid morning, some guests were beginning to check out, so I joined Fabrizio at the front desk as he swiped credit cards, printed receipts, and gave farewell send-offs.
Then it was time to help Rosemary with housekeeping. We tackled the Arthur Fiedler Room , the biggest guest suite at the inn, where I discovered how much laundry can be produced by one room in one day. After stripping the king-size bed of its pillow cases and triple sheeting, and collecting the used robes and towels, we had accumulated two overflowing baskets of dirty linens.
Remaking the bed was more arduous than I expected. It took both of us to lift the heavy mattress, and even wrestling pillow cases on and off the extra-long, king-size pillows was a challenge. And if new guests checked in later that day, the whole bed would have to be remade again tomorrow.
As Rosemary and I headed to the basement laundry room, a staff housekeeper began the really messy work: scrubbing the tub and toilet, cleaning the mirrors, dusting the furniture, and vacuuming. I realized I got off easy.
By early afternoon, we were mentally and physically tired. On the way back to Boston, my husband made a firm declaration : "I'm never owning an inn. Never . It looks so glamorous, but it's a lot more work than I ever imagined."
I couldn't disagree. Life in a cubicle, it turns out, has its upsides. And when it comes to the innkeeping life, it's nicer to be pampered than to do the pampering.
Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com. 
