In Praise of Motel 6

The other day I was standing at the counter at the Tone Shop shooting the breeze with a few folks. The subject wandered onto motels, and I diverted for a moment into a spiel of why I like Motel 6.

The first thing people always bring up as "we'll leave the lights on for you" series of radio advertisements featuring Tom Bodette. It makes me laugh because as I tell them, after you've stayed a few times at a Motel 6, the persona reflected in those "lights on for you" commercials begins to dissolve into the reality of what Motel 6 actually is.

That is not to say that Motel 6 is bad. It's just that it's different than those commercials. But in a way they are accurate. They do indeed leave the lights on, in the reception area. There is someone on duty there 24 hours a day.

The key to understanding this feature of Motel 6, and the other features that make it such a good thing, is that Motel 6 has come the best of all the discount hotel chains at perfecting the hotel room as a commodity.

I compare Motel 6 corporation to another corporation I like: Starbucks. Everywhere I go around the country, each Starbucks is different yet they all share certain basic features, within a subset of variations. I can depend on these features being present whether I'm in Minot, N.D., or in Eureka, California, or in Corpus Christi, Texas (all places where I have actually worked in a Starbucks in the past half year).

Plus at a Starbucks it is easy to buy things. You just stand in line, give your order and swipe your card. It's the same everywhere.

Likewise at Motel 6, each reception is nearly identical  The check-in procedure is simplified and standardized. One fills out the same basic form in whatever scrawl you feel like using. One shows an id. One pays by cash or by swiping a card at a terminal with a punch pad.

They hand you a key card in a paper envelope. You have to buy wi-fi, but it is cheap and it always seems to work (just like in Starbucks, by the way). They won't announce your room number outloud in the reception if there are other guests waiting behind you. They say, "the number is on the envelope" and point to it.

You get a standardized room. The furniture is the same everywhere. It is almost always clean to the standards that in raw material terms one is better off than 95% of the people of Africa. There are people in New Jersey who would love to be in a Motel 6 room right now, with hot running water and clean sheets.

Also they post their current basic rate (the real rate, not teasers) on the sign outside. And their Android app rocks.

All the Motel 6es, with a few exceptions, are owned by the Motel 6 corporation. This is why they are so standardized. The employees here and around the country are like Target or Starbucks employees in a way---they all work for the same corporation.

All this being said, there are drawbacks, of course. But I'll talk about them in another post. For now I'm going to finish watching the 49ers-Bears game on this television, under this pale lamp on the wall, and think of Africa.

See ya!