Another Locker Room Story

So you may remember me telling you a little about the locker room situation at the hotel. Well, let me get more specific about how awful it is there.I was afflicted with a horrible poop attack while I was on my way to work. About halfway on my trek, my stomach contracted and I knew I was in for a world of hurt. I did my best to walk a steady speed and breath big breaths to deal with the pain. I tried to find some inspirational music to get me through the last few minutes on my approach.

Don't stop believing that you won't shit yourself.

So I make it to the hotel and I am walking as fast as possible down the corridor that leads to the locker room. I bust through the door and practically skip to my favorite stall...and it's occupied. I regained my composure and move over to the only other stall to see this:

Yes, that is a shit stained toilet seat, ladies and gentlemen. My pain subsides for about 20 seconds while I take in the situation. At 5:45am on a Sunday morning, there is someone shitting in the locker room. This has happened ZERO TIMES in the four years that I have worked at the hotel and I find it a cruel joke that it would happen on a day when my only other option is a shit-stained toilet, a urinal, and a sink (trust me, I considered all of my options). I decided I would wait patiently for whoever the hell is shitting to finish so I can ease my suffering. I tried to put on my suit for work, but the pain kicked it up 11 and I ran back into the bathroom to consider my options within a 10 second time-frame: shit on a shit-stained toilet, shit in the sink, or shit my pants.


Rewind seven hours...

According to eye-witness accounts, a piss-drunk man with a well-to-do father entered the hotel looking for a room. He had no reservation and we were almost sold out. My boss knew the man and his well-to-do father, so he gave the man a suite at a good rate. While the man was checking in, he shit his pants.

Just out of curiosity, do you guys have a pool?

Since we were so close to selling out and my boss was unwilling to lose the revenue, he allowed the man to check in even though about five of his six credit cards declined. Now, here's where things get a little odd. My boss claimed that he escorted the man to his suite where he ordered the man to take a shower with his clothes on. However, my boss also admitted that this man somehow walked all the way back to the employee locker room and sat down on the toilet to continue taking a shit. If you look closely at the toilet seat picture, you can see little spots of leg hair, so this story checks out. However, I don't know who the hell let a drunk man wander back to the employee only section of the hotel, let him sit down on a toilet, and then tells him to leave while letting the poop stains dry up and render a poop station completely useless and disgusting.

Fast forward seven hours...

So there I was staring at the poop-stained toilet wondering whether or not I would rather shit myself and attempt to relieve myself on this horrific thing. I had already ruled out pooping in the sink because I just knew the other guy in the bathroom would see me shitting in the sink on his way out and I would probably be in trouble. With about five seconds left on my internal poop-clock, I turned into MacGyver. I looked above some of the lockers and found two fairly clean towels. I grabbed them, delicately placed them on the toilet seat so that I would in no way be directly touching the poop, and then I did my business in complete disgust while the dried boogers on the walls silently judged me. I hadn't felt this bad in quite some time.

Sure enough, 30 seconds after I sat down, the guy in the other stall finished up and left. It was a great day.

Start a fight, get a free night

This epic tale happened very recently and requires an immediate telling. Be prepared - it's full of stupid.

So there is a man who was traveling from Australia. Now, you may not know much about Australia, but that place is known to be a large piece of hell. Keep that in mind. I'll bring it up again later.So this man (we'll call him Aussie to be original) travels from Australia to my fair city. This total trip time is over thirty hours. Mr. Aussie does not sleep throughout his entire trip. This alone should be cause for a medal. Anyway, Aussie arrives at the hotel, and decides to go to bed early so he can have a nice full day after a good night's sleep. This guy goes up to his room and realizes that he can't sleep. That's life for you - always finding ways to fuck with you.

Boom!

So Aussie can't sleep. He decided to do what any sensible person would do after being awake for 33 hours and have a couple of shots of whiskey. This apparently did the trick. However, Aussie had to go to the bathroom and some point and was described to be sleep walking. Aussie hadn't really oriented himself with the hotel room and instead of heading to the bathroom to take a piss, he went out the door into the hallway and locked himself out. I might add that Aussie was only in his underwear.

How embarrassing...

Aussie used all of his sleep walking powers and decided to bang on his door to make it open with violence. A logical thought. The only problem was that he wasn't banging on his door, but his neighbor's instead. We are now introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Cock - Aussie's neighbors.

Get off my lawn you damn kids!

Mr. and Mrs. Cock are alarmed by the banging and went to the door to see what was going on. You would assume that after looking through the peep hole and seeing a 60 year-old man banging on their door in his underwear and not responding to any poorly constructed old person jokes they could yell at the stranger on the fly, they did the most sensible thing and called down to the front desk to report the incident. You would be completely wrong. After seeing this very strange man, they decided to open the door.

Apparently these guys had never seen a vampire movie.

So the Cocks have opened the door and the sleeping walking Aussie does what any sleep walking Aussie would do when he has to take a piss - he walks into the room. This is where it gets interesting. Upon entering the room, Mr. Cock TACKLES Aussie. Cock somehow finds the time to call the front desk and request some assistance from security. Mrs. Cock decides to call the police and tell them that Aussie has invaded their room and is carrying a gun. Around 10 cop cars swarm the scene, expecting a showdown. They must have been very disappointed.

While getting handcuffed and tossed around on the ground, Aussie wakes up and realizes that his prison nightmare is fast becoming a reality. Not only is Aussie surrounded by cops who are subduing him, but he is also in his underwear and there is a rumor that he had pissed himself.

Now, here's where the story jumps to epic status. This whole situation has escalated out of control and my boss has assembled all parties involved and taken them down to the main office to have a chat and figure out what the hell is going on. Mr. and Mrs. Cock are aggressive and are touting their status. Apparently Mr. Cock is actually a "doctor" and feels the need to state this fact to my boss. My boss sarcastically asks what kind of doctor he is, and Mr. Cock replies that he is a chiropractor. My boss chuckles and says, "So you're not a doctor." Giant balls points are awarded to my boss.

So Mr. and Mrs. Cock are complaining about the security of the hotel and how they feel violated. They are very pushy and very loud and my boss decides to comp their room for the night to make them happy. Let me repeat that: this couple opened their door to a stranger, tackled him and wrestled him to the ground, called the cops, got this man handcuffed, he possibly pissed himself, and they got a FREE night at the hotel. Let that sink in for a second...

Pow! I just earned myself a free night at the hotel!

Mr. and Mrs. Cock get their free night and Aussie gets nothing but embarrassment and is even told later that his actions cost the hotel money. Aussie offered to pay for this loss and wrote a letter of apology to the Cocks. Did he get a discount? Nope. He had the wonderful distinction of letting everyone know that he has a urination problem and is taking medication for depression. Talk about justice.

With all of this in mind, I've decided to pitch a new marketing tactic for the hotel: Start a Fight, Get a Free Night! We'll see how far it goes.

The Creepers and the Long-Winded Bastards

Seeing as I almost broke down crying today while at work, which would have allowed me to hand over that last precious part of my soul that contained the tiniest piece of pride and dignity to the evil bastards that run my hotel, I figured it was time to post on the good ol' blog as therapy. Today, we're going to visit two annoying types of people that tend to plague me on a daily basis.
We'll start with what I like to call the Creepers.

Google images provided this and pictures of shoes when I typed "creepers."

As epic and totally unrelated that photo is, Creepers aren't as, well creepy, as they would suggest, but they are pretty annoying nonetheless. They are the people who creep in on other guests while I am either answer their questions or checking them in. Now, to be fair, our front desk sucks mega-donkey balls. There isn't much room for people to really wait in line or really assume any line in fact. It's kind of a free-for-all and a mini-disaster when two to three families enter at the same time and try to check-in. I'm sure you thinking, "Well, Buzz, just put some nice velvet ropes up and chorale everyone where they need to go." Again, I stress the fact that there is NO room - even for swanky ropes. Anyway, I digress...

Metaphor for "no room"...and shit.

Creepers are particularly annoying because they're all up in my business as well as the guest that I'm assisting. I mean, how comfortable do you feel when you're in line to piss at the urinal and you have some dude basically breathing on your neck while you're trying to squeeze out whatever hotness you can, but you can't because you have an erection because some dude is breathing on your god damn neck? It's awkward! These guys just get balls deep into your conversation and once the person you're helping makes the slightest movement, the creeper moves to fill the void where the previous guest was and doesn't even let me finish what I'm doing. I never really understood how crazy bankers and airline workers were about people standing behind that faded yellow line and making them wait to be called for assistance until I saw these bastards getting all up in my business.

The creeper sometimes has the audacity to dive right into my conversation. Say a guest is asking a question or two about a local attraction, this asshole will decide to add their two cents and go on and on about how they did or didn't like what this person was considering doing. This is bullshit because a) I don't care what the creeper has to say about anything and b) the creeper has just extended the time that I have to spend with the current guest, which only hurts the creeper, so I guess it's okay in the long run. Suck it creepers!
Onto the Long Winded Bastards (LWBs)...


More often that not, the LWBs strike while on the phone, which really pisses me off. While working at the desk, I'm doing a shit-ton of work. Most of the time it's someone else's job, so I'm already pissed about it and I have to multi-task multiple jobs, one of which is answering the phone. A typical LWB will call and say a variation of the following with lots of "ums" and "uhs" sprinkled for good measure:

"Hi there! My family and I live in Iowa and we are planning on coming into your city sometime in August for my daughter's birthday. She's turning 12 and she's always talked about how she wants to come to your city and visit the aquarium and see the dolphin show. I see that your hotel is pretty close to the aquarium and some other stuff that we're looking to do like shopping and maybe going to a show. We're going to be driving in with my parents and possibly a friend, which will probably be about a 6-7 hour drive depending on whether or not we stop for food. So I guess my question is how much is parking?"

Trust me, the kitten is better off...

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? All I need to know is that last part. Jesus, while I'm trying to check-in a guest, overcharge their credit card, cancel a reservation, and make sure my border-line retarded co-worker doesn't try to do something crazy like scream "OH MY GOD! There' s a card missing!" while playing Solitaire on the computer, I have to listen to some dumbass go on and on about some bullshit that I don't need to know. Get to the point! I absolutely love it when someone calls and immediately asks how much our room rates are, scoffs, curses at me, then hangs up the phone. Not only do they make my life great by not making me actually create the reservation for them, but they ask what they want and then that's it. Game over. Conversation complete. Thanks for playing.

So, if you fit the profile to one of these people, either back the fuck up or be concise. Or both. I don't care. It's probably better if you don't call or visit the hotel anyway.

Inconveniences

There are plenty of inconveniences at the hotel that are just causes for anger. For example, in the spring and fall, the temperature fluctuates from hot to cold throughout the day and our hotel has an A/C and heating system from the 1960s. This means that you aren't able to customize your heat/cooling settings in your room. The entire hotel runs on heat, A/C, or is set on neutral (a.k.a. nothing). There is a distinct possibility that someone will be sweating their balls off and another person will be freezing to death in the same evening because we are an "old-fashioned" hotel.

Metaphor for "sweating balls."

Another understandable inconvenience is the fact that there is also a very good chance that the hotel room you booked is not what you're going to get. You could be a young couple looking to cook up some love on Valentines day and get shafted with a room with two double beds.

Nothing says good lovin' like two separate beds.

You could be a large family traveling for the first time exploring the country and get the lucky prize of one queen bed. It doesn't matter. Shit happens and there's nothing you can do about it.

Suck it Duggars.

So we've covered the obvious inconveniences that you may experience (80% chance) while staying at the hotel. I get it. These things suck and probably shouldn't happen. You have every right to be pissed. However, there are a few things that are done that are actually good that you really should be happy that I do.

1. I ask to see your ID at check-in. I know, it sounds crazy. Why in the hell would a lowly front desk clerk need to see your ID at a hotel? I mean, that's just a damn hassle for you to haul that out of your wallet and...wait, what's that? You don't have your license? You mean you drove all the way from Michigan to my hotel without your driver's license? Good lord. Yes, this actually happened.

Aside from the fact that I need to confirm that the name on the credit card that is presented to me matches the ID (you know, to make sure that it isn't stolen), I need to make sure that the right person is checking in to the right reservation. Believe it or not, there are crazy people out there.


These crazy people try many crazy things (aside from killing you and wearing your skin as a dress), one of which may be going into hotels and pretending to be someone else and getting a free hotel stay on your dime. So the next time you come into my hotel and I ask to see your ID, please don't let out an exasperated sigh and ask me (true story), "How does it feel to be part of the gestapo?" Instead, thank me for giving a shit in that particular moment in time.

2. I ask to see your ID when you need a new key to your room. Once again, I feel that it needs to be stated that there are crazy people out there. Sometimes these crazy people are actually pretty damn smart, which is a scary concept. If I didn't press someone for an ID when they supposedly "lost their key," I could let any random asshole into your room. That's right, this man could just waltz right into your room to bug the living shit out of you:

Scared, yet? No? Watch "Ghost Rider" and get back to me.

Trust me when I say that when I ask for an ID, it's really a good thing for you. So step off my nuts.

3. I make sure to get a credit card authorization. I know that when you go on a business trip and you want your boss to pay for your hotel, the whole expense and receipt thing can really be a pain in the ass. I will admit that at my hotel, we don't really make it easy for your boss to provide a credit card to pay for your room without your boss physically being there. The whole process involves me faxing over a document for your boss to fill out, with which he/she will need to also provide a front and back copy of the credit card as well as a copy of a photo ID. Your boss will then need to fax the information back to our reservations department, where there is a 50/50 chance that the authorization will be lost and when you arrive to the hotel, I get to be the dumbass who blandly states that, "We never received a credit card authorization," which then allows you to unleash the fury on my undeserving self-esteem.

However stupid the whole logistical process is, it is principle of the matter that counts. You see, what most people don't realize is that without a credit card authorization protocol, any devious bastard could steal your credit card, call into the hotel, make a reservation, and enjoy some pretty mediocre room service and porn at your expense. We would have no way of confirming that your card was authorized, by you, to use at our hotel. So, bitch if you want about the horrific process of getting a credit card authorization to our hotel, but please don't complain when I refuse to charge a credit card that is not physically in my presence. I'm trying to save your credit score.

Again, there are plenty of things at the hotel that you have a right to be pissed about. In most cases, I will silently (or if I've had a really bad day, vocally) agree with you and do everything in my non-existent power to hook you up. However, when what I'm doing really is for your safety and well being, do me a favor and punch yourself in the throat instead of letting out a deep sigh or trying to make a sarcastic comment. You will thank me in the long run when you don't get screwed over.

Do YOU know where I parked my car?

I usually work morning shifts, which are good and bad. The good things include leaving before the shit-storm that is the mass check-ins and dodging the big check-in issues such as lack of available room types (e.g. sticking a family of four into a room with one king bed because we ran out of two doubles) and dealing with some fairly big room issues (e.g. no A/C...whoops!). However, the downside of working the mornings is that you get all of the complaints from the night before as angry people leave the hotel. It's very important to steel yourself against this onslaught otherwise, you're in for a long day.

We all had to share a queen size bed. We want compensation!

Due to the inevitable angry mob of patrons, I usually like to spend my first hour in quiet mentally gearing up for my day. However, between 6:00am and 7:00am, you can sometimes find some weirdos. This is the time for the epic late-night part people to come back to the hotel and you have to deal with their insanity.

So there I am, compiling my list of excuses to the common complaints when a woman comes to the desk and she is obviously drunk. She is a good drunk though because she is at least friendly. She begins rambling rather incoherently for a few minutes. I play along because I'm a nice guy and it's my job to smile instead of club drunks with the broom handle coated with spikes that I keep behind the desk. After the initial stupidity occurs, I start to grow impatient because, believe it or not, I have work to do (again, readying the lies that I need to tell other guests about why their tubs aren't draining) and this lady is preventing this. So I ask her:

Me: Ma'am, what exactly can I help you with?

Woman: Well, I need to get to my car. I need to pay the meter.

Me: Okay...

Woman: I parked in a parking lot.

Me: Okay...

Woman: How much do I need to pay for parking?

Me: Well, I don't know because I don't know where you parked. Did you park in our garage?

Woman: No. We parked at another lot. Do you know where that is?

I should interject some information here. I work in the major area of a major city. Within a one block radius of the hotel, there are at least three different open parking lots and two parking garages. Moving on...

Me: Do I know where what is?

Woman: Do you know where the parking lot is?

Me: I know where several parking lots are.

Woman: Well, I need to pay the meter, so I need to go to my car.

Me: Okay, well if you can tell me where you parked your car, I can probably point you in the right direction.

Woman: Well, I parked in a lot where I paid $18.

Me: Well, that doesn't help me at all.

Woman: My husband knows where the car is, but he's being mean to me right now and he won't tell me. I'm sorry, as you can tell I'm really drunk right now.

Me: I can tell. Do you think it's a good idea to go looking for your vehicle right now in your condition?

Woman: Do you know where I parked my car?

At this moment, I've stopped caring. This woman has actually asked a complete stranger where she parked her car. I'm starting to lose my cool, so the safest thing to do is to point her in a direction and have her wander around aimlessly in a big city. I did just that. I pointed her to the closest parking lot and wished her the best of luck. The hilarious part about this is that she doesn't come back for a half hour. The parking lot is a 2 minute walk at most. I had a good chuckle imagining this drunk woman wandering around the city asking the random crazy people where she parked her car.

Yeah, I know where your car is...

It turns out that the woman only came back because she realized that she didn't have the car keys. I found this rather dangerous because this meant that this woman who couldn't remember where she parked or how to follow simple directions to get to a parking lot was potentially going to drive somewhere. Hilarity could only ensue.

I found where I parked my car!

Fortunately, the woman never came back down. I didn't see her until the following day when she was leaving the hotel (supposedly sober) with her husband and kids. I can only hope this woman didn't forget a child somewhere. She didn't ask me, so I'm not sure.

The Locker Room

I would hate to fire off all of the good stories at once, so I'll start with a constant issue that I'll most likely touch on more than once - the dirty locker room.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not asking much in terms of a locker room. I would prefer there be a place to piss, a place to drop a deuce, and a place to change from my work uniform into my cool street clothes. Although these things are present, there is a certain dirtiness factor that is applied that makes this an issue.

Let us begin with the toilets. Allow me to set up the scenario for you. You've just run into the locker room with a very intense bout of bubble gut. You know what I'm talking about. Your stomach is gurgling and the pain factor is pretty high. You rush to the stall the unleash the fury when you happen across a piss and vomit stained toilet seat. That's right, piss AND vomit. This is perplexing on many levels, but the two things you can put together briefly while trying not to shit your pants is someone is a) drunk or b) sick. Now you'd think that you could rule out the drunk part pretty easily, but I know for a fact several of my colleagues either show up drunk (a fantastic story for another time) or they will meet at a certain time and take shots to give them that boost they need to face the day. Aside from it being gross as hell and you could easily catch a disease from the piss/vomit combo, it's pretty annoying that someone has done this and decided that it was just too beautiful to clean up and leaves their masterpiece to be viewed by the next man who may not have time to switch to another stall due to his intense diarrhea attack.Whatever, you don't have time to deal with the piss/vomit artist so you reach for some toilet paper, only there isn't any. You desperately fumble around for something and come up empty. You decide to switch over to the only other stall only to find it to be without TP as well. At this point, all people elevate themselves (or lower their standards) to a Macguyver status of poop management. You can look at things like wet rotten leaves and say, "Yeah, that could work." Well, fortunately for you, there are some of those thin toilet seat covers scattered on the floor by the previous person who obviously had the same problem as you. You're also in luck because this new stall doesn't have vomit on the seat, so it's a quick wipe down of the seat (you can't afford to use a seat cover because this could be a pretty serious deuce) and you're on your way to relieving your pain.

You feel relief on its way and as you turn your head to the right to take a breath of fresh air, you notice several dots on the wall. As you take a closer look, you realize that the entire stall wall is covered in fossilized snot. You turn away to your left to avoid gagging only to find the left wall is covered in them as well. Allow me to add another disgusting detail to the boogers. When one of our engineers was repainting the locker room walls, he took a metal scraper and tried with all of his might to remove the hardened boogers. He gave up at one point and decided it was best to paint over the dried snot. If you look closely, you can see bumps in the paint from the previous layer of boogers.

Look upon the wall of evil.

Right now you're probably saying, "That's pretty gross, but how often do you get the poop attacks like that? I mean, I'll probably be using the urinal most of the time because I'm a good person and I don't want to pee on the toilet seats." In a normal business, you'd probably be right. But you're not in a normal business, are you? No...you're at MY hotel!
So you go to use the urinal and you are presented with this:

Seems like these guys hit the floor a lot.

I didn't know urinals could look this way.

Have fun pissing in there! And don't mind the fruit flies flying out of the urinal cake as you piss on them. They're usually gone by winter anyway.You're probably thinking, "Okay, so I'll just decide to hold all of my bodily functions for 8 hours until I get home. No problem. I'll just go in this place to change my clothes and I'll be out." Fair enough. You'll just run into the locker room that has no ventilation (so when someone poops or pisses on the floor, the smell will never escape), hold your breath, change, and be done in 2 minutes. Good for you. Just be careful where you look though because you never know what you'll find around your locker...

Ribbed for your working pleasure.

That's right. You might stumble across a Trojan Magnum condom just lying there on the floor. First of all, no one would ever need a Magnum considering most regular condoms can fit over your head and can be blown up with your nose (assuming you're cool enough to use them that way). Second of all, why the hell is this on the ground in the damn locker room and why did I find it at 5:45am? I'm sure some man with an enormous ego and a tiny penis "dropped" it and thought, "Oh, no! My ridiculously large condom fell out of my wallet and landed on the floor of the men's locker room! I guess I'll get it later. I'll be sure to nudge it over by my locker so everyone will know it's mine." Thanks for letting us know you're overcompensating.

So let's recap here:

• Always check for toilet paper when entering the stalls. In the event of a TP shortage, hope to hell there are toilet seat covers to compensate.
• Beware of gratuitous urine and vomit on the toilet seat. It could be your ticket to a wonderful disease-laden weekend.
• Do not touch the stall walls. The rock-hard boogers can draw blood if touched.
• Dodge the fruit flies while pissing in the urinal. You probably don't mind if they touch you with your pee, but they've been there all day and they've been swimming in everyone else's.
• Hold your breath. The locker room will smell like stale urine, cigarettes, fermented feces, and disappointment.
  
• Be on the defensive at all times. There's no telling what is lurking in the locker room besides Trojan Magnums.
  

"So I heard you found my condom..."

Welcome to Life at a Hotel

I have been working at a hotel now for nearly four years at the front desk. It had been arduous and full of peril. However, whenever anyone asks me to tell a story about the hotel for entertainment purposes, I always have a war chest full of tales of horror, disgust, and hilarity. I feel that the time has come to chronicle my experience in the hospitality industry from the perspective of the lonely front desk clerk. For the sake of anonymity, the names of people, places, and the hotel will be kept secret and will be highly fictionalized for my entertainment. I hope you enjoy yourself as I use this blog as a way of coping with the stupid and laughing at the oddity that is the hotel industry.