Things Said to Me in the Past 7 Hours.

In chronological order:


1.  An 18 year old, putting drinks on his parent's room, called me baby.  *eyebrow twitch*

2.  A girl comes down and asks if I can please have housekeeping change her pillowcases in the morning, because she had pink eye.  ...ew.

3.  The newspaper guy comes in, huffing about, and slams the papers down on the counter.  He shoves his finger at the front page and says, defiantly, "That IS what we are!  We're FED UP!" and then stormed off.  The article was about apathetic voters not going to the polls.

4.  A fellow came in at 4 in the morning and says, "I need a wakeup in room 400!"
"Okay, sir, what time?"
"Well, what time is it?  FOUR!  Give me one for 7:30."
"...Akay..."

5.  About an hour later he calls down, right after all of the hotel TVs go out, and says:
"Did I wake ya?  HAHA!"
"...What can I do for you, sir?"
"My TV isn't working." (You were just complaining about the time and your early wake-up call... GO TO BED! )
"Yes, sir, our TVs are out and we won't be able to fix it until the morning."
"Okay, well, you work on that sweetheart."  *eyebrow twitch.*

6.   Another fellow calls down twice in a row.  The first time, he reports that his room phone still has a problem.  I never knew it was broken, so I tell him I'll follow up and make sure someone addresses it.  The second time he says:
"Do you want to make the next guest's stay better than mine?"
"...What can I do for you, sir?"
"There is one dead cockroach and...one dead cricket in my bathroom light fixture."
"...I'll let housekeeping know, sir, thank you."

7.  The girl from the hotel next door informs a guy he can use our pool.  I guess she didn't want him swimming laps in her hotel at 6 AM.  He walks over and asks,
"Are you front desk?"
"Yes, sir, what can I do for you?"  (I'm setting out breakfast)
"The hotel next door said I could use your pool.  What are its hours?"
"10-10, but as long as you are quiet I have no problem with you using it now."
"Okay, are there towels by the pool?"
"Yes sir, there should be, but if not just come let me know and I'll get you some to take back out."
"Okay...I will use it now."
"Okay!"
"So...can I have some towels?"
"Um...there might be some out there-"
"I already looked." (Wh...why did you ask me then?)
"Er, okay, let me grab you some..."

8.  A fellow who has watched me set out breakfast and return to the desk asked me for a phone book, and I started looking through drawers to try and remember where this hotel keeps theirs.  He then promptly translates the entire phrase to Spanish, which I know enough of to pick up when people are speaking it in a tex-mex drawl.  He then interrupts my search with Senora, Senora, Senora... So I look up.  So then he starts telling me it's not a problem, not to worry about it - again, first in English, then in Spanish.  He translates each phrase until I say okay, and he wanders off again.  The fuck?


-Wednesday

The Cake Was Not, in Fact, a Lie.

Someone came in at the start of my shift tonight with a great big birthday cake and shared with everyone. Now there is blue dye on everything. But seriously...free cake! Woooooh!

Wooooooooooh!





A little while later I had a kid ask me if I could serve half a cheesecake. I wasn't entirely sure if he meant half of a cake, or half of a slice.

He meant half a slice.

I told him...I could serve him a slice and he could eat half of it...

He was dissatisfied with that option.



Lastly (for now) - we just had a big group of people spill out of a cab, make it halfway through the doors, stop suddenly in their tracks and loudly announce...

"THIS. IS NOT THE RIGHT HOTEL. No. This isn't right."
"Yes it is, man, this is the LOL Hotel! This is us!"
"No. THIS DOESN'T FEEL RIGHT."

Poor cabbie...

-Wednesday

He Was Trying to Jog His Memory. Get It?

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

And Then the Police Showed Up and Arrested the Fly

So this woman walks into our hotel at 2:30 AM asking for a pay phone.  We don't have one, and I don't know if she's a guest or not, so I point to where our lobby phones are.  She's very polite and goes to make her phone call.  She peeks out from around the corner to ask what hotel we are (okay...so not a guest!) and I tell her.  She goes back and completes her phone call.  She comes back into the lobby and makes a little small talk, but mostly seems like she's waiting for something.  Makes sense.  Probably needs a ride.

And then the police show up.

The police show up and remain in the little entrance section of the hotel, not saying a word to me.  They talk with the woman...then they leave.

Meanwhile, the piercing alarm in the back office that goes off every time a 911 call is made from a hotel phone will.  Not.  Shut.  Up.

She hangs out in the lobby for awhile, continuing to be polite, uses the restroom, waits for them to come back.  Eventually they do and they talk to her inside for a second, when I finally get my chance to ask a copper what is going on - because we do have to keep a record of this stuff.  He doesn't have much to say, just that somebody smashed her phone so she came here to call the cops.  That's all I got.  That's why this stupid alarm won't stop going off.  It took them an hour of sitting with two cop cars outside our hotel, four cops, all talking to this woman before they finally left.  Oh, and they mentioned we had a "geyser" in parking lot about 20 feet high.

And there is a horsefly the size of my fucking hand on the wall right behind me.

I can't stop watching it move.  I'm too scared to squash it.  La mosca muerta, those fuckers don't die.

Of course, it could just be the largest house fly on record EVER...but guys...I can see its fucking mouth.  I'm too afraid to take my eyes off of it for more than a couple of seconds.  This thing wants to eat me.

I have kind of been petrified of biting flies ever since I watched one take a strip out of a girl's leg at camp as a child.

Flies are the fucking devil, yo.

-Wednesday

Grah Is an Anagram of Argh.

Well.  Last night we had only 33% occupancy.  I should have learned to better appreciate that, because tonight we had 99%.  Technically it was supposed to be 100%...but weird things happened.

The last shift had two leftover arrivals but only one room, so they booked the last room for the person who was a part of a group.  Unfortunately, the other person was the one who came in for them, and they walked her and sent her to another hotel.  Well...that person who had the room never even came in, and a fellow wound up calling me at midnight or so to ask if the walked lady could be compensated, get the room free, something like that.  He intimated that she was extremely upset with the situation.  Awesome.  Of course, there isn't much I can do about it, so I asked him to call sales about it after 7 in the morning and that they'd let him know if there was anything they could do to make it right.  Le sigh.  At least I didn't have to speak with her directly!  :)

So we have one free room, but there's no telling for sure until 3 AM or so.  People have been known to go to the bars first, and check in after 2 when they close.  So at 1 AM when a fairly rude fella walks in, whips out his credit card, and demands a king room, I told 'im we were completely booked up.  He makes a face like someone just told him the moon wasn't made of cheese, and stomped back out to his great, big hummer.  He pauses halfway out, turns around, points his finger at me and informs me that there aren't that many cars in the parking lot.  He was driving off before I got to tell mooncheese man that they came in a bus.

Oh, and our bank's off by some 60 or so bucks...under, that is.  It was 100 when I started, which blew everyone's minds until the last shift realized they'd accidentally deposited a check's amount AND the check...leaving us quite short.  Ah well, at least the money's there.  Just not in the cash register.  Fridays, man, I'm tellin' ya.

Last thing - it turns out I should NOT have waited this long to do audit, because on Fridays here at the LOL Hotel, Murphy's Law runs rampant.  Right as I get started on close day...our system breaks and I have to call support.  I get a guy on the phone with a speech impediment, who my boss had actually warned me was not a very nice fella.

I only briefly considered hanging up and calling back before I sucked it up and explained my problem.

Only it took me forever to explain it, because every time he asked a question I had to ask him to repeat it, citing the "bad connection."  Couldn't be more awkward?  Oh, but it is.

He takes over the computer remotely and starts fiddling with it, then tells me to go ahead and close day, but to leave the connection open.  He says he's going to let me close it, then take over again once it's done and figure out what the problem is.  I say okay, but it does take it a few minutes to run.  (Should I get off the phone or does he want me to stay on the line?)  ...He says okay?  I say okay, sounds good.  Then...silence.

I have no idea if I'm supposed to hang up or not, so I leave the phone on just in case.  I hear silence and a few key strokes in the background.  I hear this for a good 30-60 seconds (time flies when in excruciating awkwardness, so I don't have an exact number for ya!) before *click!*

Wow.

Yeah...you read right - it just got all kindsa more awkward up in here.





All I can say is - TGIF!

-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