EJP Has Something To Share With The Class.

Finally! Someone sent me their story. This is the first submission from a reader. If you make her mad while checking in, she just might put a tack in your underwear while she cleans your room.


I love it when people ask me what exactly I do at my job. I often get looks of superiority and disrespect from people, ‘guests’ albeit, and I sincerely try to have a good attitude towards them. Let me tell you though, working at a hotel, makes it DIFFICULT to be a loving Christian, not that that isn’t hard enough. The last 2 days have been particularly trying of my patience and through it I keep praying the Lord will help me be gracious and loving, patient and understanding. But I have a line. I shouldn’t but I’m human, and I do.

Woman comes up to me at 9pm, right as another man walks in. The woman beat him to the desk. I try and help her. The following is the gist of the night.
Woman in low cut cleavage bearing zebra print blouse says “Yeah, I’d like to check out of my room. it’s a dumb question, but I’d like to anyway.” Plays with her hair and cocks her hip.
Me…. Attempting to process. “Ma’am, I’m sorry but checkout was at 12 noon. It’s 9 oclock at night, I can’t let you check out without charging you for the night.”
“aw, do you have too?”
“Um, yes ma’am I do.”
“Oh, ok. Well, I want you to send someone to my room to change my bed and give me fresh towels.” Are you serious?
“Our housekeepers left at 1 Ma’am, I’m sorry but if you want your bed changed again, I can give you the sheets but I’m the only one here, and I can’t leave the desk.” Looks at me in shock.
Woman: “Oh well Fine, I am MORE than competent and capable of changing a bed! My toddler got cheetos everywhere and I don‘t want to sleep in it!”
“Well, here you are…., Have a GREAT night.”
“Can I help you sir?”
Man walks up….
“Yeah how much awe yo ooms?”
(Me… attempting to decipher the alcohol and the accent) “** dollars a night sir.”
“That’s the bast you can dooo.???”
“Yes sir, I can’t go lower than that unless you have a military ID”
“Well fine, buke me aw oom, closest to tha gurls. Closest to the lobay”
“Ok sir.” (note there are no girls. I proceeded to check him in… shockingly his credit card hadn’t declined (not trying to be judgmental but people who look and act like this guy have a really strong probability of having their cards declined. I had just finished getting harassed by a rude guest who had had his card declined and was livid about it. ITS NOT MY FAULT YOU DON”T PAY YOUR BILLS!)
So I check this guy in. put him in the closest room to the lobby I could. Apparently, it wasn’t close enough. After repeating his information back to him no less than 3 times, he finally leaves. My irritation level is high.
Within moments he is back.
“Is dat tha besz you gut? Babay I want to be closa to the gurls.”
Ok…. 1- Call me ‘Baby’ one more time. See what happens. 2- THERE ARE NO GIRLS!
“Sir I’m sorry but that’s the best I can do, its 9 oclock, we don’t have any rooms closer.”
“Well naw that ain’t right, in LA I would get what I wantad you know what tame it is in LA?”
“Sir, your in North Carolina. I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do.”
“Do you knaw that I could gat whateva I wanted in LA right now? Do you knaw what tame it is there?”
“It’s 6pm in Los Angeles sir. We are not in Los Angeles. We’re in North Carolina, it is nine pm, our rooms are booked. I’m sorry sir that’s the best I can do.”
“Well naw that ain’t good nough. I want a refun.”
“Did you move anything in the room sir?”
“huh?”
“Is the room dirty?”
“naw I Didn’t even go to tha room.”…. (Are you flipping kidding me?)
“Ok sir, your card has not been charged. Have a goodnight.”
Man storms out.
That’s just a sample of my night.

Ask me again, in your special tone, what exactly do I do? Let me tell you. I work both desk and housekeeping. That means that several nights a week, I get to stand at attention at the front desk to greet arrogant, self-centered, belittling people, as they check in, attempt to badger me for better rates, cuss me out when they don’t have enough money, or their cards are declined, or the room is exterior entrance, or the towels aren’t folded right, or they found a speck of something somewhere supposedly. I also have to deal with asinine drunks, random people who like to wander around at night doing nothing, and lonely construction workers who attempt to sweet talk me into drinking with them or going back to their rooms.

As a housekeeper, I have the privilege of scrubbing the toilets of the upper middle class. Its such an honor. I also get to attempt to play acrobat as I navigate through the random piles of stuff you leave in your room, yet expect me to clean around. I clean up your spit cups, your beer cans, your condoms, trash, tampons, porn magazines, toys, games, goo and garbage. I scrub away the ring of skin and sebum you’ve left in the tub, I scrub your urine from everywhere it should not possibly be, your feces from the walls, floors, and you don’t want to know where else, clean up your shaved hair, and scrub your floors on my hands and knees so when the next person uses your room, they don’t vomit upon entrance. See, I like to think I do my job for those rare but occasional normal, decent people, the ones who make my job a pleasure; I serve and help them along their journey with a genuine smile upon my face. But for people like you, who do all of the above and then have the audacity to come up to me with your belittling attitudes, degrading myself and my coworkers as if we are nothing because we work at a hotel, let me ask you now. Have I adequately answered your condescending question you ego-maniacal pig?

For the normal people out there… thank you for being courteous and respectful. Its people like you that stop hospitality workers like myself from climbing over the desk and strangling the men hitting on us while their wives use the restroom with their own ties.

Lord forgive me my temper. You know I’m trying. Please grant us all patience, perseverance, and a good attitude.

I really do like my job. Maybe its just people I have a problem with. …..


EJP

You are a shining example for your children.

---

Once a woman came in and started talking about how her room smelled like pee. I went into the room and couldn't smell any pee. I smelled all the stuff used to clean the room, but no pee. I have kids; I know what pee smells like.
I gave her a lower rate after we had already upgraded her to a suite. She was threatening me with the NCAACP and all kinds of other acronyms. Then later, she came down after mid night saying she had cum stains on her sheets. Made the girl at the desk sign something saying there was a stain on the sheet. The woman is just looking for a free room. She was being loud and making a big to do at the desk in front of another guest. "I have sex with my husband! I know what cum stains look like!" she shouted in front of a male guest. I wonder if she was carrying on like that in front of her daughters. The sheet was clean, just a small stain. She had to have been searching for it, and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't put it on there herself just to have something to complain about.

The next day her daughter came down and was waiting patiently for me to check a guest out and answer his questions. She was looking for a safety pin for her dress. As I was getting her a sewing kit her mom showed up at the desk showing how smashing her social skills were once again. Her 3 girls that were with her looked so embarrassed by her. When they were in the lobby they were polite and total opposites of their mother. It amazes me how people can go around being so nasty to everyone they encounter. I'm hoping her girls don't start taking after her.  

"Security" Guards

I promised I'd write about our Guards.

We have a company that provides us our protection. They are nice guys, but I don't see them doing much protecting.

The man that is over the patrol is a older man. He is nice and I like him as a person. I really do. But he also is missing his big toe. He had it removed because of diabetes. Thankfully he didn't lose more than his toe, but he is still not going to be chasing anyone down. Who am I kidding, He wasn't ever going to chase anyone down. He carries a gun. You can't out run a bullet.

The other character they have provided for my entertainment is a special one. One night I had a creep that kept hanging out at the desk asking me strange questions and asking me to go on a date with him or just back to his room. I turned him down as I always do. But he would find a reason to come back once an hour it seemed. The Guard, we'll call him Lucky, came in once and scared him off. He likes to talk and gets really excited when he does.

When it was time for me to go, Lucky had came back by on his 2nd round. I asked him to just hang out while I got to my car so if Creepy was waiting he'd not pounce. As we were walking out the front door, he said that I had nothing to worry about. He then reached into his holster. My instincts said to get behind him, good thing too. He pulled out his taser gun. As he pulled it out he shot the poor unsuspecting bush! What if there was a family of birds living in it?

As I stood there in horror watching this poor bush being zapped to death, I realized I was about 2 seconds from having that thing in my ass cheek. My instincts paid off. It seemed as if the zapping was never going to end. He claims it was a misfire and that he didn't shoot it off. He went to his trunk and started messing around saying he was going to have to send it back.... blah blah blah. I just kept thinking about how I could have been laying on the bricks pissing my pants for 15 seconds. I hurried off to my car. I've never asked any of them to watch out for me in the parking lot again. I'll take my chances with the Creepies.

Mosegueet?

Today she was working on updating the website information. It is a site that send info to everything that might pull up our hotel.

I was helping her locate places and come up BS to try and sell the place. I left for a few minutes to check in a guest and when I came back she asked me "What is a mosequeek? Moseqeet? Mosequit? Moseguee What the hell is that?" As she pointed to the computer screen. Mosque! I did not retain my laughter at all. This is what public school in the Bible Belt does to you. Thankfully she has a great since of humor, and can laugh at herself right along with people because I laughed pretty hard. 

She now has seen the word wrote out and will get it next time.

P.S. She will read this. Haha! 

Locking It Down

Tonight has been an interesting night to say the least. It started out busy and steady. We have a full house and everyone is now checked in.

All night I've been hearing things behind the desk, in the storage room and kitchen shifting and moving. I keep thinking it must be things settling and brushing it off. I've had things fall for no reason... or the sound of something big falling, but go back and see what happened only to find everything just fine and in order.

I've been sitting around playing on the computer now that I have a moment to myself in the back office. I then leave my desk to go to the restroom. There is a guy laying on my couch in the lobby. He is some what young, and is texting on his phone. I smile at him and he looks a bit worried. As I'm in the restroom I hear him go out the side door. I watch him walk half way down the sidewalk and stop at the stairs in front of one of my rooms. He just stands there. He was watching me too. I called my security guard. Sadly by the time he got here, the guy was gone. I don't know where he went.

After I get back into the office to wait for the the security guard to get here, I hear a female voice say my name. I was thinking it was a guest or the Head Housekeeper coming in. She will sometimes come by and work on something in the evenings. I get up and the only person in the lobby is the older man on the computer, and he doesn't give off a creepy vibe at all. It also sounded like it was coming from the back with me.

Needless to say I've now locked all the doors leading into the lobby an hour early. Everyone is checked in and I'm out of rooms to sell, so no need to keep them open.

No, I don't use drugs and I've not been drinking on the job.

Update: My coworker just called me after reading this... He said the other night he kept hearing stuff fall. He says he went over the front desk at one point. Talk about macho man. When he finally manned up he went to check things out, and nothing had fallen.