Q: Is it Read Free Sunday (RFS) at The Diary today?
A: Yes. Yes, it is. Enjoy today’s entry with Sparrow’s compliments.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, April 8
The big news at the hotel is there is a new checklist…This really isn’t earth-shattering news because there have always been checklists here which could not have been more ignored if prizes had been issued for non-compliance…Now, some will take them out for reference, but they’re never turned in to anyone…This new one came with instructions to scan them in and email them to AGM Brandon after every shift…Crap, because this means they actually have to be filled out because while we’ll ignore checklists, we won’t falsify one…So we went thru it and made sure everything was done that we were able to do…Which wasn’t everything because there were a couple of new duties we simply had some zero clue how to do, even with instructions, stuff involving rate codes for third-party reservations and whatnot…So we circled these and made a note on the checklist.
The big pain in the arse is what in the trade is known as a bucket check…The bucket is the thingy where the registration cards for in-house guests are kept and a bucket check involves generating an In-House Guest Report and going thru the bucket to make sure the correct registration card is in the correct bucket slot…You make sure the name is correct and the dates and tonite’s bucket check yielded two missing registration cards…We printed one out, and made a not that those had unsigned registration cards.
(You’re supposed to get a signature from every guest on the theory that we can charge their credit card for damages if we have it, but we didn’t get signatures during lockdown so who the hell knows if we really need them.)
Following the checklist cost us an hour, which we are not whining about yet, because experience and familiarity will shave some time off of that total…Still tho, they are coming darn close to violating the terms of the Official Tho Unwritten Nite Audit Bargain (OTUNAB)…This is where we show up on time every nite to work the rathole shift few others want and in return, we are not asked to work too hard…It’s a great system, but if this keeps up we might have to start looking elsewhere.
Right before 0100 143 calls looking for a place to continue his night’s revels…First, he wonders if our bar is still open…It’s not, but this tidbit hardly discourages him and comes back strong with a query about “anything in the area”…This is a no-dicer, too, because we’re the only hotel on this side of town with a restaurant/bar…Then he wonders – not with a whole hell of a lot of enthusiasm – if there’s anything “downtown”…Well, maybe, but they’re closing soon and we’re thinking that if he keeps this up soon enuff he’s asking about opportunities in the next county and throughout the state…And, of course, this is another instance where ol’Sparrow could’ve made some extra cash by having a cooler or a bottle handy, but we don’t really think in terms of hustling cash, except after its too late, so the guy wasn’t able to continue his night’s fun.
There was good strength in the gym tonite and the big news is we had the entire place to ourselves…We are not making that up…Usually on Saturdays, there have been at least a few people there, either in the weight room or on the basketball court but as we turned onto 3rd Street BOOM, the parking lot was dead empty…Perfect because you simply cannot beat having an entire weight room to yourself…It helped that the center had long closed for the day because they do not have the staffing on Saturday required to keep it open and it probably didn’t hurt that it was still light out when we got there meaning, perhaps, that some were farting around outside.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1030 Saturday until 1730 Saturday…7.0 hours for the day – a bit less than we’re looking for for the Saturday finale, frankly – and 44.5 hours for the week…This is a dismal, total, of course – a full 15.5 hours off of our PB – but we’re hardly dragging; we’ve been strong all 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!
