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.