Too funny

From here.  Hiiiighly recommended.  :)

-Wednesday

Caffeine Emergencies

When is it safe to stop chugging your end-of-shift, I'm-tired-as-hell-and-ready-to-go-home, emergency coffee?  When:

• You're certain your "smile" actually looks like a real smile to guests, and not a sleepy grimace involving only muscles in the lower half of your face.
• You're certain you even smiled.
• You can look at guests and coworkers and respond to seeing them in less than 3 seconds.
• You regain basic motor functions that don't relate to the cup or coffee machine.
• Thoughts cross your mind that don't involve the terms "bed," "sleeeeep," or swear words that aren't real (e.g. crap-monkeys, foopers, god-drangit).
• You have a heart attack.  You should probably put down the coffee if you have a heart attack.

-Wednesday

My Indoor Pool Brings All the Boys to the Yard

The very first thing you must know for this story is that football is BIG here.  Every time the college has a game, every hotel books up (or overbooks in most cases) pretty far in advance.  We're talking the-second-the-game-schedule-is-made-known kind of advance booking.

These weekends we have a minimum stay of 2 nights and if you're going to cancel without being charged, it had better be 2 weeks beforehand.  Don't even get me started on Graduation - all I'm saying is, with what we charge and how booked we get, you'd better be positive your kid makes all A's that semester!  It's pretty yucky.

Anyways, this weekend is one of those game weekends.

We get a lot of calls checking to see if there were cancellations or if we have rooms available, and that's fine.  I totally don't expect you to know the booking status of every hotel in town, and what's the harm in checking?  One does sort of expect that if you're an avid game-goer from out of town, and if you really, REALLY want to see that game, that you probably at least know it gets busy and will book a room more than a day in advance.  But you've gotta hear this call:

Me:  "Good evening and thank you for calling the LOL Hotel, my name is Wednesday, how may I assist you?"

Dude:  "Hey, uh, do you guys have a pool?"

Me:  "Yes, sir, we do."
Dude:  "Oh good, and is it uh, is it heated?"

Me:  "No, sir, I don't believe so."

Dude: "Oh!  Well, I'm coming in for the game this weekend you know, and I was really hoping to swim.  Is it swimmable?"

Me:  "OH!  Yes, sir, it's an indoor pool."

Dude: "Okay, well, is it a LARGE pool, or a little bitty one?"

Me:  "....it's...I don't know, sir, it's about your average pool size."

I'm a little confused at this point.  I mean, you gotta know whether or not to pack your swimsuit, but who cares what size the pool is?  But wait, it gets neater.

Dude: "Okay I guess.  Do you have a workout room?

Me:  "Yes, sir, we do."

Dude: "And it's got, what, weights?  A bicycle I guess?"

Me:  "Yes, sir, it has free weights, a bicycle, a treadmill, and a couple of other machines."

Dude: "Alright, then.  And do you have any rooms available for Saturday?"

WHAT?  I had totally assumed he meant he was coming HERE on Saturday, and wanted to know what there would be.  He asked all those questions before asking if we had any availability?  Can you really be that picky on a game weekend?  Oddly enough, he doesn't particularly care when I tell him no, we booked up pretty far in advance.

He must be early in the list of hotels to call.  He'll get the picture eventually.

-Wednesday

When you're strange, when you're strange, when you're strange

Someone must have been quite irritated with their ice bucket last night, for they placed it in the exact center of the hallway filled with what I hope is melted ice:

Also, I REALLY have to pee, but there is a young, idiotic couple fucking in the bathroom.  I'd tell them to leave, but I'm actually kind of scared of them.  They're...they're not even guests.  They just came in from the cold.  To screw.

In the bathroom.

-Wednesday

Why Do They Do That?

I can't figure it out.

So, one of my tasks in the early mornings is to print out receipts for all departing guests and slip them under the door.  Every few days, someone feels it's appropriate to block the door crack so I can't do so.

I don't get it.  Do they think that makes the bill not come?  Is it like:  "haha, you can't charge ME!  I blocked the DOOR! *snicker, snicker*"  All it really does is keep you from reviewing your bill before you check out and you're actually charged.

I kind of thought maybe it was a sound thing - maybe the whoosh of paper going under the door might wake up a light sleeper.  It can't be, though, because if THAT wakes you up, surely the crunching, smushing sounds of me trying to cram it into your blanket/suitcase/dirty clothes must really ruin your beauty sleep.

I don't know, man.  It baffles me.

-Wednesday

P.S. - I just saw a smoking firefighter.  I know it's not that funny.  But it kinda is (awesome).  :D

Roofie-Cookies

Someone has been leaving out cookies.  It's like...they take one or two out of the display, put it on a plate, and leave it there for a couple of shifts.

I have determined that clearly they must be roofie-cookies, and someone is hiding behind one of these columns waiting to pounce on whatever employee caves to their chocolate-chippy deliciousness.

I mean - It's a building full of beds.

Why else would you leave cookies out?

-Wednesday

Nuh-Uh, Not Tonight, Mister

My personal life is kinda boiling over right now, making the fringes of my life sticky and burnt.  With school, illness, and various animal-related issues going on, I'm low on both patience and sleep.  But the LOL Hotel would prefer that you not let those traits on to customers.

What it means instead, is that the second you hang up the phone on me, I'm saying vile, horrible, un-repeatable things to the ceiling tiles.

Guy calls down at 2:30 AM.  This is normal when someone comes in late and wants a wakeup call - but no one has come in since I arrived for my shift.  I...I am nervous.  On the phone is an old man with a gravelly voice and a country accent.

"Front desk, this is Wednesday, how may I assist you?"

"Yes ma'am, you have a serious problem in this room.  The heater is on.  It's sumthin' like 84 degrees in here.  I woke up and it's just blowin'.  I get out from under the covers, and it's just, you have a serious problem in this room."

Now - we have two ways to adjust the temperature in these rooms, though I've never seen them personally.  There's the unit, which I think has a fan adjustment on it, and a thermostat on the wall, where you adjust the actual temperature.  So, logically, I ask:

"Have you tried adjusting both the actual unit and the wall thermostat?"

"I'm not stupid.  Now, I'm not stupid, you know."

-.-

"Well, Sir, would you like to-"

"You are going to have a serious problem in here!  I am not going to be able to sleep in here, it just keeps blowin'.  I'm about to come down and get in my truck and leave."

I'd like to avoid this, ONLY because early departure technically causes a 50% fee, for which I get A LOT of shit by angry, sleepy people who don't remember signing the registration card as it was explained OUT LOUD TO THEM.  It's no threat.  I don't get why guests think I'm somehow affected in any way by the hotel's income.  I'm really, really not.  I'm not in on some conspiracy.

I let him complete his sentence before attempting to ask if I can move him to a different room, but he hangs up on me before I get two words out.  Fearing an angry redneck might come down the elevator any moment now, I quickly check to make sure we have another room available near his current one, how long his stay was for, and call back up to his room.

"Sir, this is Wednesday at the front desk.  I'd like to move you to another room if possible, because I won't be able to get your heater fixed until the morning."  (TRUTH - Fail)

"There are people who are paid to come out at night to fix things, I don't care if you have to call someone, I'm not stupid.  You're going to have a serious problem in this room, it keeps blowin'.  It's going to be 100 degrees by morning, you're going to have a fire."  (A fire?  Seriously?)

"I can call my manager in just a moment to have him get it fixed up, but can I move you to a cooler room for the night?" (LIE - Success)

"Okay, what room."

"Let's see, we have one right next door to you, let me just make you a key."

"Okay, and you'll bring them up?"

"I can't do that Sir but I'll have them right here waiting for you at the front desk." (Seriously.  Policy.)
*Hangs up on me again*
*Vile words at ceiling tiles*

So I switch his room.  I make and label his keys.  I switch his current room to dirty and make a note to fix the heater.  I get a call back.

"Front desk, this is Wednesday, how may I assist you?"

"Yes, uh, the heater stopped."

"Oh-"

"Yeah I'm not going to be moving.  I got all my stuff unpacked in here, and it's not blowin' anymore.  I'm just going to be stayin' in here."

"Okay Sir, well in the morning if you could come pick up new keys for the room then, because once I got you new ones it deactivated the ones for your current room."

*Hangs up*

I swear.  Just say goodbye, thank you, anything.  You just spent a good half hour of my time, while I'm sick and coughing my lungs out, blaming me in some tangential manner for whatever you did to the heater.  I bent over backwards...twice...and shut my big mouth (an epic feat) and the best you can pull off is hanging up on me?  I don't buy it.  I hope you're nicer when you're awake.

grumble grumble
-Wednesday

Park It.

Today, as I was leaving, I noticed that the VERY closest parking spot next to the hotel's doors was unoccupied.  I parked in it on my way out just to see what it felt like.

It felt glorious.



Oh wait, something else that was interesting happened this morning, too.  I was just coming out of the office in the back, where I was faxing something for a guest, when I nearly collided with a woman who had wandered behind the front desk.

I supposed that she didn't know where I was, and was creeping stealthily back to knock on the door to the back offices.  I asked her what I could do for her as she slowly backed away, but she replied "Oh, no, I think he needed something" and pointed to the guy to whom I was returning the faxed papers.  I can't even remember what she needed - really, I can't.  It must have been something utterly inconsequential.

Why...why was she behind the desk?  @.o
This is going to bug me for the next several seconds.

-Wednesday

The LOL Hoe-tel - Sexy Pornographic Parody of the Classic Blog

I just talked with a man who sells sex toys to chains around the world while he ate a chocolate chip cookie.

On one hand, a very unique conversation that managed to actually stay civil.  We covered male vs. female employment at sex shops, the differences of European stores from American ones, the hilarity of bad porn parodies of some of our favorite shows (and yes, Palin), and for good measure, both mentioned our significant others.

Yay!  A conversation doomed to go bad went...reasonably!

I stopped the conversation while we were ahead to keep things from going...weird... by doing my actual job - the audit (it's that hour!).  Here's the funny part:

He called down for a wake-up call a few minutes into the audit and - get this - offered me a product sample.

How sweet!

How completely inappropriate!

I told him oh, no, that was alright, and he dropped the issue.  Can you imagine me walking out to my car in the morning with a sex toy/equipment/accessory?  Picture it.

"Hey, Wednesday, going home?  What's that in your hand?"

"Oh, it's just a dildo and some fuzzy handcuffs a guy gave me last night.  See you tomorrow!"

XD
-Wednesday

Would you like fries with that?

A man just came down in the elevator, went directly across the room and picked up a newspaper, and then asked me for a fork.  He took his fork and newspaper back up the elevator.

...Was that man eating a newspaper?

Yummy!
-Wednesday