The Diary of a Nobody/May 26

It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Wednesday, May 26
The only part of the tech refresh still to be completed – at least that I’m aware of – is getting individual system logins back for the front desk computers…We still have them for the system, but there is only one generic Administrator login for individual machines right now, which means you gotta be careful because you don’t want to leave yourself logged into Faceplant or your Google account, at least I don’t…I remember one time at Hotel B Amy, who was then the GM, made a funny post on Faceplant because I had neglected to log off. 

Compounding the matter is Chrome is how I access my hotel email because they utilize Outlook online now…So I downloaded Chrome last night at both the right front and back-office workstations and logged in because I am a big Chrome user and it is the best way for me to access my hotel email because that’s done online now…At the end of the shift, I logged out of everything and deleted Chrome, so as not to take any chances.

Didn’t work…Tonight when I signed into the back office rig Brandon had re-downloaded Chrome and he was still logged in and some checking showed Person 1 was still available for login so I clicked on it and BOOM there was my stuff there, no password required…Well, this is unsatisfactory, tho I was able to delete Person 1 and tonight I didn’t even  bother logging into Chrome on the back office computer and got the laptop out 

There are several minor changes to the system following the tech refresh, the almost exciting one being that folios are emailed automatically at checkout now…Recall ol’ Sparrow had been sending them immediately after billing and before that was obliged to print them out and slide them under doors, preferably of the departing guest. 

There is a fly in the ointment because it appears guests must have an email address on file in order to be checked out…At about 0613 I was trying to checkout 253 so I could check them in again because one night was a rewards club stay and the other they were paying for themselves, but when hit Check Out I got a window that advised there was not an email address on file…Apparently, this is a high crime now because when OK is clicked you are taken back to the billing page…All right…Be that way…Being the nite auditor and not the IT guy, I passed off Kylie, with instructions to pass it off on Front Desk Manager Brandon. 

At the veterans service office (VSO) there was a letter under the door from the Widow P…She actually lives in a remote county a bit NW of here I get clients from occasionally because the county is very small and immediately after visiting the VSO there everyone knows your business, which is not always the VSO’s fault because I’ve heard spies are everywhere up there. 

Anyway, she’d gotten a letter from the VA that needed deciphering and, technologically deficient, the best way for her to send it to me was via government post…The letter said the recipient had previously been denied a claim for a disease presumed to have been caused by Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam (Mr P had died in 1995) and the VA was under court order to review these denials, which were made in the time before Agent Orange – so named because it comes in orange barrels – was presumed to have caused certain diseases. 

Well, Mr P had been denied a disability rating for Type II diabetes, an agent orange presumptive…Now, she wasn’t there to take my second call, so we still need some details and it’s not clear what benefits await, however, we could refile the old claim, which would have been approved under current law, and if Mr P died because of his service-connected disability, there would be widow benefits, too, and we cannot entirely dismiss the prospect of there being some accrued benefits for the Widow P. 

Later, a gent came by looking to get the gas he used to get to the VA hospital south of here reimbursed…I told him it was based on actual mileage now and gave him the form and then he asked about the VA’s ER and urgent care benefits…I told him VA medical covers ER visits but you gotta call them with three days of treatment and I game him the number, which ol’ Sparrow keeps handy just in case. 

Some research was required on the urgent care benefit, tho because the last time I checked there wasn’t an urgent care in the area that was taking part…There is now, the new clinic in the next county, adjacent to the retailer, and the process for accessing it could not be more convoluted had someone issued prizes for it…There’s a card you can download from the VA that has information for both the clinic and the veteran on it that is useful to have on you, tho good luck with that.

The day was capped off with some fine dining, a French place in town that opened last year, just in time to be shut down by the Virus Era…Recall earlier this month I had dinner with my friend Julie and we would have gone here had it been opened, but now it was and there we were. 

It was one hell of an experience…Longtime readers of the crap may – or they may not – recall that ol’ Sparrow has some modest 5-star dining experience and this joint deserves consideration for a high rating…The Forbes Travel Guide no longer issues anything less than four stars – Recommended, 4-star, 5-star are the only rankings now – and I suspect they would give it a Recommended rating and perhaps even four stars it was that good…I even had a $12 bottle of beer that some previous research had shown is brewed in a Belgian monastery and is the third-highest rated beer on the planet, behind two others brewed by Belgian monks…It was Julie’s first fine dining experience and she wondered if she could eat here every night…Ol’ Sparrow was obliged to tell her no. 

Sparrow’s Sleep Log: As usual for Wednesday, there is no sleep to report. 

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. 

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