I love my job....

[eris esoteric]

Yeah, there's the "but".

I just had a gentleman wearing diamond cufflinks inform me that I work for "motherfucking con-artists" (sorry, MJ, but I *am* quoting), and that I'm part of a conspiracy to bilk hardworking people out of their hard earned money.

And then he drove away in his Hummer.

God, please let's get some more weddings in this hotel....

('Cause any conversation in which I have to calmly explain that the introduction of expletives has negated the chance of civil discourse just ISN'T going to go well at all.)

[lynnzop[$]]

LOL...glad to see you back again...we've missed you!

[eris esoteric]

I don't know if I'm back, but then I don't think I really left. I've just been... quiet lately. Mostly the good kind. I think I'm on a sort of spirit quest. Or maybe I'm just playing a lot of video games lately.

Nevertheless, I still love you all.

[pippadaisy[$]]

What did you do that made you con artists? Of the mf variety?

[eris esoteric]

We sold them what we told them we were going to sell them, at the price we told them we were going to charge them. We fulfilled all parts of the contract we signed with them, and had the absolute gall to expect them to fulfill their part of the contract.

I wish I was exagerating, but these people were just sad.

[pippadaisy[$]]

did he offer a rationale as to your categorization in his world or no? I'm always curious about how alternate realities operate.

[theworm[$]]

Eris, you suck.
The man had to fill up the darned gas tank, and you expected him to pay for services rendered???!!

[eris esoteric]

Well, hell, if it had been up to ME, then at the point where they backed out of one conference, declined to cancel the rooms attached to the conference, refused to pay for the rooms they declined to cancel even though they were told there was a fee for that, then arrange another conference, and called the night before they were due to cancel half of the rooms for THIS conference and make a dozen changes to what was going on to their conference, and then protested the fact that another group was using the room that their conference was going to be in on the morning of the conference because they wanted to go in and decorate it in the morning, even though their conference was at night... well, at that point I would have simply cheerfully handed ALL their money back and told them to enjoy their conference at the Radisson.

[eris esoteric]

And for those of you wondering when the comptroller and I were going to start fighting again, today's the day.

I sent an email to the comptroller & her boss, the AGM. I told them I was thinking about doing a brief presentation for the new deskclerks on the basics of accounting, how it relates to them, and how the computer system we use operates.

I sent the email to the comptroller because she's my boss. I sent the email to the AGM because I'm talking about corralling his people in a room and lecturing them. Seemed kinda rude to discuss doing anything with his people without having him in on it from the first.

Of course, the comptroller doesn't see it this way. She's mad because I told her and her new boss something at the same time. According to her, protocol demands that I tell her, and then she presents the idea. We've exchanged emails over this in the past, and it's the same old story. She just likes to be the first to know, and I know that and don't care, because I'm damn well going to do the polite thing.

Of course, it occurred to me, while I was sharing out paperclips that I'd stolen from the sales office because I've requested paperclips three times in the last week and the sales office has BOXES of paperclips they don't even use and half of my job is paper-clipping together things that have never been paper-clipped before... it occurred to me that I've just never really been that big on protocol.

So anyway, eventually I'll get my presentation together, and the comptroller and the AGM will let me give it, and the deskclerks will stare at me vacantly, but I'll have the satisfaction of knowing I tried, and really, it's the moral victories that matter most.

I just wish I knew where to steal some of the good rubber bands from.

[hadassahchana[$]]

Taser, hell. I say we give her a Glock.

[eris esoteric]

OK, lemme just say that any day that starts with waking up from a dream in which you keep thinking "man I'm so tired, I wish I could just go to sleep" isn't going to go very well. It's not that I'm particularly cranky, 'cause I'm actually in a good mood, it's just that everybody keeps talking to me, but all they're saying is "Please slap the stupid out of me, eris."

On the bright side, the psychotherapists, the pharmacists, and the social workers who are all having separate functions here haven't started the brawl I was half-expecting (or maybe I just need to stop watching movies with Will Ferrell in them).

However, I'm vaguely worried that acting as one of the hosts for the Odyssey of the Mind judges while simultaneously housing a "junior miss" beauty pageant is just a little too close to combining matter and anti-matter. I'm wondering when the hotel's going to explode.

Oh yeah, and three weddings and a prom tonight. And the young lady who dropped her cellphone down the crack between the elevator and the shaft who keeps asking back as to when we're going to get someone in to find the pieces for her.

And the couple who're indignant because they had to wait over an hour for a cab, because the cab company showed up, called them on their cellphone, left a message on their cellphone, and left after waiting for ten minutes for them to show. Because when the dispatcher told them to make sure their cell phone was on, they didn't. Because they hadn't given the dispatcher their cell phone, so there was no way the dispatcher could have called them. Except that they had called the dispatcher on the cell phone, and the dispatcher has caller ID. So, because they were too stupid to follow simple directions, they had to wait over an hour for their cab. And it was somehow all my fault, even though I was the one that convinced the cab company to come back for them at all. And I didn't even laugh at them until I got back into the back office, even thought the male half of the couple was pretty much a walking advertisement for why white men should not shave thier heads.

[thinkerlady[$]]

Gee Eris--your world is as sane as mine. I have been away from school for a few days, I have forgotten the insane logic. You put it in perspective.

Me thinks you need a vacation dear.

[Helen_B[$]]

I love what you said about the Odessey of the Mind and the Junior Miss Contest. Let us know how that plays out. That's almost as good as the adult theme con booked in with kids' soccer teams. Was that at your hotel to, or did I hear about it from someone else?

[eris esoteric]

I don't think that was us.

[eris esoteric]

Three weddings last night. All the drunk people in the world were in my hotel last night. Including the gentleman with the floppy white-man's afro and the bright orange zoot suit that pretty much caused our bar to close early, because we were having to cut off all the people that flooded out of the wedding when it closed because they were already too drunk to sell alcohol to, and he was the most vocal and obnoxious of them all.

And please, someone explain to me why it is on the night when I have people begging me to make beer runs for them 10 minutes before the 2am booze shut down, I walk through the hotel at 4am and find full beer bottles scattered everywhere. I just don't get it.

On the bright side, we didn't see any naked people running around. Unfortunately, this means we still don't know whose clothes I found out in the parking ramp.

And it's good to see true love. It really is. I don't mean romantic love that causes the weddings in the first place. I'm talking about that bond that holds friends and families together. And I saw it last night, yes I did. Because when I had to go up to the fourth floor suite and "encourage" the party in the bridal suite to come down to the lobby to congregate and make noise, the groom at no point in time EVER gave any indication that he was glad for the excuse to kick his friends out. On the other hand, I did notice he and the bride never came down to join the party in the lobby. Love is in the little things.

Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, there was the panicked call from our maintenance guy, who wanted security to come up and help him with a situation on the second floor. I heard what sounded like a woman crying in the background, and figured it would be best if I went up with. What we found... one REALLY drunk woman, rolling around on the floor, with 3 of her female friends with her. She kept asking my maintenance guy to help her stand up. Security guard, also female, tried to help her stand up, but she kept rolling away from her. Situation was finally salvaged when a random guy walked out of his room and tried to get past the bevy in the hallway. She let HIM help her up. (Maintenance guy really didn't want to go near her, which I can understand. He works with closely with me, the other auditor, and many of the security guards... all female. He's got that finely honed fear of the female gender that many men develop after long marriages and extended contact with social circles homonally imbalanced toward the estrogen end of the spectrum.)

All that, and many, many, many of those conversations that start out making sense and then just end up strange that I have so many of on wedding nights. But no police, no domestic violence, and no actual naked people. So pretty much a good night all around.

[hadassahchana[$]]

Omg I can't breathe. You need to write a book.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

[emeleel]

Wowza.

[Redlass]

This is why we have so much fun writing hospitality case studies!

[mtbat]

Eris, thank you for reminding me why I'M SO GLAD I don't work in the hotel industry any longer.

Not that what I do now is much better, the people are just as crazy, but I can deal with them all thru phone calls and email... no face to face, well not a lot any how.

Years of working in the hotel taught me a few things. Things are done my way-and I get away with it because I can

[eris esoteric]

Actual phone conversation this morning:

"Hello, I just drove here, and I'm wondering where I'm supposed to park my car."
"You'll want to pull into the parking structure on the south end of the building."
"Oh. Do you mean that parking ramp that has the name of your hotel on it?"
"Yes, ma'am, that's the one."

Now, my point is, considering the fact that we have physicists, math teachers and accountants in the hotel, why can't I expect an average IQ level in the double digits around here?

[eris esoteric]

And the wedding season weekend recap:

Guys, word of advice. If you're attending a wedding with your wife or girlfriend, and she goes back to the room before you do, and you get to the room and the door is locked, and bolted, AND latched, and your significant other won't answer the door when you knock... MAYBE she's trying to tell you something.

The first was a youngish man, COMPLETELY wasted, who wanted a key for his room. Except his name wasn't on the room. And he wasn't really sure which room was his. Except he WAS sure. He just wasn't sure. But it was OK for me to give him a key, because he was with the wedding! Besides, his girlfriend was already in the room. But she wouldn't answer the door. But it was OK! Because she was passed out drunk in the room, so it was fine for me to give him a key! To the one room. Or the other room. But definately that room! So if I wouldn't give him a key, he'd just go up to the room and bang on the door. Of course, actually FINDING his brother, whose name was on the room, was out of the question. And just silly. But it was OK for me to give him a key!

Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that I told him that if he went up to the room and pounded on the door and woke his neighbors (but apparently not his girlfriend), I would have to have security escort him away from the floor, he went up to the room to pound on the door and when he woke up his neighbors (but apparently not his girlfriend), security and I went up and escorted him back down to the lobby. And called the police.

Now, understand my position here. I have a VERY drunk, slightly excitable gentleman in front of me, of the "Oh, I'm very cute and charming so why isn't my cuteness making you do what I want, you must be a lesbian" variety. He wants a key to a room his name isn't on. At this point, I have an option of having security go with him to the room, asking him to identify something in the room before opening the door, and giving him access that way. BUT! He has just told me that there is ALREADY someone *in* the room, someone who is either a) not willing to open the door to Eric Idle's less intellectually inclined twin brother or b) so incapacitated that she's not able to hear the ruckus he's causing and possibly in danger. SO, police. Fortunately, the time lag between the escort duty back to the lobby and the actual arrival of the police was long enough for him to vent his spleen, and he DID take my advice and calmed down once he actually started talking to them.

Upshot? Girlfriend DID answer the door for the police. But didn't want Mr. Charming to join her. So he spent the night with his brother. Like I'd advised him in the first place.

The second one wouldn't even have been that note-worthy, if it hadn't happened five minutes after the first. Gentleman stops at the desk, wants a key. He's got ID, ID matches the name on the room, he gets a key. He stop