Thursday, January 24, 2008

Best of the Worst

A long time ago, in a land far far away, I worked outside of the home. Before kids, before marriages, before life truly began, I worked at a job that I hated, but did it because of the crazies I met.

When I was in college, I worked at Day's Inn in Centralia Washington. I originally worked 3 days during the week from 3-11 and both Saturday and Sunday from either 7-3 or 3-11. There were only 4 of us working, and this bitchy old lady who had been there since I swear the damn hotel had been built would only work the 7-3 shift during the week. She refused to ever take one for the team and work a weekend, let alone switch with someone to work an evening. Our manager, a complete douche, was apparently scared of hagbag and gave her her way. I understand about seniority and all, but come one, if someone called in sick on a weekend, we knew she wouldn't work for one of us, which forced the other 2 remaining people to work a double shift. Double shifts sucked. Especially because you weren't allowed any breaks. When you worked, you worked alone. If you forgot food, tough shit for you. You went without. If you were lucky, there were some donuts left from the breakfast buffet, but usually douche manager stole them, along with the leftover milk to shove in his fat fucking face.

Eventually, I started working the night audit shift, which meant I worked from 11 p.m. until 7 a.m., then I would freshen up in the maids room before I went to my first class at 8:00. I finished school at 2:00, would head back to the hotel to crash on a cot before I got up to change and then study for a few hours before I walked back to the lobby to start the cycle over. A few times hagbag called in sick and my manager told me I needed to cover the shift, he never asked, he just told me. I finally had to call the DM to explain how this was not my problem, and I had paid for college so I actually had to go. He seemed to understand and had a "talk" with douche and explained to him that his job as manager was to either call another employee in or work the shift himself. He was not allowed to force me to work another shift when he knew I had some place important to be. He especially couldn't force me to work a double when I would need to be there again that night. Douche finally got the picture that I wasn't going to put up with his assholeyness and started calling other people.

While working the audit shift, I met a lot of people. A crew of Burlington Northern guys came in about once every 3 months to check the tracks or make repairs, and they would come in and chat or watch t.v. on the big screen we had in the lobby. We all got to be friends, and they would bring me back leftovers from dinner or bring me treats. I eventually started dating this guy named Tom and he was one hot son of a bitch. Whew, he was a fine specimen. It eventually ended when I was told by hagbag to expect a fax from Burlington Northern corporate office regarding Tom's marriage certificate and the change in insurance. She didn't know about us, but she had to figure something out when I grabbed the original paperwork and then started ripping it to shreds. I kindly handed him the envelope full of scraps when he came in with my dinner. I told him he had better explain and he told me his wife was in prison for vehicular manslaughter and they had married because she had begged him to do so before she was carted off in handcuffs. Fucking marvelous. He also let it slip to keep this "affair" the the D.L. because his wife's father was his foreman. Oh, really. I told him he had better get the hell out of my lobby before I "accidentally" let it slip while I was pouring his father-in-law's coffee that his son-in-law had a tiny penis, and wow, wasn't it amazing how the tattoo he had on his hip really did resemble 40's pin-up. I never saw him again, he started paying for his own room at another hotel. Too bad.

I also got to hang out with the Secret Service when President Clinton gave a speech in Centralia. They came 2 weeks before the arrival of the president to check out the surrounding areas and check for assassin spots on buildings. The Twin Cities is mostly good ol' Republican that carry their guns in gun rack at all times. I could see the need for concern. Anyway, they would come in and tell me crazy stories about the White House and some of the things they had to do to check for bombs and stuff. It was fascinating. They gave me White House pins and pins from the Annual Easter Egg hunt. They also were able to get me up close the Clinton during his speech. A cute guy named Patrick started coming down nightly around 11:30 to talk. He asked me out a few times, and I finally said yes. He also gave me my presidential pass to get on the stage while Clinton spoke. I was so excited. Too bad for me, the day of the speech, I was kept in my Business Law class longer because of my paper. I missed most of the speech and because I had missed the meet time with Patrick and his partner John, I had to watch the event from the peon section. I also ended up bailing on the date because my manager got suspicious and it was against company policy to date our customers.

Anyway, the most interesting night of the whole job started at 11:40 p.m., I had just checked in a family of 5 when a tall young man approached the counter. He needed a single room for just one night, smoking please. I handed him the paperwork, and went to program his keys. When I looked up, he had gotten about 10 feet from the counter and whipped out his cock and was stroking it. I was floored. What the fuck?! I started screaming as loud as I could in hopes of waking up douche manager who's apartment was behind the lobby. I also picked up the phone to call 911, but forgot to dial 1 first to get an outside line. He started walking towards the desk when I finally got the 1 pressed and had finally gotten an outside line. When he realized what I had done, he yanked up his pants and hauled ass out of there. Douche manager finally arrived and finished calling the police. Once they arrived, I gave them a description of the car and the penis wanker as best I could. They never found him, but from that night on, the lobby doors were locked at 11:00 and only people with reservations were allowed in.

A few weeks later, the police brought a wanted poster of a woman and man. Apparently, they were going from hotel to hotel setting up crack rooms. Nice. I said that they had checked in a few weeks ago and had rented a room for a week, using the excuse that their roof was being repaired when I made a comment about them being locals. The cops said to call them if and when they ever came back. Sure enough, about 2 weeks later,they checked in again. So I acted as cool as I could, checked them in, waited about an hour because they had been ones that would call and request extra things from the office. Once I was sure they were good for the night, and I had seen them pull away towards downtown, I called the cops. They arrived very quickly and came to me for a room key and a copy of their check in info. Apparently, the druggies came back and saw the police cars and called me on the hotel phone. The lady started yelling at me about being a knark and told me bad things happen to little girls who tattle. Awesome. This job just kept getting better and better. Thankfully, the cops caught the losers and kept me updated so that I was aware when she got out.

The final straw was when there was a gun safety convention going on. The whole crew of gun lovers arrived at our hotel, packing heat. I hate guns, those who know me, know this. I wasn't very comfortable about having 150 guns in the hotel, but luckily most of them were supposedly sleeping when I arrived. I was working the 3-11 shift since I didn't have class that day. Around 10:00, I heard a loud bang, which was promptly followed by a call from a room. A woman in hysterics started crying and said her son had been shot in the leg. I hung up and called 911, locked the lobby, and headed to the room. The mom was holding a 3 year old boy, while the father was trying to add pressure to the wound. He explained to me that he had "just put his gun down for a second" and his son had grabbed it. I was sick over this. Blood was everywhere, and I couldn't help thinking that the father was at fault. I mean, come on. You are at a gun safety seminar and you didn't learn that you shouldn't keep A LOADED GUN AROUND A 3 YEAR OLD, LET ALONE NOT HAVE THE SAFETY ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What the fuck is wrong with people. The ambulance arrived along with the cops. The boy and mom were taken to the hospital and the father and I were questioned. I finally went back to the lobby, called my boss, and told him I quit. Fuck this job. I then called my dad, and he came and got me. He told me to quit and I told him I had. He said he didn't feel safe with me there and that he worried the whole time. I couldn't agree more.

10 comments:

Crankyputz said...

Damn,.

It's funny how our 'kiddy' jobs were so much more interesting..

Nothing interesting ever happens here....sigh!

Unknown said...

Good Lord! I never knew this much crap happened in hotels. How terrible. Talk about job sress and trauma!

Anyway, wanted to say I thought your comment on Beth's blog about my penis picture was hilarious! Those grow all the time in my flower bed! I must be doing SOMETHING right! LOL

Amanda said...

what area of Minneapolis is this exactly? I feel like I might have stayed there... ewww to the Jack Off...

Amanda said...

I am not paying attention well enough over here... I see now that was in WA... sorry! lol.

Angel said...

oh, the stories you can tell....man, never a boring night, huh?

Love the penis-yanker!

Mike said...

That's not fair! I worked in a bad area in college and no interesting shit happened to me!

Some people have all the luck ;)

Effortlessly Average said...

"I started working the night audit shift, which meant I worked from 11 p.m. until 7 a.m., then I would freshen up in the maids room... would head back to the hotel to crash on a cot before I got up to change ... before I walked back to the lobby to start the cycle over."

When I was in college I knew a girl who did that, too. She was a hooker. You didn't live in Reno back then did you? heh.

Brooke said...

Oh Lord!

I had a college job at a travel agency and one day, through no fault of my own, I accidentally killed a man. This is true, I didn't actually physically kill him, it was more like a sick coincidence. I have a story that I wrote about it when it happened, if I find it I will post it on my blog. Never a dull moment!

Princess in Galoshes said...

Yikes. I worked for a resort for a while, and had a few stories, but nothing as good as yours. I'm glad you got out of there before something scary did happen.

Jill said...

Man, I don't know how you did it. I worked for a hotel for 1 day (3 hours) and quit the next day. The scum and weirdos you run across... gave me the creeps!