First of all - guess what!!! I get a night off manana! WOOHOO! :D
In other news!
A guy just came in asking where another hotel was. I gave him general directions, but he insisted I look it up for him. While I'm google mappin' it, his buddy comes in and slams his face into our door.
Like, full-face smashitude.
He stumbles halfway in with his hands on his face, falls to his knees, and crawls the rest of the way in. His friend says "it's okay, he's Canadian."
When the guy finally gets to his feet and I see that I do not, in fact, have to call an ambulance, he asks "Where's...where is the...that place..."
His friend tells him I'm already looking it up.
Typity-typity-type.
"HEY! What's that on your hand?" Asks Mr. Canada.
"It's a tattoo, man, DUH!" Cuts in his friend.
"Actually it's just henna, kind of a tradition - I'm getting married in a couple of weeks." Esplains I.
"It's what religion?"
"No, not a religion, just a tradition. We have some close friends from India."
"So, it's Islam?"
"NO DUDE THAT'S NOT A RELIGION. It's Muslim."
"Um.....
...
Just take a right on Road and it'll be on your left. If you've passed Place then you've gone too far."
"OH OKAY, thanks bye!!"
Yeah. That happened.
-Wednesday
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely lonely lonely lonelyyyy tiiiime
Since we had a TGIF post!
Tonight, we have a tale of karma being a drained and tainted bitchdog. I don't even know what I did, but it had to have been something epic.
Or you know, maybe just because it's Friday, and everything happens on Fridays.
Anyways!
First I come in and the volume is turned up on our lobby television. This is a gigantic no-no, from the a much higher level. There was quite a crowd around the tv, though, so I gave them ten or fifteen minutes into my shift before I turned on captions and the volume off. Immediately, you know there was uproar and calls of bullshit. The last shift was still there as I sorted through their strange handling of the fact that we were overbooked by seven rooms, and they both raised their hands in the air and told me the AGM had told them to turn the volume on for sporting events.
Let me explain. The AGM is not above corporate on the ladder of decision making, but he fully believes he is. Shocker, right? At night I am liable though, so whether he thinks he's the boss of everyone or not, TV volume go bye-bye. Besides. He has it on sports events 24-7. So yeah. Fuck 'im.
Of course, you know the bitching and shouting went on for about ten minutes, at least. Yeah, it was my own fault for messing with a huddled group of avid sports fans, but down the hall in the conference room, and upstairs in each of their rooms, the volume works perfectly fine. And the conference room TV is to be on 24-7 while one of our groups is in house. So it isn't like I lost the game for them.
Yeesh.
Seconds after this fiasco, a phone call comes in with a guy demanding to speak to the manager. It's still very noisy and crowded in our lobby, and the person on the phone wants to speak with the man in the "purple shirt." (WTF?) I swear, I kind of think he's calling from the lobby about the volume, but it turns out he's calling from a hotel the last shift walked him to.
When you have seven arrivals with no space for them (gee, thanks, sales), you have no choice but to walk them to another hotel that does have rooms. It's that or the couches in the lobby. I mean where else COULD you put them? Thankfully, kind of, last shift did that ahead of time for me. Walking someone angry when you are alone at the front desk is...well you'll see.
"I want to know why YOU put me in this FLEABAG MOTEL when you still have three guys coming in from my same group who haven't even gotten there yet!"
"Sir, we had no more space, and that was arranged by the last shift. Can I put you on the phone with him?"
"No. I am asking you why you put me over here when YOU told me you had a room. I want to speak with your manager right now."
"Sir, that's not possible, our manager leaves at 5 PM. Can I get you his contact information?"
"NO. I want YOU to tell me what the hell is going on! YOU! Put the manager on the phone right now!"
"Hold please."
"FINALLY. THANK YOU."
Oh my goodness. Well...technically the guy from the past shift is still signed in and is at the front desk...and he IS a day shift manager. So I ask him if he would like to speak with the guy. Or if I should just pick the phone back up and use a foreign accent. Or something.
Dude from last shift takes the call to the back and tells the guy to STFU. I am sincerely hoping he doesn't show up and get in my face. Sometimes they do that. No lie.
So next I'm counting the drawer to make sure we are correct, and we aren't, but it's close enough. I let the last shift go home after they tell me NO ONE ELSE is coming in and that we are completely squared and good to go for the night.
Then the arrivals that angry guy was talking about show up.
While trying to check them in I discover I can't, because even though last shift has left rooms for them, they have also pre-assigned other guests arriving tomorrow to those rooms. And the ones trying to check in are for multiple day stays. Yeah. Yeah, they got it all set up for me, dinnit they.
While I'm getting new arrivals their keys, a guy wants to buy a soda. I go to put his money in the drawer and get him change, and wind up having to short ourselves on change because the drawer WILL. NOT. OPEN. I try all the tricks I know, but something inside it is preventing it from opening. Joy. So I let the guy pay a little less for the sake of making him wait on me less, and come back to the drawer later.
When the fellas are checked in, and the lobby is quiet for two seconds, I go into the back to try and finally get my piercing retainer in (I have a couple of piercings the guests and my employers would rather not be obvious, but will close if I leave them out, and with a retainer in them they are pretty much invisible). I realize I've lost the ball to my actual piercing. It's the only one I have. New ones are expensive. I am broke. Getting your lip repierced is painful and even more expensive.
I come back out front and fuck with the cash register drawer. I finally manage to yank it open, and the reason it had been sticking was that one of the dividers was ever so slightly raised. I fix it so it won't happen again, then realize I can't slide it out ALL the way because all my fiddling has caused it to slip under itself in such a way that now the drawer itself is too high. I have to leave it open a crack so I'll be able to open it later in the night - but in trying to close it I realize I FUCKING CAN'T. Now the drawer is so fucked up I can't close it. I slide it half-shut and leave it there.
A guy comes down the elevator and wags his finger at me, saying he knows it was bullshit to turn off the TV volume and how I shouldn't be doing things like that. Then he asks if I can please get him a towel.
More flies with honey, jackass. Sure, I'll have that towel right out for you.
Dick.
When I get him the towel he decides he wants to buy some snacks from our snack area. I take his cash and try to get him change, but now the drawer won't budge open OR close - it's stuck half open. I squeeze out a couple of dollar bills and some change, and breathe out the biggest sigh of my life as soon as the elevator doors slide back closed again.
I reach into my bag for a xanax, because this all occurred in the first HOUR of my shift.
I have left my xanax at home.
Fuck.
My.
Life.
TGIF
-Wednesday
Tonight, we have a tale of karma being a drained and tainted bitchdog. I don't even know what I did, but it had to have been something epic.
Or you know, maybe just because it's Friday, and everything happens on Fridays.
Anyways!
First I come in and the volume is turned up on our lobby television. This is a gigantic no-no, from the a much higher level. There was quite a crowd around the tv, though, so I gave them ten or fifteen minutes into my shift before I turned on captions and the volume off. Immediately, you know there was uproar and calls of bullshit. The last shift was still there as I sorted through their strange handling of the fact that we were overbooked by seven rooms, and they both raised their hands in the air and told me the AGM had told them to turn the volume on for sporting events.
Let me explain. The AGM is not above corporate on the ladder of decision making, but he fully believes he is. Shocker, right? At night I am liable though, so whether he thinks he's the boss of everyone or not, TV volume go bye-bye. Besides. He has it on sports events 24-7. So yeah. Fuck 'im.
Of course, you know the bitching and shouting went on for about ten minutes, at least. Yeah, it was my own fault for messing with a huddled group of avid sports fans, but down the hall in the conference room, and upstairs in each of their rooms, the volume works perfectly fine. And the conference room TV is to be on 24-7 while one of our groups is in house. So it isn't like I lost the game for them.
Yeesh.
Seconds after this fiasco, a phone call comes in with a guy demanding to speak to the manager. It's still very noisy and crowded in our lobby, and the person on the phone wants to speak with the man in the "purple shirt." (WTF?) I swear, I kind of think he's calling from the lobby about the volume, but it turns out he's calling from a hotel the last shift walked him to.
When you have seven arrivals with no space for them (gee, thanks, sales), you have no choice but to walk them to another hotel that does have rooms. It's that or the couches in the lobby. I mean where else COULD you put them? Thankfully, kind of, last shift did that ahead of time for me. Walking someone angry when you are alone at the front desk is...well you'll see.
"I want to know why YOU put me in this FLEABAG MOTEL when you still have three guys coming in from my same group who haven't even gotten there yet!"
"Sir, we had no more space, and that was arranged by the last shift. Can I put you on the phone with him?"
"No. I am asking you why you put me over here when YOU told me you had a room. I want to speak with your manager right now."
"Sir, that's not possible, our manager leaves at 5 PM. Can I get you his contact information?"
"NO. I want YOU to tell me what the hell is going on! YOU! Put the manager on the phone right now!"
"Hold please."
"FINALLY. THANK YOU."
Oh my goodness. Well...technically the guy from the past shift is still signed in and is at the front desk...and he IS a day shift manager. So I ask him if he would like to speak with the guy. Or if I should just pick the phone back up and use a foreign accent. Or something.
Dude from last shift takes the call to the back and tells the guy to STFU. I am sincerely hoping he doesn't show up and get in my face. Sometimes they do that. No lie.
So next I'm counting the drawer to make sure we are correct, and we aren't, but it's close enough. I let the last shift go home after they tell me NO ONE ELSE is coming in and that we are completely squared and good to go for the night.
Then the arrivals that angry guy was talking about show up.
While trying to check them in I discover I can't, because even though last shift has left rooms for them, they have also pre-assigned other guests arriving tomorrow to those rooms. And the ones trying to check in are for multiple day stays. Yeah. Yeah, they got it all set up for me, dinnit they.
While I'm getting new arrivals their keys, a guy wants to buy a soda. I go to put his money in the drawer and get him change, and wind up having to short ourselves on change because the drawer WILL. NOT. OPEN. I try all the tricks I know, but something inside it is preventing it from opening. Joy. So I let the guy pay a little less for the sake of making him wait on me less, and come back to the drawer later.
When the fellas are checked in, and the lobby is quiet for two seconds, I go into the back to try and finally get my piercing retainer in (I have a couple of piercings the guests and my employers would rather not be obvious, but will close if I leave them out, and with a retainer in them they are pretty much invisible). I realize I've lost the ball to my actual piercing. It's the only one I have. New ones are expensive. I am broke. Getting your lip repierced is painful and even more expensive.
I come back out front and fuck with the cash register drawer. I finally manage to yank it open, and the reason it had been sticking was that one of the dividers was ever so slightly raised. I fix it so it won't happen again, then realize I can't slide it out ALL the way because all my fiddling has caused it to slip under itself in such a way that now the drawer itself is too high. I have to leave it open a crack so I'll be able to open it later in the night - but in trying to close it I realize I FUCKING CAN'T. Now the drawer is so fucked up I can't close it. I slide it half-shut and leave it there.
A guy comes down the elevator and wags his finger at me, saying he knows it was bullshit to turn off the TV volume and how I shouldn't be doing things like that. Then he asks if I can please get him a towel.
More flies with honey, jackass. Sure, I'll have that towel right out for you.
Dick.
When I get him the towel he decides he wants to buy some snacks from our snack area. I take his cash and try to get him change, but now the drawer won't budge open OR close - it's stuck half open. I squeeze out a couple of dollar bills and some change, and breathe out the biggest sigh of my life as soon as the elevator doors slide back closed again.
I reach into my bag for a xanax, because this all occurred in the first HOUR of my shift.
I have left my xanax at home.
Fuck.
My.
Life.
TGIF
-Wednesday
Thursday, October 20, 2011
SEE! I'm NOT Nuts!!!
I definitely just checked out a guest who was the most awesomest guest ever. Okay, lots of them are really awesome, but this one was awesome in a truly unique way - he knew jaxlab!
Okay, let's start at the beginning! The AWESOME beginning!
He came down to check out, and to get directions to the airport. I immediately noticed that he smelled really, really, really good. No, I didn't wanna jump him. I just really liked the way he smelled. But that isn't something you can just come right out and say...
So I did anyways, of course. I asked if he was wearing a cologne, because it smelled lovely, and he said his kids pick out all his colognes. I laughed and said my fiance picks all mine out because I work with animals quite a bit and it sort of messes with your sense of smell. He asked if I was a bio major by any chance, and I explained that I was a micro major on hold, vet tech on the side to keep away the loan payments, but do most of my work in rescue - everything from mice to cats/dogs to livestock.
THEN HE SAID HE LOVED MICE.
Apparently he's a bio fella! So he works with mice a lot! I told him about how much I adored the Jackson Laboratory, and we started talking about it, and it's just...it's like...it's...
:D
-Wednesday
Okay, let's start at the beginning! The AWESOME beginning!
He came down to check out, and to get directions to the airport. I immediately noticed that he smelled really, really, really good. No, I didn't wanna jump him. I just really liked the way he smelled. But that isn't something you can just come right out and say...
So I did anyways, of course. I asked if he was wearing a cologne, because it smelled lovely, and he said his kids pick out all his colognes. I laughed and said my fiance picks all mine out because I work with animals quite a bit and it sort of messes with your sense of smell. He asked if I was a bio major by any chance, and I explained that I was a micro major on hold, vet tech on the side to keep away the loan payments, but do most of my work in rescue - everything from mice to cats/dogs to livestock.
THEN HE SAID HE LOVED MICE.
Apparently he's a bio fella! So he works with mice a lot! I told him about how much I adored the Jackson Laboratory, and we started talking about it, and it's just...it's like...it's...
IT'S JUST REALLY FREAKIN' AWESOME OKAY.
:D
-Wednesday
Monday, October 17, 2011
The Point...Is to Show Moving Pictures...
We're not allowed to turn up the volume on the televisions in the lobby. Seeing as how there are like...four...it could get pretty noisy and hectic if we did, not to mention people have a tendency to change the channels to less-than-breakfast-conversation channels. But what it really boils down to is that the rules say no. So no volume.
Anyhoo, we have to go through the menu and actually turn the volume option OFF, because guests have brains in their heads and will find the volume button otherwise. In working here as long as I have, though, I've never had a guest manually, from the TV, load the menu and successfully turn the volume option back on.
I mean...I didn't know you could even do that without the remote. I can't even FIND THE BUTTONS on those TVs.
But yes. This fella did!
Picture a grumpy old feller, kind of farmer-ish, fiddling with the controls like a pro.
"Sir, I'm very sorry, but we are not allowed to have the volume turned up on the televisions."
"What are you talking about?"
"It's our hotel policy, I can turn on captions for you, but we can't have the volume on. Did you need to change the channel?"
"What the hell good would that be if there's no volume??"
...XD
-Wednesday
Anyhoo, we have to go through the menu and actually turn the volume option OFF, because guests have brains in their heads and will find the volume button otherwise. In working here as long as I have, though, I've never had a guest manually, from the TV, load the menu and successfully turn the volume option back on.
I mean...I didn't know you could even do that without the remote. I can't even FIND THE BUTTONS on those TVs.
But yes. This fella did!
Picture a grumpy old feller, kind of farmer-ish, fiddling with the controls like a pro.
"Sir, I'm very sorry, but we are not allowed to have the volume turned up on the televisions."
"What are you talking about?"
"It's our hotel policy, I can turn on captions for you, but we can't have the volume on. Did you need to change the channel?"
"What the hell good would that be if there's no volume??"
...XD
-Wednesday
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Maybe I'm Just Spoiled
I spent a small portion of this evening calling out-of-state hotels to ask if they permit pets or not, and what their policies were on it if they did. This was not for work. But it's hotel related. So I'm sharing anyways.
One of the conversations ended when the man MAY have fallen asleep, or MAY have set the phone down without telling me. All I know is there was about 60 seconds mid-conversation of silence on one end and me going "Hello? Hello? HELLO?!" before I gave up.
The other conversation went a little like this:
Me: "Hello, yes, I was wondering if your hotel is pet-friendly?"
Motel: "For what night?"
Me: "Um...for...any night?"
Motel: "Ten dollars."
Me: "Okay, great, is that per night or a set fee?"
Motel: "How many nights?"
Me: "...I'm really not sure about that, this isn't for me."
Motel: "$10 per night then."
Me: "...Great...and do you have any size restrictions on what pets are allowed?"
Motel: "How big is your dog?"
Me: "It's not for me."
Motel: "Well, is it for tonight?"
Me: "NO. THANK YOU VERY MUCH."
Just...guh.
-Wednesday
One of the conversations ended when the man MAY have fallen asleep, or MAY have set the phone down without telling me. All I know is there was about 60 seconds mid-conversation of silence on one end and me going "Hello? Hello? HELLO?!" before I gave up.
The other conversation went a little like this:
Me: "Hello, yes, I was wondering if your hotel is pet-friendly?"
Motel: "For what night?"
Me: "Um...for...any night?"
Motel: "Ten dollars."
Me: "Okay, great, is that per night or a set fee?"
Motel: "How many nights?"
Me: "...I'm really not sure about that, this isn't for me."
Motel: "$10 per night then."
Me: "...Great...and do you have any size restrictions on what pets are allowed?"
Motel: "How big is your dog?"
Me: "It's not for me."
Motel: "Well, is it for tonight?"
Me: "NO. THANK YOU VERY MUCH."
Just...guh.
-Wednesday
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