@partyrock You will inevitably have to deal with someone that is mad about something. It could be the charge for their room (or room service if there is any), the quality/cleanliness of the room, or even the service of another employee. As the front desk person, you will hear all of it and have to handle it. On top of that, when I worked night shift, we also had people that came in drunk looking for rooms in the middle of the night (there was a casino just down the road). They often tried to barter for the cost of their room. It takes a lot of patience to repeated say the rate as they continue to try to get you to change it sometimes. Some of those people can be very hard to calm down and work out a solution to their problem. Sometimes it’s easy, but not always. Listening to their complaints and dealing with them (especially if their complaint is unfounded) requires patients and people skills. You may have someone call in and berate you about something that happened with the website (if your hotel has one) or about the deal another website gave them (hotwire, priceline, etc).
I know you asked @jonsblond about technical skills, but I figured I’d add in what I had to do on the technical side as well. All of our reservations were on the computer, so navigating the system was a big part of the job which required a lot of basic computer skills. Also on the computer we had financial reports to do at the end of the day, which had to be faxed to the corporate office (adding in the need to know how to use a fax machine). We also had to process payments (cash, check, credit card, and travel’s checks), so handling money with accuracy was a big deal. With preparing the continental breakfast, knowing how to use the coffee pots was important, as well as the other equipment in the kitchen area (we had a juice dispenser and waffle iron as well). Yes, most of that can be taught during training, but having a basic knowledge before hand would be ideal.
The pay was pretty good when I was working. As for the stress level, it varied depending on what was going on in the area and how busy we were. On normal days/nights, it wasn’t overly stressful, but when the state fair was going on (our hotel was right down the street), and during the two Nascar races that came to the area each year, it was very stressful and busy because we were always completely full and had tons of people coming and going. It was fun too though because we met a lot of interesting people.