Well, thankfully it's Fridnesday.

Room 108 paid ENTIRELY in change. Fourty-two dollars and fifty-six cents. No fucking joke. For the time it took me to count all the change, I should have just paid for his room my damn self. Jesus.

A guest refused to stay once he learned that we don't offer flat screen TVs in the rooms. Umm... really?

Another guest asked to stay for free since he "was owed a refund" from last year. Yeah, sorry dude, you're delusional. Thankfully he wasn't argumentative and just paid for his room.

107 was so eager to get into his room that he left without signing the receipt... or taking the key. He also gave me his best "The Wire"-esque shiiiiiiiit... quite comical.

Room 314 checked out early, which was all good cuz at 7pm I was already at 70% occupancy and I could use another king size room. I went to go service it (mostly just to pocket my $10 fee), and I found that this non-smoking room had been smoked in... excessively. Not only that, but our oh-so-courteous guest had taken the smoke detector from the wall and removed the battery. Dear guest, THAT IS A FELONY. I'm going to do him the one kindness of not turning over his information to the cops and just putting him on our Do Not Rent list. Fucker.

Double post Monday: the ri-god-damn-diculous edition.

Après les Pâques, that's what I've decided to name this time of year: late enough in the Spring to be past the frost, early enough that the construction crews have yet to swarm.

They're like locusts, and it used to be a great thing for business. But today, all SIX of the construction companies I've spoken with are low-balling me on rates and ducking out looking for "cheaper alternatives." News flash: this is it.

I don't consider it my personal job to finance the works of well-funded construction crews. I don't consider it to be extraordinary for a company to shell out $300 to lodge four guys for a week. I also don't consider it a "group" to have four rooms, or "extended stay" for an unspecified and un-guaranteed length of time.

The downside to construction season: the weather, and cheap bastards. Today seems to be a plague of both.

Easter chocolate hangover = no one wants to check out.

I came into work this morning expecting ten rooms to checkout. At 10:44am, 16 minutes until checkout, only 2 have checked out.

This puts a serious kink in my routine and it certainly doesn't help that one of the housekeepers has today off.

-----

The guest in room 105, a dapper-loooking black man, came to me asking for an extension for payment. His condition was that he could afford to leave a partial payment of $21.00 and the rest would be paid after he go off from work at 5pm.

I explained the policies about partial payments (we just don't do them, sorry) and late payments (you have an hour, starting NOW... tick tick tick) and he walked away without a word.

No more than two minutes later a pungent smelling black woman dressed in her Sunday best demanded to speak to the owner... not just the manager, the OWNER. I introduced myself as the manager-on-duty and asked if there was anything I could help her with. She informed me she's the wife of the gentleman I just spoke with, and she pleaded that I make special arrangements to accommodate their situation. I gave her until 1pm (TWO hours past checkout) which I thought was a very generous offer, but she retaliated with "I guess I'll just have to take my business elsewhere."

And the kicker, before she walked out of the lobby, "God help you, have a blessed day."

Some good news and some bad news: The Fridnesday Edition.

I was really hoping to sweep the 108 situation under the rug as an isolated event, but clearly I was wrong.

When my alarm when off at 10:38 this morning, I rolled over to shut my phone off and check my texts, just like I do every morning. Like always, I had eBay and Living Social waiting in my inbox, and a surprise text from my coworker.

"OMG! Call me here @ work."

I never called her, I figured it was another one of her exaggerated wastes-of-my-time.

I went about my day as usual, thinking nothing of the text. But when I walked into work at 2:57pm I immediately noticed something had gone wrong. The lock on the wooden door the back office had been smashed to pieces; literally, there were pieces of wood strewn everywhere. The largest chunk had been set aside, along with the locking apparatus, but shards of wood were stuck in the carpet despite an obvious attempt at vacuuming.

Apparently, the crazy lesbians in Rm 108 had some sort of domestic dispute early this morning. It started inside their room where they broke a mirror. At some point one crazy lesbian thought it would be a good idea to run to the lobby. She ran behind the desk where the morning guy tried to restrain her, but she locked herself in the back office before he could do anything. The second crazy lesbian also ran behind the desk, morning guy tried yet again to restrain her but he was pushed down and crazy lesbian #2 broke down the door trying to get to CL#1. Morning guy called the cops, CL#2 was arrested and CL#1 was escorted off the property by the city's finest.

The broken mirror in the room was cleaned up and replaced, and thankfully the door they broke isn't ancillary to business functions so it won't hurt that the repair will have to wait a while. It appeared that the dust had settled by the time I got to work, until about 4:30 when a representative of the State Department of Human Resources called asking to speak to CL#2. I informed her that said guest was no longer registered, and she demanded that I surrender any and all contact info. I gave her the number to the police station. She immediately recognized the number and told me to "stop fooling around." I really didn't appreciate her tone or her attitude or the fact that she expected it to be MY responsibility to maintain detailed records of past guests' whereabouts all times. As nicely as I could, I informed her that CL#2 would never be allowed as a guest here and I requested that her office stop calling this establishment regarding CL#2. She hung up. Fuck you, state worker lady. I have better things to do.

-----

The good news, after the shithole that is today, is that the lovely gentlemen of Delong Construction are back! So far it's just two guys, but they're the foremen and this isn't unusual. I expect their minions to join them within the next two weeks, thus officially marking the start of construction season. After all this crazy lesbian nonsense, I'm REALLY looking forward to having these guys back. All they care about is that they have a place to shower and have their beer, not to mention they're fun as shit during check-in. Gotta love summer.

-----

http://news.travel.aol.com/2011/04/20/bert-kreischer-the-worlds-worst-hotel-guest/

There should be more people doing this, and shame on the article's writer. He's the BEST guest ever, and I would be ever so humbled to have him as my guest. HILARITY.

Things I did before you even woke today.

Slept through my alarm this morning... yet again, a shower wasn't optional but it also wasn't possible, so I brought my overnight bag to work. I also brought my dirty clothes, I had a load of laundry in the washer as I showered. Boss called as I was drying myself off, I lied and told him I was in the laundry room.

Now I'm relaxing to a Nirvana shuffle, eating blueberries, reading about the Batman comics, and contemplating a cup of coffee. And it's only 8:30. Good morning :)

-----

Room for more.

thoughts on education rot and studying business.

The default major.

The majority of the reactions I get when I tell strangers that I'm studying business falls into 2 categories: they are either impressed, or perplexed. But to be fair, I got the same reactions when revealing that my major was philosophy, although there was a third reaction that consisted of the majority (pity).

The people who are impressed by my business curriculum tend to assume that I'll be studying finance or economics and I'm headed to scale the ranks at a Fortune 500 company.

The people who are perplexed by my study-of-choice assume that I'm interested in general business, in which case spending money at a major university is probably a waste.

The truth is, I'm not interested in either. I'm well aware that in business you don't need a degree to succeed, and I'm especially aware that education in the university sense isn't even remotely relevant in terms of the hotel industry. If I had it my way, the world (or at least this country) would be different: jobs would be earned on merit and college education would be education in the purest form, as opposed to a standard stepping stone in the path towards career success. However, this is not the case. Unfortunately, due to the norms of our society as it currently stands, I am less marketable, less profitable, and less worthy of a fair salary due to the fact that I am sans degree.

My reason for choosing business was not because I wanted to learn or study business. My job gives me more than enough practical knowledge than any comprehensive business degree could possibly offer; on top of that, I have minimal interest in business as a theoretical study. In a nutshell, as quoted in a user comment to above-referenced article, "One does not have to go to college to learn how to learn, much less to learn how to work."

After a lengthy discussion with my boyfriend on the benefits of college, I will admit I have enjoyed my experience. I agree with his assertion that the general liberal arts requirements are enriching on both an educational and personal level. I don't know that I'll ever put my knowledge from the Greek Mythology course I took to practical use, but I cannot deny that it expanded my horizons. That being said, I am hella frustrated having to spin my wheels in another semester of college so that one day I can have the letters BBA follow my name on job applications.

The skills that I have that will one day land me a job as hotel manager, the same skills that will help me become a GREAT hotel manager, are skills that no school could teach me. The things that I know and the things that I know how to do well came from experience and practice, and the seat that I occupy in my business courses are a self-realization of the stereotype "default major" student discussed in the article.

I chose business because
1. It's related to my life goals,
2. I knew it would be easy, and
3. Since I have to get a degree by society's standards, I didn't see the harm in picking the route that would require the least engagement.

But that's the problem with young society today: lack of engagement. People are loftily cruising through the college experience with minimal engagement with the absurd expectation to demand a job at the end of their four party years. Of course, I'm talking about the bottom-dwellers, the people who never bothered to do an honors project or take an internship or get a job; the people who went to school with no idea how to pay for it, expecting to land a job without having to work too hard that would afford them a lifestyle un-parallel to the amount of effort they put in.

In an educational sense, I am cruising. I show up to class, contribute what's necessary, spend at most 2 hours a week doing work outside of class, and I'm sitting on a GPA truly unrepresentative of my effort. I have no intention of joining any student business associations or doing an honors project, but the truth is that as a Bachelor's-holding member of society, no one would care. And that's the saddest part, that the educational system (not just the "default" business major) is pumping out an unprecedented number of graduates that aren't contributing to society.

So what's the point?

Ch-ch-ch-changes (it's Fridnesday).

This week has been very exciting and busy at the XXX XXX XXX. We kicked off all the excitement early last week with a shipment of new bedspreads! And we got all the same color/print so that we minimize the psychology behind room selection (seriously, some people get "vibes" and I've had to reassign rooms over stupid things like linen colors).

I spent a considerable amount of time this weekend drafting linen schedules with my boss's wife so that we could systematically enter all the rooms in the shortest AND less intrusive manner. During that time, the ice machine broke. We promptly ordered a new one, but it took 3 days to deliver and install, so in the mean time I was having to direct guests to help themselves to ice that we kept in a cooler in the lobby.

This turn in weather prompted my boss to switch our lobby thermostat to the cooling setting, only to find that it didn't work. We called our handy HVAC guy, Mr Glen, and he fixed it in a matter of minutes. Later that night, my silly coworker decided that 65 degrees was a little too chilly for her liking and she turned the heat on... and effectively blew up the furnace. It was slow-burning in a wood-and-lint-filled room for 2 days before my boss finally asked "what's that burning smell?"

"Well P, someone set the thermostat to heat and then it made that smell."

A few minutes up in the attic confirmed that the furnace was a small spark away from turning this place into a crater. Thankfully our HVAC guy is uncommonly accessible at all hours of the day and he delivered the parts to the new furnace this afternoon, to be installed first thing in the morning.

On top of all that, we have been replacing the beds, mattress AND box springs. So not only do our guests have the luxury of fresh fluffy comforters, but also clean, yet unstained by various body fluids, firm new mattresses.

The only downside is that the majority of the old mattresses were still in decent condition, so my bosses decided to store them in a room (a room I REALLY REALLY wish I still had in my inventory) until we could donate them to the Habitat ReStore. Habitat refused our donation due to the overcrowding of their warehouse, and since we're down a room having to store these, I suggested craigslist. I listed the beds in the free section this afternoon and I am pleased to say I have already unloaded a couple of mattresses.

It's been a busy and stressful time over the last few days, but I'm thrilled at the idea that damn near everything on the property is new. I'm also happy I was able to play witness to these events, so that one day when I'm the manager I'll know how to handle the crisis of a blown-up thermostat and a broken ice machine in the same week.

Good News Monday, and more WTF moments.

I had been mulling over the idea of finishing the training that I started at the Best Western for a few weeks now. When I was first hired by my boss, it had been his intention to have me work part-time at both properties and I trained at both. But one thing led to another and my talents were needed more at my current job; three and a half years later I am still here.

This morning out of the blue my boss asked me if I would be interested in working at the Best Western over the summer. My immediate answer was yes, though we have some details to arrange before I'm willing to start working.

The best news is that I get to complete my training in Visual Matrix and officially go through the Best Western certification program, which I imagine is going to look just dandy on my résumé. Speaking of which, I finally got around to making a new résumé yesterday at work and I have to admit that I am hella impressed with myself. My intent was to type as much as I could (which I thought would be about 1/3 of a page) and then start fluffing to fill the rest of the page, but halfway through page 2 I realized exactly how much I've accomplished.

-----

The lady who called me thick yesterday complimented me on my necklace... and my bosom. Who the fuck says "bosom"?

A "regular guest" (his words, not mine... I like to refer to him as "regular pain in my ass") wanted to leave a deposit of $10 to guarantee his room for another night. Really? Ten dollars? How fucking generous of you... GTFO.

An Asian man who I could barely understand wanted a discount. How much, you ask? Oh, just a measly 33%. He seemed to think he was doing me a favor by naming his own price and asking that his checkout time be 8:00pm. Sorry Crouching Tiger, I'm not William Shatner. Take your name-your-own-price bullshit elsewhere.

Today's episode of "Are You Fucking Kidding Me?"

Someone the size of an overfed midget asked me if we offer hard boiled eggs for breakfast. Umm... that's a solid no.

A black lady in oversize sunglasses and a faux-fur vest said to me, "Where's the breakfast? You look like you ate it all. I'm just kidding... thick ain't nothing wrong." She also told me I had beautiful dimples, at least I think she was referring to the ones on my face.

suck on that.

After receiving the score on my latest Accounting quiz, (FOUR missed points, in case you care) I was in a furied frustrated rage with the material and the course as a whole. I thoroughly enjoyed Financial Accounting and it was not only easily understandable but applicable. Managerial Accounting... not to much.

In so many words, I can sum up how I feel about this class in general: fuck this shit.

There are certain things I know beyond a doubt: I will never be a supermodel or an astronaut, or an accountant. Or an employee of a manufacturing plant. So forgive me when I say fuck this Manufacturing Overhead Production Data Cost Data fixed/variable (un)controllable cost Report bullshit.

I.DON'T.CARE.

The only thing that I can say has been minutely useful to learn in all 12 weeks I have suffered through this class has been Financial and Flexible Budgeting. Without realizing, it was something I had been doing on almost a weekly basis for the last couple of years.

I can't speak in terms of "production schedules" since we are not an assembly line, but I am intimately familiar with occupancy rates per quarter over the last few years, and I take that information into account when deciding new seasonal rates. Currently we are leaving the winter season and entering construction season. I expect to see an influx of Monday-Friday regulars, mostly double rooms, over the next 4-5 months. Most of these are workers staying on a per diem budget, so we sell rooms using the angle of double occupancy (having a roommate to split costs) and we strongly encourage them to pay by the week instead of 5 days with a 2-day break over the weekend. The benefit of that is a marginal increase in profit for our business (around $10-20 per room) and the guests have the freedom to leave their belongings over the weekend and come and go as they please.

Aside from football season, this is the only time of year I wish I had more double rooms to sell. Anyone with the capacity of observation would be able to pick up on these small details, but only someone like me could harness that information to boast the fact that my hotel has struck a weeks-long exclusive deal with PCI to lodge their workers for the duration of the summer.

So fuck you, Managerial Accounting. Sure, I don't know shit about production schedules, but I can tell you plenty about return-on-investment and average daily rates. BOO YA.

thoughts on character flaws.

I was a very gullible child. Unfortunately, that trait has carried into my adulthood and I put too much faith in promises made.

I tend to take people at their word, and for the most part I like having the quality of being trusting and an optimist; however, this is ALL KINDS of bad for business. Once, I allowed a person to stay in a room without a guaranteed payment; he swore his boss was going to call first thing in the morning with a credit card number, but he slipped out in the middle of the night and no call was ever received. My boss made me pay for the room out of my own pocket. Needless to say, I learned my lesson.

I'll always remember his name and face, and I have access to a copy of his drivers license in the event we ever cross paths again. But really, I'm not looking for revenge... just a chance to remind him that I'm the better person.

On the flip side, I get the benefit of knowing that I'm more generous than I have any reason to be. And from time to time I come across a person who is kind enough to take the time to bring their thanks to my attention; it is for this very reason that I enjoy my job the most. Aside from my insolent gripes about the things guests so often do, I enjoy being able to exercise my compassion and flexibility in such a manner that can be helpful to those in difficult situations while still accomplishing my goals on the business end of things.

For example:

A guest who had been staying here for 27 consecutive days had failed to pay for his room yesterday. I knew the room was still occupied and I caught some glimpses here and there of the guest's family, but my repeated attempts calling and knocking on his door went unanswered and it became uncomfortably apparent that he was dodging my advances. I very easily could have had him ejected from the room, but instead I chose to step out on a limb on his behalf to arrange for payment without actually collecting money.

Let me explain. After 31 consecutive days lodging at a hotel, it becomes the person's legal residence for which they are not liable to pay the state hospitality tax. That means that all the taxes paid for the first 31 days are to be refunded, and no further taxes are to be collected from the same guest in the same room for subsequent nights rented during this consecutive stay. Because of the technicalities regarding early checkout and refunds on tax exempt rooms, we do not process the tax exemption until AFTER the 31st day. But this has led to an odd situation in which the guest is either given a credit for additional nights or we must process a tender refund for the amount of several hundred dollars, which we probably wouldn't be able to offer in one installment since it's our policy to only keep a small amount of cash on hand.

The guest in question was struggling to make payments after 27 days and I noticed an opportunity to apply his tax-exempt status in advance. If he could come up with a $30 payment and make an agreement not to checkout before the end of his 31st consecutive night, I could apply his back-paid taxes for future nights. In reality it was only an accounting maneuver: I used knowledge of this law and the good faith I had with this customer to transfer "virtual money" (as my dad would say) from the TAXES column to the LODGING INCOME column.

It was nothing illegal or unethical, perhaps a bit questionable regarding the guest's promise not to check out before his 31st night. All in all, I firmly believe it was a good business practice, albeit an uncommon choice. I figured as long as no one went poking around in the tax exempt folder between today and April 7th, all would be good. And then my boss came in.

Somehow, he knows always knows EXACTLY when I'm about to use he restroom and when I'm processing tax exempt statuses, and today he caught me doing both. At first, my boss glossed over the details on this particular room until he noticed the checkout day was 3 days in advance. He grilled me on why I made the decision without consulting him first, and when he was done yelling he let me say my peace. The meat of my argument was in favor of the guest considering his struggling finances, and that it was in our interest as a business to allow an early tax exempt with a 31-day promise so that the tax money would become our lodging income instead of being sent to the State Treasury Department at the end of the financial quarter.

I won the argument, hands down. And I was most proud of myself knowing that I wasn't fighting on behalf of the business and our lodging income, I was fighting to help out a man I hardly know stay in his room a few more nights without making him have to choose between a place to sleep or a meal to eat.

Now, if only I could convey this on my résumé without coming off as a bleeding heart or a pushover. I really am good at what I do.

An open letter to anyone who has ever stayed or will ever stay at a hotel:

Please, for the love of god, do not wait until your checkout to inform the front desk of problems in your room.

Let's explore:

What exactly do you think will happen if you mention your gripes at checkout?

1. You could get some money back. But let's be real, you stayed the whole night so at best you might receive a 10-20% discount. Even at 20%, there's NO AMOUNT that can take back the bad associations you'll always have from your stay and the damage is done. Or,

2. Nothing happens. Front desk makes a note of the problem, apologizes, and you go on about your day. No refund, and you still have bad associations from your stay and the damage is done.

Sure, you've informed the establishment of the problem and from there they can either fix the problem or ignore it and perpetuate the situation. More often than not, it's in the business's best interest to take care of it and it does get tended to. But the reality is that only future patrons get to benefit and you, the complaining guest, still got shafted.

Now, let's rewind a bit and review a better way of handling this:

1. After check-in, IMMEDIATELY check your room. Make sure you're okay with the location of your room, look inside and check that it meets your standards. This could be in terms of cleanliness, furniture arrangement, scents, lighting, or whatever it is you require to make your stay as comfortable as possible.

2. If, heaven forbid, something doesn't look right, call (or walk to) the desk AS SOON as you notice. If something is dirty or broken, we will fix it. If you don't like your room, we have more. If you need pillows or towels or other amenities, we can hook you up. JUST ASK.

3. To elaborate on #2, JUST ASK. JUST ASK. JUST ASK. We would much rather deal with a slightly annoyed customer at the beginning of your stay rather than an irate customer at the end of your stay. If you give us the opportunity to take care of a problem as it arises, I promise it will make things better for the both of us.

Naturally, we aim to maintain rooms in such a manner that guests are not disappointed, but sometimes we miss things. We're human. And we don't live in the rooms so it's hard to be intimately familiar with smaller problems that get passed over at first glance.

If after all of this, we have still failed to address/correct/make arrangements to circumvent your problem without reasonable cause (emphasis on REASONABLE CAUSE), then it is appropriate to lose your shit, scream, pout, and demand a refund. But if you held your tongue for the sake of politeness (or because you're too much of a pussy to speak up) and don't allow us the opportunity to set things straight, you can only blame yourself for your misery.

Much love,
your friendly front desk associate.

thoughts on smoking, fruit, and springtime.

Full disclosure: I smoke occasionally. These days it's more rare than it is occasional, but the point is that I am no stranger to partaking in the burning and inhalation of tobacco. Despite my (mostly drunken) affinity for cancer sticks, I hate the taste of it. I hate the smell, I hate the way my lungs feel like they died a little each time I smoke. The few times I made the mistake of smoking in my car I regretted it for weeks, and I would never even consider smoking indoors.

I'm not particularly sensitive to the smell of smoke since I grew up around it but I am especially sympathetic to those who can't stand it. That being said, why on god's green earth would a person PURPOSELY book a smoking room and then be surprised when it smells like smoke? Thankfully, this fuckfest was not my problem to deal with but I couldn't help but wonder how to properly handle such a situation. The conditions surrounding this particular circumstance was that a singularly unique whirlpool suite is smoking-optional to accommodate a larger range of guests; the guest in question was interested in this whirlpool suite but expressed concern about the smokiness. The guest representative who handled this call explained that the room was mostly occupied by nonsmokers and that the room did not have an overwhelming scent, while still being abundantly clear about the fact that the room was never purported to be smoke-free.

The moral of the story is that people hear what they want to hear, and that a large percentage of hotel guests expect hotels to be maintained in the same manner as their homes. On a crummier day I would have just said "if you don't like it, stay home" but today I feel especially accommodating.

-----

It sucks working weekends, and it takes every ounce of my being to refrain from quitting school and going back to a M-F schedule. In an effort to make this suck a little less, I've taken more care than usual when packing my meals for work so as to improve my energy levels throughout the day. Today I had raisin bran with a splash of skim milk (damn you lactose intolerance) with a banana and orange juice. I also brought an orange for my mid-afternoon snack because I've found that if I have a little something between 1-3pm I am less sleepy and less likely to go home and cram every food within reach into my face.

Today it's easy because I'm fresh off a trip to the grocery store, but come Wednesday I fear I'll be back to chicken nuggets from the freezer. Fruit should be sold in vending machines, it could easily take the place of expired bags of popcorn that no one would miss.

-----

I think it's safe to say that the weather is finally NOT WINTER and I'm going to ignore the fact that my car was covered in frost this morning because today's forecast high is 58 degrees, and tomorrow a whopping 68.

I'm excited for flip-flop weather (despite it ALWAYS being flip-flop weather in my world) and barbeques and suntans, but I'm pretty bummed that in this beautiful weather I discovered a song that saps all the motivation from my convictions and takes me back to a darker place.



Damn you, Adele, for making me wish it was winter again.