Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, August 1
The petty cash safe was completely useless, or would have been had any petty cash been needed…I had finished counting the left and right drawer and pulled the safe out and all it had, currency-wise, was a C note and two $1 bills….Good gravy, that isn’t any good to anyone handling money…The rest was a rather adequate supply of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies and there certainly wasn’t a bank I could run to break the C note, tho I did make note of it in the logbook.
The big news is Amy is back on the schedule, working the two nights a week I am off, Q appearing to have deigned to go back to 40 hours a week since that bonus unemployment has run out…Longtime readers of the crap know Amy and I go way back in the hotel racket here, having worked together at both Hotel A and Hotel B and, in fact, she was even my boss at Hotel B for a bit before she decided she’d had enuff of their nonsense.
Had a rather touchy situation that turned out to be nothing, mainly because of guidance from ol’ Sparrow…Yours truly had just retired to the back office about 2330 or so and I hear somebody at the front desk actually knocking on the front desk like it was a door…I delayed my usual scorn because I figured the bell hadn’t been put out yet, which it hadn’t.
It’s a guy, short, rail-thin, long hair, a scruffy sort who immediately gave the impression of being, if not trouble, at least a busy body and Lord knows these people can certainly become trouble…He said earlier 202 had been unoccupied and asked if it was occupied now…I said information like that is reserved, sir, I can’t give it out…Well, he said snottily, there are two people in there “yelling and screaming at each other”…All right…I thanked him and made preparations for leaving the front desk for an unknown period of time, which mainly entailed transferring the landline to the front desk mobile, activating my emergency just in case checking the reg card for 201…I also noted 203 was unoccupied, just for funsies…While I was doing this the guy was actually still in the lobby…This was annoying…My hotel…You report a problem, I will take care of it, your supervision is not required and he is obliged to be told this again before he goes upstairs…Where’s he’s waiting for me, outside of 208 where the door’s open…Again he is informed I will take care of it.
201 is sort of loud but nothing too bad, especially with 203 empty and they certainly aren’t fighting, unless fighting now includes laffing…He is still at the door to his room watching as if he has a vested interest in this which, of course, he does not…I walk over to him and tell him for the third time I will take care of it and that they’re not fighting besides…I also notice, for the first time, that there is a scabbard with the handle of what appears to be a particularly long dagger, or perhaps a knife, sticking out on his the left side of his belt.
(Good to know…And one hell of a time to have forgotten my own knife, tho if you think I’m going slasher at work you are high because I will ensure it won’t come to that…Anyone carrying a dagger like that probably knows how to use it and friends, in close quarters the best defense against a dagger is to flee because you will be stabbed before you can reach for your gun, presuming you’re packing…Besides, even I’d’ve remembered my knife, I’ve long forgotten some modest knife training I’ve had tho, as I recall, a lot of it’s being ready and acting decisively.)
Here’s where some experience and a bearing of command comes in handy…This guy is plainly looking to be a nuisance and I’ve handled situations – and pests – like this many times in the past working security in Sin City and even though this interaction was brief the tablets were clearing coming down from Mount Sinai: mind your own beeswax.
(Key here, too, is not to issue instructions, like get in your room, because people like this like nothing more than to not do what they’re told and then you’re stuck.)
The guy retreated into 208 but left the door open, his version of a full surrender…I went back to 201, determined it wasn’t even worth making contact over and then went and informed him of this…Not because he was entitled to know but because the more information he had the lest likely he was to pester me later, a policy which produced its usual dividend when his door was closed when I passed by it later delivering folios.
End of the month went really well…Even with this distraction I was done with everything but printing the A/R folios by 0300, an excellent time.
I was up early (see Sleep Log below) and was feeling really good despite not as much sleep as I was used to so I both lifted weights and walked…The weight session was strong and the River Route – asserting itself all afternoon – was a good choice…More leaves are starting to turn and the river is very low, only a foot or so at its deepest.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0930 Saturday until 1430 Saturday…5.0 hours for the day and 43.0 hours for the week, a lousy start to the new sleep month, but the afternoon was as productive as it was enjoyable, so we’ll take it…God bless all of you.
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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