One thing that never fails to cultivate a healthy red rage deep within the chambers of my heart is when customers come up to the desk when I'm clearly helping another person and start talking to me as if no one else is there. I hate when this happens with a passion heretofore unmatched by all other passions to the best of my knowledge, and I've read Manon Lescaut. Not two minutes ago I was speaking with a customer when a self-important skank walked up and started asking me about room rates. My response is always polite externally but internally it runs along the lines of: "I understand that you are a skank but I must ask that any further charming displays of your personality be postponed until a later time, preferably after I go home. NOW F**K OFF BEFORE I SHIV YOU WITH THIS HERE PLASTIC SPORK."
My very favorite part is when they act like "How rude are you?" when I say, "I'll be with you in a moment." Yes, I'm clearly the barbarian in this exchange. How dare I assist customers all willy-nilly on a first-come, first-serve basis? How could I act as though anyone else mattered? I sincerely apologize. Allow me to prostrate myself before you by presenting you with the remains of my skull once the orangutans have been loosed and are finished with me. No? You don't want it?
Oh well. At least it's easy to tell which customers are going to come over and interrupt you because they always exhibit behavior consistent with IHAIT: I'm Here And I'm Trash. It's pronounced "I hate" as in: "I hate skanks but they keep renting hotel rooms." Some examples of IHAIT are:
1. Cranky fewhales (ladies that are not necessarily straight out of Melville as they first appear but are heavy on the breathing and on the demands they make to front desk staff)
2. Over-exposed breasts (attractive-looking or no, always NO) with a blue vein running down the middle like an unholy road map to Easyville
3. Undyed roots or poorly attached hair extensions
4. An annoyingly shrill voice that could pierce medieval armor
5. Eyes that are glazed like pottery due to that evening's considerable whiskey intake
You can use IHAIT in virtually any situation to help you identify potentially troublesome guests. Oh goody, here comes one now. She looks like a cross between the films Ringmaster and Desperately Seeking Susan. Oh IHAIT, you never let me down!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Alcohol
My co-worker and I are thrilled today because my boss's husband had a doctor's appointment so she left right after my shift started. Too bad there’s no bar, or I'd be serving up mojitos right now. In the past, customers have asked me why we don't have a bar, and I think that’s a valid question. I'm pretty sure alcohol would turn my boss into a nicer person, as well as making her easier to be around (especially if everyone else was drinking as well). However, it's always possible she'd be one of those violent drunks--the kind where they come up and start talking to you but they're slurring everything they say and then out of nowhere they start punching you on the face and arms for no apparent reason, like they're your stepdad or something. But of course, if she ever did that to me she’d get laid out like quality flooring.
And it would be doubtlessly beautiful, like something out of a Splenda commercial. You know, where the screen is sprayed in the corners with what looks like liquid gold, and there's soft, pretty music playing in the background, and children are dancing and birds are chirping and then suddenly there I would be, opening up a non-dented can of Miracle Whup on Jackie. And then when it was over a butterfly would land in my hand and gently open and close its wings, as if to say, "Splenda is made from sugar so it tastes like sugar. Please continue to defeat the undead bosses of the world using your superior karate skills." Okay, I just re-read that and it seriously sounds like I've been drinking. Time for a cookie break.
And it would be doubtlessly beautiful, like something out of a Splenda commercial. You know, where the screen is sprayed in the corners with what looks like liquid gold, and there's soft, pretty music playing in the background, and children are dancing and birds are chirping and then suddenly there I would be, opening up a non-dented can of Miracle Whup on Jackie. And then when it was over a butterfly would land in my hand and gently open and close its wings, as if to say, "Splenda is made from sugar so it tastes like sugar. Please continue to defeat the undead bosses of the world using your superior karate skills." Okay, I just re-read that and it seriously sounds like I've been drinking. Time for a cookie break.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Hippies
I for one think a prime example of the type of person my boss is resides on the back of her office door. It's a short message about how the front desk staff needs to remember to drop their keys off and keep the laundry door locked, and it's signed by the previous manager of the hotel. So this means when my boss started working here, rather than take the sign down and print out a new one (because let's face it, that would have been somewhat professional), she simply drew a thin line through the other manager's name and scrawled her own beneath it. I can't elucidate with words what specifically about this annoys me and elicits my hatred but I do know I'm not the only one here who feels this way.
Okay, I know what you're thinking: Sure, she may be lazy, unprincipled, smelly, possible cemetery refuse and so on, but she saved a tree by recycling paper, right? She can't be that bad if she's saving trees. Well, if that's what you think then this might be a good time to remind all the hippies they're reading the wrong column. Thank you.
Okay, I know what you're thinking: Sure, she may be lazy, unprincipled, smelly, possible cemetery refuse and so on, but she saved a tree by recycling paper, right? She can't be that bad if she's saving trees. Well, if that's what you think then this might be a good time to remind all the hippies they're reading the wrong column. Thank you.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Complaints
Our guests really enjoy complaining--especially about the front desk staff. I mean those sumbitches just thrive on reporting our various offenses to management and corporate headquarters alike. For your reading pleasure, I have thoughtfully compiled a top five list of common grievances:
1. We sit in chairs. No, really. Sitting...in...chairs. I know, I know. The iron maiden is too good for zoo-residing sloths such as ourselves. Allegedly, sitting during any part of your eight-hour or more, no-break-except-for-maybe-your-back shift means you look idle and not at the ready. But guess what--last time I checked, I didn't need to be standing to be within reach of the special button under the counter that launches the f**king laser light show, confetti parade, and petting zoo whenever you walk through the door, you ignorant little twerps. The people who bitch about this probably never had to work a day in their lives.
2. We watch TV when there is nothing else to do. GASP. Can you imagine the acid reflux a customer must endure when they've majestically swept through our door--fully expecting the cherubs from on high to come down to the lobby, robe them, lotion their feet, and chariot them up to their room--but instead the first thing they see is the GB half-heartedly channel-surfing because they are one of three total guests checking in that evening? I am surprised the complaint papers filed on the subject aren't splattered with the telltale stains that only vomit can leave behind.
3. We are rude. Okay, I’ll give you this one. We are without question human (unlike our previously oft-mentioned boss) and sometimes customers annoy us. I honestly do not enjoy things such as:
A) Customers roughly stuffing cookies into their mouths and talking to me at the same time (thus exposing me to that dreaded trilogy of visually stunning half-chewed food, bile-smelling spittle, and the snorting that all too often accompanies such feral feasting)
B) Customers who are so helplessly retarded they've gone and locked themselves out of their room without any clothes on
C) Customers asking me for detailed out-of-state directions and when I can't help them they act like I should just take this uniform off right now because I am the worst representative of this or any hotel they can think of ("How is it she doesn't know how to get from our house in Michigan to the IKEA in Des Moines, Iowa without taking I-85? Unbelievable.")
D) Customers who call and ask for the hospital rate and I tell them in order to get it you have to have some sort of paperwork because let's face it, anyone can call and say they're visiting the hospital but they might not be, so you have to prove it, and they flip out and rant for a considerable period of time about how you're a liar before finally just hanging up on you and then calling back ten minutes later sweet as pie to see if you've changed your mind about needing that paperwork yet
E) Customers who want to pay their bill in cash but when they learn that requires a thirty dollar deposit they respond reasonably and like adults by completely losing their s**t and running down the list of reasons why your hotel stinks and so do you
F) Customers who interrupt my blogging because their room key doesn't work, or some such nonsense
I'm sorry, but that stuff just sets me off.
4. We don't listen attentively enough when they try to tell us stories about how they can't go to the bathroom unless there is a significantly wide area around the toilet because a gentleman who should really be keeping this gem of a tale to himself wants us to know he has to squat in a certain way in order to use the facilities or he can't use them at all and so on. This actually happened. The "gentleman" (who was elderly and probably senile, I'll admit) reported to management that we did not appear to be listening closely enough to True Tales of Tragedy on the Toilet, Volume 1 and furthermore he was not impressed with our all-too-obvious lack of compassion. Well, I have to concede we probably did not listen as diligently as we could have, although to be fair I don't know anyone who would actually want to be treated to the diarrhea diaries of old Joe--except for maybe other old Joes. I'm still young, so let's hope I have a few more years left on me before I too am forced to hunch like Quasimodo over the commode in order to relieve myself. And let us pray when that time comes I won't be heartlessly shunned by strangers who couldn’t care less about my poop. Moving on now.
5. We won't give them what they want, when they want and how they want it. This could be anything from extra towels to plunging a toilet (which you clogged, might I point out, all by yourself on your last visit to brown town) to a new desk chair to a new room to a comped room. Comped rooms are quite the popular request around here. I especially enjoy when people come down to the lobby wearing the gravest of expressions (as if to say, “How could you even give us these keys? Are you not aware that room 306 is an unkempt mausoleum consisting entirely of homeless people’s remains?"), look me right in the eye with absolutely no shame whatsoever because they weren’t raised right, and say: "The blanket on the bed has a hole in it the size of a particle of dust. This is unacceptable. We want a free room."
My response to the aforementioned bitchery? I think people simply expect too much. They want rock-bottom prices and Ritz Carlton-style accommodations and service. When reality sets in and they realize they're not getting what they didn't pay for, disappointment turns them into colicky, mommyless diaper babies. Which, actually, would explain all the talk about poop.
1. We sit in chairs. No, really. Sitting...in...chairs. I know, I know. The iron maiden is too good for zoo-residing sloths such as ourselves. Allegedly, sitting during any part of your eight-hour or more, no-break-except-for-maybe-your-back shift means you look idle and not at the ready. But guess what--last time I checked, I didn't need to be standing to be within reach of the special button under the counter that launches the f**king laser light show, confetti parade, and petting zoo whenever you walk through the door, you ignorant little twerps. The people who bitch about this probably never had to work a day in their lives.
2. We watch TV when there is nothing else to do. GASP. Can you imagine the acid reflux a customer must endure when they've majestically swept through our door--fully expecting the cherubs from on high to come down to the lobby, robe them, lotion their feet, and chariot them up to their room--but instead the first thing they see is the GB half-heartedly channel-surfing because they are one of three total guests checking in that evening? I am surprised the complaint papers filed on the subject aren't splattered with the telltale stains that only vomit can leave behind.
3. We are rude. Okay, I’ll give you this one. We are without question human (unlike our previously oft-mentioned boss) and sometimes customers annoy us. I honestly do not enjoy things such as:
A) Customers roughly stuffing cookies into their mouths and talking to me at the same time (thus exposing me to that dreaded trilogy of visually stunning half-chewed food, bile-smelling spittle, and the snorting that all too often accompanies such feral feasting)
B) Customers who are so helplessly retarded they've gone and locked themselves out of their room without any clothes on
C) Customers asking me for detailed out-of-state directions and when I can't help them they act like I should just take this uniform off right now because I am the worst representative of this or any hotel they can think of ("How is it she doesn't know how to get from our house in Michigan to the IKEA in Des Moines, Iowa without taking I-85? Unbelievable.")
D) Customers who call and ask for the hospital rate and I tell them in order to get it you have to have some sort of paperwork because let's face it, anyone can call and say they're visiting the hospital but they might not be, so you have to prove it, and they flip out and rant for a considerable period of time about how you're a liar before finally just hanging up on you and then calling back ten minutes later sweet as pie to see if you've changed your mind about needing that paperwork yet
E) Customers who want to pay their bill in cash but when they learn that requires a thirty dollar deposit they respond reasonably and like adults by completely losing their s**t and running down the list of reasons why your hotel stinks and so do you
F) Customers who interrupt my blogging because their room key doesn't work, or some such nonsense
I'm sorry, but that stuff just sets me off.
4. We don't listen attentively enough when they try to tell us stories about how they can't go to the bathroom unless there is a significantly wide area around the toilet because a gentleman who should really be keeping this gem of a tale to himself wants us to know he has to squat in a certain way in order to use the facilities or he can't use them at all and so on. This actually happened. The "gentleman" (who was elderly and probably senile, I'll admit) reported to management that we did not appear to be listening closely enough to True Tales of Tragedy on the Toilet, Volume 1 and furthermore he was not impressed with our all-too-obvious lack of compassion. Well, I have to concede we probably did not listen as diligently as we could have, although to be fair I don't know anyone who would actually want to be treated to the diarrhea diaries of old Joe--except for maybe other old Joes. I'm still young, so let's hope I have a few more years left on me before I too am forced to hunch like Quasimodo over the commode in order to relieve myself. And let us pray when that time comes I won't be heartlessly shunned by strangers who couldn’t care less about my poop. Moving on now.
5. We won't give them what they want, when they want and how they want it. This could be anything from extra towels to plunging a toilet (which you clogged, might I point out, all by yourself on your last visit to brown town) to a new desk chair to a new room to a comped room. Comped rooms are quite the popular request around here. I especially enjoy when people come down to the lobby wearing the gravest of expressions (as if to say, “How could you even give us these keys? Are you not aware that room 306 is an unkempt mausoleum consisting entirely of homeless people’s remains?"), look me right in the eye with absolutely no shame whatsoever because they weren’t raised right, and say: "The blanket on the bed has a hole in it the size of a particle of dust. This is unacceptable. We want a free room."
My response to the aforementioned bitchery? I think people simply expect too much. They want rock-bottom prices and Ritz Carlton-style accommodations and service. When reality sets in and they realize they're not getting what they didn't pay for, disappointment turns them into colicky, mommyless diaper babies. Which, actually, would explain all the talk about poop.
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