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

If You See a Guy with 17 Papers...

So our papers come around 3 or 4 in the morning.  I am usually closing day at that time, so I typically let them sit until I'm finished up and then replace the old ones.

Today, however, I was having a particularly vicious fight with the scanner in the back office.  When I emerged (not done, but too frustrated to keep fighting with it - it took an HOUR to scan 13 pages.  An hour!) I noticed something weird.

Somebody stole mah newspapers.

They weren't completely gone, no.  The band had been removed and all but 8 papers were missing.

...What?

I'VE BEEN HAMBURGLED  NEWSPAPERBURGLED!

I'm sure it's completely possible that the newspaper dude was running short or something and decided to split an order between two businesses.  Or something.

OR there is a happy fellow wandering around town with his proud stack of 17 Wall Street Journals.


-Wednesday

...It IS Friday, isn't it?

You know how a little while back I walked the halls with my eyes closed while delivering bills and newspapers?

Well, today was walk-the-halls-like-I'm-America's-Next-Top-Model.  I did my little turn on the catwalk.  On the catwalk.  On the catwalk.  Yeah, I did my little turn on the catwalk.

Next time I think it shall be walk-the-halls-like-I'm-lost, or walk-the-halls-like-I'm-in-a-rainstorm-with-hurricane-force-winds-and-a-broken-umbrella.  I don't want to know what anyone who might be peeking out their peepholes must think when I tango/gallop/meander by.

But why the hell would they be looking out their peepholes in the middle of the night?

MAYBE THEY WERE CURIOUS WHAT THE GIRL OUTSIDE THEIR DOOR WAS DOING SHAKIN' IT LIKE FLASHDANCE.

That picture has absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about.

ANYWAYS - it's Friday...and nothing bad has happened yet.  That's right, Fate, consider yourself tempted.  Of course, there's much more of Friday yet to come.

Maybe the universe is doing this to me because it knows it's just as bad to make me expect something horrible all day long and not know when it's coming.  It knows I will spend my Friday in fear.  Well, not all of Friday, I'm going to be going to sleep in a couple of hours.


Suck it, Fate.

-Wednesday
(I think I'm tired again)

Oh, the Drippy Sounds this Hotel Makes...

Who's got two thumbs and had to stick a bucket IN a cabinet to catch a water leak tonight?

THIS GAL!  XD

I think it rains more inside this hotel than outside!  :p


-Wednesday

Ah...Guests. I love you. Go Away.

Weird guests are amazing in tiny, extremely small doses.  XD

We started tonight off with a couple of guys coming in from their night of drinking and stopping to look at the case of food and drinks.  One of them DEMANDS our last cookie.  He has a desperate need for the cookie.  His friend points to the muffins and says he needs a cupcake, then claims three packs of Reese's.  While that fella consumes his yearly nutritional requirement of chocolate in about two minutes, his friend, cookie-guy starts to talk to me about tattoos.  He wants me to design chocolate-fella's tattoo, which really doesn't need any designing because it's just LETTERS, but his friend finishes gobbling his food and they forget about it on their way up to their rooms.  I'm pretty glad, honestly, because I sorta have cooler stuff to draw tonight than letters.  :p

Oh, and by the way?  Every single person who has come in tonight has said good morning to me.  I know that sometimes I have a problem with saying good morning in the evenings because I just woke up, but I didn't expect it from a guest at the hotel.  And man, I really didn't expect it from EVERY guest who's come in.  Maybe it's good-morning-day, or a secret conspiracy of goodmorningdoers.  In any case, it makes me smile.  :D

One good-morninger just came in a minute ago and hollered about the brand new day and how amazing it was.  He then loudly noted that we had a new dance floor (tile) and asked me if I'd ever been out with a buncha drunk friends.


Better to be loud, drunk, and happy, than to be this fella, though:

A guy wanders in holding three packs of cigarettes in one hand.  He's scrawny and middle-aged, and while he did nod at me, he mostly stares off into space.  He doesn't look around, he doesn't wander, he just walks in a slow, mostly straight line toward the elevator and stops.  The fellow he'd followed in (I don't think they were together?) hits the elevator and takes it up.  The guy is looking at the wall.  The elevator arrives and dude is turning around every now and then, looking like he's either thinking about something very interesting, too interesting to show any expression or movement of his head, or absolutely nothing at all.  A couple of minutes later, guy gets in the elevator and rides it up.

And rides it right back down without so much as getting off of it.  I know he didn't press the 1st floor button, because it didn't ding when the doors opened on the first floor.  In fact, nothing happened when the doors opened on the first floor.  I could see half of his reflection in the elevator wall, and he was just standing there, staring out of the elevator like he hadn't noticed it opened.  The doors closed again like they do after reaching the first floor, then reopen, and guy waltzes on out.  He spaces his way right out the front door, and I haven't seen him since.

So what's your vote, guys?  Prostitute with second thoughts, drugs, both, or neither?



Like I said.  I LOVE the guests here.  They're weird, quirky, goofy, and most of the time friendly.  Small doses, though.  Very small doses.

TGIF (or maybe it's Friday's fault!)
-Wednesday

Snoooowwww

It does not snow here at the LOL Hotel.  If someone were to call and ask if it snowed around here, one would say no.  No snow.

But the past few years have seen a few snow days, light as they may be.  Tonight was one such night!

For the record, if you happen to be parked at the LOL Hotel when it snows, you may very well have the snow on the hood of your car photographed next to the night auditor's goofy mug.

That same night auditor may become very embarrassed when the local newspaper delivery fellows arrives and catches her taking pictures like a tourist.  XD

So anyhoo!


This fellow comes down the elevator and is looking for the USA Todays.  Unfortunately, they and the other national newspaper weren't delivered today.  One assumes the unusual snow is to blame, so I mentioned that we could get him a local paper, but that the others didn't come due to the weather.

The fellow loses his cool, as so many people are apt to do before 8 AM.  He flings his arm toward the doors and exclaims:

"SNOW?  You call THAT snow??  That's FROST.  You have no idea what snow is (wtf?)!  I'm from Colorado where it snows A FOOT AND A HALF A NIGHT.  A little frost on the ground and you guys completely shut down!"

He didn't raise his voice much, but he continued to bitch and complain until he reached the elevator.  The woman who was ACTUALLY working (I was off shift at this point and quite irked with being chewed out while not being paid) tried to calm him by joking back about how crazy it was that locals called THIS snow, but the man wasn't having it.  He stomped back into the elevator and returned grumpily to his room, hopefully to read the damned paper online.

I like my job, otherwise my response might have been something closer to:

"Oh, pardon me, sir!  Let me call the newspaper and have them bring you one right away!  I'm sorry, I guess I shouldn't have called the paper man and told him not to bring any today.  I'm also EXTREMELY sorry that I had the WHOLE city shut down to inconvenience you - my bad."

Seriously...people without their coffee do not grasp basic concepts of blame.  XD  Like how the night auditor probably isn't at fault for a warm city's response to a few inches of snow.  A city that was 70 degrees a few days ago, and will be back in the 50s by the weekend.  I understand that people from cold climates feel quite superior (and I use "understand" loosely, pride is one thing, but I'm not sure how dealing with snow more often makes you tougher than everyone who is currently south of you), but if you're that crazy over a newspaper, maybe you should go back to your room and chug some caffeine!

Let's go!  Chop chop!  Coffee doesn't quit just because it's cold outside!


-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

He's Old-School

When I got here tonight, there was a group of seven or eight people QUITE inebriated at the bar, eating a delicous-smelling pizza.  I usually hate dealing with drunk people who stay past the bar closing, but these dude's were alright, if a little nonsensical (and sometimes pretty obnoxious).  I feel it's necessary to point out that one of these nicer of the fellas looks exactly like a hobo.  His beard was longer than my hair, and his hair was even longer.  Scraggly and pleasant to the max.

Here are some amazing excerpts:


"It's NOT YOUR FAULT, man, it's NOT.  YOUR.  FAULT."

"I love you, man.  I love you, man.  I love you, man.  I can't say it anymore, but I love you, man."

"Hey, hey!  How old are you little lady?" (suddenly from a completely different conversation with his friends)
"...What?"
"How oldr you?"
"22..."
"Dear lord, I got a grandkid your age.  But I love you."

"I can NOT find your room."
"WHADDYA MEAN?  I TOLD YA IT'S RIGHT UP THE ELEVATOR."
"I know, but with the elevator, I couldn't find it."

 "Am I your singer, am I your singer?"
"I'll be who you want me to be, HAHAHA!"

"I'm...I'm a dick.  No, I'm not a likeable person, I'm a dick."
"No...you seem nice..."
"Well, you're a beautiful."

"Your old man is a hard-workin' fucker."
"He IS a hard-workin' fucker."
"Your old man is a hard-workin' fucker.  Your old man is a hard-workin fucker."

"Poke him in is right eye, poke him in the right one."

"I had a big hammer in my hand one time, and I couldn't beat that bitch.  I don't know.  I'm old-school."

"They're inbred, remember, they're INBRED.  Their mother is their brother, or something."


-Wednesday

In case you were wondering about the state of our floor...

It was once wet.  Very, very wet.

Also - do you ever mispronounce words in your head?  Mine just said "ruzzins."  Like raisins.

Or some miracle dried fruit related to the raisin.

That cures cancer, but only when correctly pronounced.  In your head.



You NEEDED to know that.
-Wednesday

Bad Mojo

This night is full of it.

Everyone is in a pissy mood, and I'm trying my hardest not to let it rub off on me.  Breathe.  Breeeeathe.  Get home and drink.

So here's the deal this time:

I come in for my shift and the last shift lets me know that there's a fellow requesting a shuttle ride to the airport at 5:30 AM.  Unfortunately, we don't offer the shuttle that early, and at 11 PM at night (with a 4:30 AM wakeup call) it's too late for me to call up to his room and inform him.  SO.  I do the next best thing and call a cab to pick him up in the morning instead.  It's not ideal...but it's a way to the airport.

There's a legitimate reason the shuttle isn't available that early.  For starters, the shuttle is a van with the hotel logo on the side.  Certain people are allowed to drive this van.  Those people are awake in the daytime.  Without prior arrangements, no one is here at 5:30 AM except moi, and I can't exactly drop everything at the front desk to run a guest to the airport in the company vehicle.

So yeah.  Kinda no wiggle room on that.  Nothin' I can do.

And did I know this fellow would be angry about it?  Absolutely.  I guess I just wasn't REALLY prepared.

You know...actually...I'm too frustrated to pen it all down.  Let's put it this way.  He came down ten minutes early, implying he was already checked out because he received his receipt (bill) under the door.  I explain about the shuttle/taxi situation, after which point he becomes extremely upset, specifically at the last shift.  I tried explaining that they were new, tried pointing out that he still had a ride, but all I got was that he'd have made other arrangements had they told him that.  He insisted that it didn't matter that they were new, saying that he's been a teacher for 46 years and he teaches people like that.

I was so shocked at that, that I actually asked him specifically - people like what?

He replied, people who don't get it done.  I tried making conversation about teaching, asking him what level he taught.  He said all of them, and when I started to say that my mother taught high school and they frequently gave her students that- he cut me off saying that it didn't matter, people who don't get it done, don't get it done.

That part pisses me off more than anything.  More than him coming back in repetitively to ask me where the late taxi was or for different taxi business cards.  More than him implying that there was somehow something I should be doing to make the ride come faster, raising his eyebrows and ducking his head at me, throwing out his arms.  More than his other arrangements, how angry he was, anything he had to say.  That haughty assumption that they were all-around fuck-ups because they didn't know something and made an honest mistake because of it.  It wasn't a mistake in his eyes - it was a sign of total failure.  They were defined in his eyes as things, objects, lazy, not driven, losers.  I see this in teachers a lot.  They stop relating.  Students who don't turn in their homework assignments, who stop trying because they don't care, because they're scared, because they're shamed, because they're told they're stupid - become things that are defined as stupid, instead of people.  To this old man, the last shift was composed of two things.  Those two things dropped the ball, and he feels he should have expected it, and that they would continue to drop the ball for the rest of their lives because they aren't living, breathing, thinking, learning people anymore.

I just hate that.

Yeah...I did get all of that from a rude, five minute, half-heated conversation.  I'm good at observing people.

In any case, he got his damned ride from a late taxi driver who is probably still reeling from whatever black, sticky, abysmal atmosphere he bubbled from his face hole.  God.  I hate people who DO that - who fill the room with dark, depressing, condescending poison.  Right before he left, when he'd come to a pause in ranting about people like that, I told him well, thank goodness we have teachers, right?

I think he knew.  I hope he knew.

The girl from last night came in just as he was packing his bags into the taxi.  I warned her so she could hide in the back until he'd gotten in.  I don't even want to think about how he'd have laid into her had he seen her again before leaving.  The world doesn't need bullshit like that.

Some people never grow out of tantrums.  I hope his world is brighter at its baseline.

-An extremely worn out and frustrated Wednesday.
TGIF.

P.S. - reading over it now, I realize that in skipping large chunks of the action I didn't really portray his behavior.  I'm too tired to go through and edit.  Just know he was pretty loud, rude, and pissed off.  Blah.  Just trust me.  -.-