It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, March 11
The Front Desk Supervisor (FDS) had a sort of funny line tonite…Well, “funny” might be straining credulity, but it was not completely unassuming.
We were in the back office coffee room (BOCR) and there was a pot under the machine…This is rare enuff this late at nite because you’d think they’d stop making stuff for Morning Coffee Service (MCS) hours ago, but this was still pretty hot and the big news is that it was a pot of water and not coffee…In a coffee pot, and not one of the designated water pots…I am not making that up.
So we asked if this was poison…There are some cleaning tabs for the coffee pots that get used randomly and they’re poisonous and, if not properly rinsed out, could hurt you…We’ve never initiated their use, of course, because we rode smoke boats in the bleeping Navy and don’t clean anything having to do with the delivery of coffee, but occasionally a pot or two will have a tablet in them when we come in…You want to know if there’s poison in there because if there is you want to make sure and rinse the pot out three times…(That’s how many times we do it, and no guest has died yet.)
So we asked the FDS and he said yeah, there had been poison in there but he rinsed it out once, with hot water…There was a pause that was almost as good as the Classic Sparrow Pause (CSP) before his sort-of funny line:
– I don’t want a guest to die…That could lead to bad reviews.
We pursed our lips and nodded solemnly.
– That’s why you’re front desk manager…That’s why you’re going places here…Recognizing crap like that…Always thinking safety.
Right after that Gabriela sashayed in, fresh from her shift at the restaurant…She announced, apropos of nothing whatsoever, that she made $129 in tips tonite, not too bad a total…The FDS made a motion to her indicating he wanted to see her tape, and Gabby actually provided it…The FDS scanned it – evidently checking her total sales – and noted that her customers tipped an average of 25%, which is pretty good.
The big news is Gabby actually left and went to the gym, I am not making that up…Recall last week she reported that one of the bastard cooks had notified her she was gaining weight…She was, as we first noted last month, and evidently she’s taking corrective action…She came back a little before 2300 and asked where the FDS was and we told her in the back somewhere…She was relieved because the FDS gives her a ride home, which is all the way across the street…Now it was ol’ Sparrow’s turn to get off a half-assed, lame-o, sort of funny line, because – with Movie of the Week timing – the FDS magically reappeared at the front desk.
The FDS said he was hoping he’d get out of here before you got back…
Gabby laffed, though we strongly suspect her English isn’t good enough to completely understand the line…The FDS, of course, missed Gabby’s lead, so he lacked context, and the line went unappreciated by everyone.
The hilarity had actually begun a bit earlier when a guest came up to compliment the FDS on how enjoyable his stay had been…The FDS noted that us front deskers get a $10 spiff if we are mentioned by name in an online review and even gave him card with a Q code for an approved review site, which makes it super easy for a guest to compliment us…The guy was looking at the card and we thought this was an excellent opportunity to make a pest out of ourselves, so we walked up right beside the guest and started drawing lines under our nametag with an index finger…For added comedic effect – and this was pretty funny – we assumed an expectant look on our face and started nodding…The guy, however, wasn’t very funny and completely ignored me, tho the FDS seemed to appreciate the humor in it
About 0200 a young couple came in looking for a room to fornicate in…It was funny because they went thru the motions of attempting to act like they’d known each other for longer than two hours…This attempt was as unnecessary as it was unsuccessful because this isn’t our first hotel shift and we know two humans looking to mate when we see them…Then they started making out and all but going at right there right there in the lobby…We wanted to give them a round of applause, but my funny stuff had been unappreciated all nite, so we didn’t bother.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1200 Monday until 2000 Monday…8.0 hours for the week and 15.0 hours for the week, one hell of a start to the sleep week.
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The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!