"HEY, BUDDY."
It's not quite 7am. I am in the back office wrapped up in a blanket I snagged from the housekeeping closet, my head resting on the only available horizontal surface, a convenient free-standing plastic shelving unit nestled next to the employee fridge.
"HELLO?"
At first I tried sleeping on the floor, but I quickly realized the constant stream of traffic through the lobby would make it a pain to have to peel myself off the ground on command. For an excruciating five seconds I contemplated my options: I could rest my head while sitting at the front desk (bad call), I checked the in-house list to see if there was a nearby empty room I could make mine for half an hour (too much walking), and then I settled for the metal folding chair on which my purse was sitting in the back office. I wrapped myself in my loaned blanket, placed a pillow on the hard, white, plastic surface of the nearest shelf, and I let the humming of the adjacent fridge lull me into a nap.
7:15am. I set my phone alarm to 15 minute intervals so I wouldn't sleep through the morning, but it became quickly apparent this step was completely unnecessary.
"I'M TAKING SOME COFFEE."
My leg has fallen asleep, I struggle to stand and I cannot make sense of the jabbering coming from the lobby.
"Is there something I can help you with, sir?" By the time I crawled out of my napping corner, the person in the lobby had left. I see a pair of bright red plastic tags sitting on the desk; room 201 has checked out. I struggle with mornings even under the best conditions, but today will be much harder. The five chopped up, sub-par hours of sleep I got yesterday were not enough and I am troubled by the prospect of having to spend the morning giving too much attention to simple matters.
The check-out process is easy: drop your keys and have a good day. The breakfast is complementary and I do not require an update from guests each time they help themselves. I'm not all that interested in discussing the weather either; in a lobby full of windows it goes without saying what is happening outside.
"Boy, you Iowans sure like your snow"
"Excuse me?"
"That's all you have here! It snows every day."
In reality, it's been at least a week since last snowfall, and I can say with a degree of certainty that the collective population in Iowa is grateful for the mild winter we have had thus far. The trio standing in front of me are checking out, they requested receipts and proceeded to fill those lagging seconds with mindless blabber. I take a quick glace at their guest folio as I wait for the printer to spool the page; their address reads Ontario, Canada, which accounts for their funny speech pattern and interesting choice in attire. Setting aside all cultural assumptions, I'm puzzled by their comment on the snow. A few mouse clicks later I read that Ontario is no stranger to heavy snowfall. Wtf.
-----
I never know when my boss will be here. I like the freedom of not having someone micromanage the way I run my shift, my performance suffers when there is a person standing over my shoulder. I do, however, wish that he would keep an appointment book to make it known when we should be expecting company.
A lady dressed in an ugly brown tweed suit entered the lobby, her face showing hints of what might have been beauty at one point, but now is mostly covered with pock marks and oil slicks obviously pointing out the fact that she did not bother to wash her face this morning. She nervously approaches the desk and asks for ____ _____, the owner. She has an appointment. Before I even had a chance to say a word (or even process a thought), the expression on my face tells it all. To confirm, I tell her that the person she is looking for is a name I have never heard before and that my manager is not in this morning. She fumbles with an outdated cell phone (flip style, with a tattered blue face plate that shows signs of being dropped too many times) and makes a call. She barely stammers out a sentence, doing a poor job of suppressing her shock at finding out her "appointment" to which her company dutifully assigned her is a phantom. And then my boss walks in.
I say to him quietly, "P, this lady is here to see the owner. She says she has an appointment." Brown suit lady drops her phone at this scene, scoops it up and teeters a few feet forward to extend her hand to shake.
"Mr P, my name is ______, I am here to try to save you some money on your credit processor."
"No. We have a contract, three year... we cannot break."
"But that's what we do. We pay the fee and offer you a better deal."
"No, brand new contract. We cannot."
"But that's our service. Our company..."
"Not interested," my boss spews in the direction of brown suit lady, with no effort to hide his contempt as he storms out of the lobby. It is then that I realize the salesperson's cell phone was still on the line as she pulls it from her purse.
"Mr P is very busy right now, I guess I'm just going to have to leave."
I gave a halfhearted smile as she left, hoping to impart some sort of apology, or pity, or perhaps encouragement. I picture her in her car, an older, white, beat up SUV about as well kept as her personal appearance, pulled over on the side of the road, crying over the humiliation of being turned down before she even finished the sentence. I can't imagine she's had this job long, or that she'll have the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to be a seasoned solicitor.
-----
My boss's mother-in-law helps with housekeeping five days a week. I respect the decision to have her in our employment because she is a huge help, not to mention I am sure she appreciates having a purpose to her daily life as opposed to sitting at home unattended. What I cannot understand is why she is given messages to pass between the main housekeeper and the front desk. You see, she doesn't speak English. Our communication consists entirely of room numbers (thankfully she has mastered the English numbers from one to twenty) and crude hand gestures. And when that fails, she repeats everything louder.
"Wan-oh-seex [finger point] [grunt] wan-oh-ate. Keemee [points to her chest]."
Thankfully, I had already spoken to someone else earlier about having the guest in 106 move to 108 so housekeeping can continue their week-long deep cleaning treatment. , so I knew what she was getting at, but I could not figure out what the hell "keemee" was suppose to mean.
"KEE...MEE [points at window, drags finger to point at her chest]."
"Uh... okay. 106 moving to 108. Sure."
"No. [deep breath] YOO GEE MEE KEE WAN-OH-ATE."
"OH! You want the key to 108. Of course."
I still have no idea what pointing to the window signified. Kee wan-oh-ate would have sufficed, or she could have grabbed it off the rack herself.
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